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"Deal."
I wait to let him go first down the stairs, but he doesn't move. He stares me down, hands on hips. "What's the plan, Weston? You're just going to pretend your knee doesn't hurt?"
"My knee doesn't hurt."
He drops his head like that answer disappoints him. When he looks up at me, I hate the pity in his eyes. "How bad are stairs?"
I sigh, because there's tough, and then there's just stupid. If I'm going to get in racing form, I'm going to have to baby this knee sometimes. "I slid down the stairs on my butt this morning."
He nods, unsurprised. Then he turns and presents his back to me. "Hop on."
I consider for all of about three seconds, but stairs really do hurt and I'm not excited about getting down these narrow, steep ones.
When I hop up onto his back in one bound, he catches me and hoists me up higher. "How did that not hurt your knee?"
"I jumped on my good leg," I say against his bare neck. He's wearing thin jogging sweats and a light jacket, and his body heat radiates out to me through the layers. "Are you always this hot?"
He starts down the stairs. "I was born hot, empress."
"I mean literally. You're like a human furnace."
"And you're like a human ice cube. I can feel youliterallysucking the heat from my body."
I press myself against him, because his heat honestly feels amazing, and make exaggerated sucking sounds.
He pauses at the bottom of the stairs. "Out of respect for our new partnership, I feel I should tell you that is turning me on."
I leap off his body, but gently, so as not to rattle my bad knee. Still, he spins and catches my elbow to keep me steady, as though he expected me to leap off his back.
"Why are you so weird?"
He grins like I've just given him a compliment. "Why is everything you do sexy?"
I groan and jerk my elbow from his grip, then I limp past him before he sees the smile on my face. I can like that he thinks I'm sexy. It doesn't mean anything. Everyone likes compliments.
"We're working upper body today," he says. "And you're going to give me a detailed training plan I can start tomorrow."
Upper body strength is important for running and hardly a waste of time, but it's not the most important thing I should be doing right now, and I absolutely know Asher suggested it because of my stupid knee. He's being nice and I should be grateful, but I'm annoyed at myself and in the mood to take it out on him. Or at least prove I'm not helpless.
"I will absolutely create a training plan for you. It won't be as good as what Grant could give you, but I guess he's still refusing to help?"
Asher nods and stalks off toward the free weights. "He says he doesn't want to risk being accused of helping one of us more than the other, or being blamed by whoever loses the race. I told him that's stupid, but he's seriously allergic to even a hint of drama."
I stand my ground. "I've done some research on training for a trail race. We've got this. To start, I need to get an idea of your baseline cardio ability."
He turns away from the weight rack, a pair of five-pound dumbbells in his hands. I don't even want to know what he thinks either of us is going to do with those. Does he think because I specialize in yoga and pilates I can't lift heavy? "I'm more of a sprinter than an endurance runner."
"I'm going to need more of a test than that. Why don't we warm up on the bikes?" I point to the two outdated, upright stationary bikes in the far corner of the gym between a single elliptical machine and a pair of treadmills.
"Is that going to hurt your knee?"
I shrug. "If it does, I'll stop, but Noah suggested cycling as a cross training exercise that might help."
Asher grins. "Okay, boss. Let's test me." He sets the weights back in the rack and jogs across the gym to the bikes. I follow him at a sedate, mature pace. In other words, I limp after him like a little old lady.
We start off cycling slowly to warm up our joints. My knee twinges a bit in the beginning, but once I've got a rhythm going, it actually feels pretty good. I'm not interested in making it worse by increasing resistance and speed, so I stick to what feels good and yell at Asher like a drill sergeant.
"Begin to pick up your pace," I shout at him. "Do you call that picking up your pace? Add another click of resistance."
