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I won’t ever be sorry for defending my family.
Concentrating on my breath, I lower my bar, slowly let it down, pause, breathe, then start bringing it up again. Twice. Three times. Four. I do three sets of four before I have to drop it again, and when I release it, I clap my palms to ease the sting.
Standing tall and swiping a hand over my brow, I study my pumped shoulders in the mirror. I love how lifting instantly builds my muscle. I love how you can see the blood flow, the veins, the gains. I love that I’ve created a diet that, although kind of bland sometimes, aids in maintaining my physique.
So many women are scared to lift weights, as though they might accidentally wake up looking like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger after the first day. Those people are uneducated, and thankfully, the people who own this gym are not. The women that run this place aren’t scared to lift a dumbbell, and they’re not scared to encourage other women to try it.
Well, except one of them. She seems almost terrified of ever raising her heartbeat above resting. And knowing that about her, knowing she weighs half of what I just lifted, knowing she never lifts a finger to work out, but she eats shit day in, day out, leaves me feeling a little… bitter.
I don’t talk to her, because while she eats chips and heckles those that do work out, I sweat and choke on my broccoli and chicken diet.
She’s nice, but I hate her on principle.
One song leads into another, and while Mr. Lion-Tattoo begins his pull ups and inadvertently shows off muscular lats, arms, and back, I move toward the bench press and load the weights on with slow movements. I have to remind myself today is a slow day, a relaxed day. Today is the day I get to be present in my workout, rather than somewhere else in my mind, planning my next step.
Laying back when the weights are set, I make myself comfortable and try to dial back in on my task. Push the weights, build my body, stop before I’m bigger than Arny, then go home to my chicken. And since it’s Saturday, I get dessert too. The real kind of dessert. The kind with sugar and bad fats.
I push my headphones in so they’re secure, then preparing my hands on the bar, I count my breaths and begin lifting.
My chest fires up, my arms and shoulders burn. I let my grunts come, despite my plans to keep quiet and not draw attention to myself. I lift the bar with an inhale of breath, then I slowly let it come down on an exhale. Music helps me focus on something other than the burn, but then a Disney song comes on, and I’m held prisoner, unable to change the song when my shuffle has a stroke and gives me all the wrong feels. I wanted hard rock, but instead, I get Troy and Gabriella.
I push my bar up again and fight the laughter that fills my chest. I expected to be mad, but instead, my exasperation comes out on a snort, and when the snort leaves my body, so does my strength. Halfway through a lift, my muscles give out, and the bar begins to lower. My feet lift off the ground, and my core fights to keep the bar away from my chest.
“Shit.”
I can’t get the bar back into the rack, so letting my left arm lower, I intend to drop it to the floor and reset, but then a bulging chest stops over the back of my head, hands grab my bar so what felt like it might crush me a moment ago now feels light as a feather. The arms help me move the bar back into the rack while my breath whistles and my face burns from embarrassment.
I hate lifting weights in front of strange men, because they always,alwaysassume we can’t do it. They assume anything above one-pound weights is beyond us, and I’ve reinforced that belief, all because Zac Efron began singing in my ear.
I sit up as soon as the bar is secure, tear the headphones from my ears, and turn to… I don’t know. Thank him? Or snap that I’m capable?
My brain wars with itself, but I do neither, because I turn and meet his blue-eyed gaze. He stares for a moment. He just stares when the rest of society knows they should look away after a second. His eyes bore into mine until heat touches my toes and my heart gives a fast knock. His chest is bare – not bare of ink, but bare of clothes. His pecs are fired up and full of blood from his workout, his biceps ropey and straining. His lips are thick, the kind that women act like fools for, coupled with long lashes that males are often gifted with.
He stares… and stares… and stares in the silence.
My music is tinny against my chest, still Disney, stillPop-yand not weightlifting worthy. I open my mouth to speak, close it, then open it again, because his eyes bore into mine and send my mind racing back to something long ago.
“Um…”
Classes out in the main part of the gym echo through to this room. The loud shouts from the karate class. The floor-shaking booms from those throwing bodies in the Jiu Jitsu class. The buzzer from the octagon, for those sparring. This gym is never quiet, but for a moment, it mutes, because this man stares and stares.
“Thanks…”
Finally, he blinks. Long lashes come down to brush the top of his cheeks, then open again to reveal blue eyes.
My brain scrambles to catch up, to stop believing I’m a child running through darkness, and to come up with something witty, but all I manage to force out is, “You didn’t have to help me with that. I had it.”
He doesn’t reply.
“I didn’t need a spotter,” I continue to argue my defense to a man that isn’t arguing back. A face that holds no bearing on my life, no resemblance, no memory. But his eyes… I know those eyes. “Maybe next time, you should stay on your side doing your thing. This ain’t my first day.”
His tongue comes out to wet his bottom lip, dragging my gaze down and sending my heart into a wild beat that my deadlifts didn’t. Polite society dictates he should have spoken already, that he should have stopped staring by now. Manners dictate he should have stopped licking his lips, but he considers himself above those expectations.
He stares, he studies me in complete silence, and finally, when I think I can’t take a single second more, he flashes a grin that makes my heart stop. “You okay?”
“Umm…” My eyes flicker across the room. To the door. To the mirrors. Then back to the blue eyes. “Yes.”
“I’m glad. It’d be a damn shame to watch you choke yourself out with a bar. I prefer women when they’re conscious.”
