Again, I was surprised at the words leaving my mouth. They were a hell of a lot more confident than the girl saying them.
“I was just holding the hose for my friend. She doesn’t like to let it touch the table until it’s tapped.” I waved my hands in the air flittingly. “Some weird superstition or something.”
Rhodes kept his eyes on me, looking for a lie that wasn’t there. Finally, he nodded. “Fair enough,” he assessed, then he held out his hand.
I stared at it for a moment before grabbing it and letting him help me down off the machine.
“We need to get your weight. It’s been a week. Come on,” he said, nodding toward the office. “Let’s do it before you drink a bunch of water.”
I followed him back, my hand still tingling from where it had touched his. I couldn’t figure out if I was still angry at him or not, so I kept a frown in place just in case. He was always scowling, maybe I should do the same.
When we reached the office, he pointed to the tall, glass scale as he scoured his desk for my file. I eyed him silently, wondering if I had more questions for him or if I wanted to yell at him again. He had apologized for upsetting me, and he said he believed in me — which was exactly what I needed in that moment, wasn’t it? He was “proud to have me as a client,” which was why he pushed me. Maybe I didn’t need him as a friend, if I could have him as a pillar of support, instead.
It was too much to figure out in that moment, so I sighed and stepped up, closing my eyes as I waited for him to write down what was probably the same number as last week.
“Down eleven pounds,” he said and my eyes shot open. “Nice job.”
I stared at the number on the digital screen, my mouth hanging open. No. Way.
Rhodes let me stare for a moment and, thankfully, he didn’t make fun of me. When it had finally sank in that I was eleven pounds lighter than the week before, I slowly stepped off the scale, wincing at the pain I still felt in my legs after yesterday. Walking in the sand all night probably wasn’t the best way to recover from leg day.
Rhodes must have picked up on my expression. “How do your muscles feel?”
“Tight,” I answered, bracing myself with one hand on the wall as I lifted my foot and pulled it up toward my lower back to stretch out my quad. It killed me just to lift my leg at all. When I pulled it in toward my body, I cried out and let it drop back down to the floor.
Rhodes furrowed his brows. “Follow me.”
We headed back into the gym and I expected him to tell me to jump back on the treadmill, but he grabbed a yoga mat and a tennis ball, instead, before leading me out back to where we had our first outdoor session. I watched his back move as we walked, the muscles flexing beneath the thin fabric of his tattered blue tank top. His skin seemed darker today and I wondered if he had enjoyed the beach yesterday, too.
He found a shady spot in the grass beneath a Spanish oak tree and laid out the black mat. It was hot in the sun, but there was a slight breeze that, combined with the shade, made me glad we had moved outside.
“Lay down,” he commanded and I shivered again. His eyes were on me as he moved down to sit beside me, holding the tennis ball in his hand. “I’m going to roll out your muscles. You can do this at home, too — with a foam roller, a tennis ball, or just your hands.”
I nodded and he slowly moved his right hand to my right quad. The moment his hands touched my leg through the thin fabric of my workout pants, I sucked in a breath that I forgot how to let go of. He applied pressure, softly rolling his fingers over the muscles. I winced, and then groaned in a mixture of pain and pleasure when he hit a spot that sent an electric current through my entire leg and up to my hip.
His eyes snapped to mine when I groaned, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he moved the ball to replace his hand and began rolling it up and down my quad. I tried not to make any noise, but every time he hit that spot, I involuntarily moaned again, closing my eyes and letting the unfamiliar mixture of feelings overtake me as I gripped the edge of the mat. It hurt like hell but then again it felt amazing. I was so confused.
“It’s a trigger point,” Rhodes finally said. “It’s like a knot that forms in your muscle. Rolling it out will release it and allow you to move properly again without the pain you’re feeling now.”
I nodded, but words were lost for me at the moment. He moved to the opposite leg and the process started all over again. It started off incredibly painful, but at the same time I enjoyed it, and when I stopped moaning, he would move to a different area of my body. He worked meticulously, and I peeked an eye open to glance at him from time to time, watching as his eyes skated over my body while he worked.
When he moved to my abdomen, I cringed, my hands flying down to cover my fat. It was then that I realized how vulnerable I was in that position.
Rhodes paused, the ball just above my navel. “It’s fine, Natalie,” he said softly, grabbing my hands and placing them back at my sides. “You need to do abdominal work today and it’s not going to be effective if you’re hurting this badly.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, but timidly laid my head back down and stared up at the moss flowing in the breeze. It moved fluidly, casting the sun’s light in a wave over Rhodes’ face as he tenderly rolled the ball around my upper abs. When his thumb grazed the bottom of my sports bra, I had to suck both of my lips between my teeth and bite down to keep from moaning for a completely different reason. What was wrong with me? Rhodes eyed me cautiously, but didn’t acknowledge it.
“You went to Poxton High,” he said after a moment. I waited for him to say something else, but he left it at that.
“Yeah, I was a freshman when you were a senior.” I groaned a little louder as he moved to my upper chest. I was incredibly sore there from the push-ups and burpees we’d been doing.
“Poxton High,” he mused. “That title have anything to do with your last name, by chance?”
I laughed a little. “My step-dad. He kind of owns, well, almost everything in this town. Including the high school.”
He nodded, but didn’t comment. “And you were a freshman when I was a senior?”
This time I nodded, but he had moved the ball to my biceps and I was focusing on not making noises that would cause my cheeks to heat.
“Roll over,” he demanded. As I did, I noticed his brows knitted together in concentration, even when he wasn’t rolling the ball. I wasn’t sure why he was suddenly talking to me. Maybe because of the fit I threw the day before. Whatever the cause, I wasn’t going to question it. I was thankful to not work in silence. And as strange as it sounds, getting that ball rolled over my muscles felt a lot like work.
“I just don’t understand,” he said as he began rolling the ball up my calf. I moaned out loud, realizing that area was packed with trigger points, as he had called them.
“Don’t understand what?” I asked, still holding my breath as he rolled over my other calf. I leaned up on my elbows and turned my head back to meet his eyes.
He paused, holding the ball in place as he gazed back at me. “How could I never have noticed you before?”
I swallowed, almost more afraid of the brief tenderness I caught in his eyes in that moment than the usual hardness that existed there.