Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
I knock out eight with no problem, focusing on my form with each part of the movement, bracing my core and using my whole foot to ground myself like he taught me. “That wasn’t bad,” I say, re-racking the barbell.
He chuckles. “That was a warmup set.” He adds more weight then has me do another set of eight.
Before long, the sets are short and the weights are feeling really heavy. But Oliver slides another ten-pound plate onto each side anyway.
I eye the new weight skeptically. “I don’t know.”
“Two reps. Just one at a time.”
“What if I can’t stand it up?”
“Then you can bail.”
I shake my head. I’ve seen people do it, but it scares the shit out of me. “I’m afraid I’ll panic.”
“Then I’ll spot you.”
I get the barbell on my shoulders and step away from the rack. Oliver steps up behind me, keeping his body close to mine and his arms extended under the bar.
“Take a breath,” he murmurs in my ear, “and brace your core.”
I nod, focus, brace, and squat. The way back up is harder but less terrifying than the descent, and Oliver’s in my ear the whole time.
“That’s it. Easy does it.”
I re-rack the bar and spin to him with my biggest smile. I’m floating.
Without thinking, I throw my arms around his neck and squeal in delight. “I did it!”
His body tenses against mine, then relaxes, and he sighs into my hair. “Of course you did.”
When I pull back, our gazes stay tangled for a long time. “Thank you,” I finally say.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says, grabbing a pair of dumbbells and handing them to me. “We’re doing lunges next.”
“Look who’s here,” a familiar voice says from the other side of the gym.
I spin around and see Chuck strolling toward us. Shit. I haven’t seen him since the night he grabbed me outside The Naked Bean, and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. At least he’s not drunk this time.
“What do you think you’re doing with those weights?” he asks. His lips twitch and he shifts his gaze to Oliver. “She getting a little soft for you? Bringing her to the gym to work it off?”
It’s so ridiculous. Only a few weeks away from Chuck and I see so clearly now what I somehow missed when we were together. I was never big, and never had more than a few pounds to lose, so his jabs about me needing to diet were never really about my size. They were about control. Sometime early on he realized I was insecure about my body, realized that my past made me hyper-fixate on fear of food and weight gain, and he used it to control me.
Oliver’s gray eyes are harder than steel. “Nah, Chuck. ‘Cause real men don’t need to make their women as small as possible. Don’t need to make them feel small, either.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself.” Chuck coughs out a laugh. “Real men. Do real men hide from the ring too?”
I frown and look at Oliver. What does Chuck mean by that?
“You don’t want me to accept your invitation, man,” Oliver says. “You know you’d lose. It’s not even a fair fight.”
Chuck shrugs. “Then try me.”
I look back and forth between them. Chuck wants Oliver to fight him. “No.” I shake my head. “Don’t do that.”
“I don’t have anything to prove,” Oliver says, his gaze still locked with Chuck’s.
“Nah. It’s cool,” Chuck says. “I’m sure you have your reasons. Not like you have any secrets you need me to keep.” He winks and backs away before finally looking at me again. “Don’t forget your cardio, Pancakes.”
OLIVER
I fucking hate Chuck. He’s cruel and small-minded and despicable.
“I’m embarrassed I ever thought he loved me,” Savvy says on our walk home. “God, why didn’t I see him for who he was when it’s so obvious now?”
“Because he made you question your own worth.”
She makes a sour face. “But how stupid was I to let him?”
“With my sister, it was street smarts,” I say. “Chuck would mock her for not being street smart. It hurt because she was afraid it was true. Her parents coddled her, so when he told her she knew nothing about the real world or said that she had no street smarts or that no one would ever want to hire a stupid bitch like her, she didn’t think it was abuse. She thought he was stating facts.”
Generally, I try not to waste my energy thinking about small people, but I hate that once, Savvy was his. I hate that he got to touch her and that he got to hold her. But mostly I hate that he made her feel insecure about her body.
I hate him, and I hate that he’s the only one who knows something that could make Savvy hate me. His threat tonight was clear. Accept the invitation to fight him or he’ll tell Savvy the truth.