Shrugging, I answered his question just above a whisper. “I’m easy to miss.”
I held his eyes for a moment more before laying my chest back to the ground, resting my head on my arms. He started rolling the ball up my hamstrings and I closed my eyes tight. I thought I might explode from the mixture of pain and pleasure that rocked through my body. After a few moments, he spoke again.
“Maybe I just wasn’t looking.”
My eyes shot open, but I didn’t respond.
Rhodes finished rolling out my muscles and then we headed back into the gym without another word. He didn’t work me any less than the days before, but he was more patient, taking the time to explain the drills to me and making sure I took the rest I needed between sets. Still, he pushed me hard, and sweat was dripping furiously down my face and into my eyes as I drove home that evening with the windows down. The salty water was irritating my contacts, but I didn’t swipe it away. In fact, I didn’t even care. My mind was too busy running over the words I’d heard Rhodes say to give attention to anything else. They played over and over again in my head until I was sure I’d dream of them that night.
Maybe I just wasn’t looking.
No matter how many times I replayed the words, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he meant. And I was right. I thought about it so much that when the night came, I dreamed of Rhodes for the second time.
And for what I knew wouldn’t be the last.
• • •
I told Mom and Dale about my weigh-in the next morning and they both flipped out. Mom jumped up from her barstool excitedly and wrapped me in a bone-crushing hug while Dale clapped me on the back. His hand lingered there as I told them about how my sessions had been going. Dale joked about taking us out for ice cream to celebrate and I shrugged out from under his hand and glared at him. He laughed, then, and I joined him. I was happy. It was a good start to what I hoped would be a life-changing summer.
My session with Rhodes was pushed back to six that night and by the time we finished at eight, I was starving. We’d had another great session, and I felt us falling into a comfortable rhythm. He talked to me a little more, which made me happy, and I learned not to push him when he stopped talking and focused on working, instead. Maybe we were figuring each other out, after all.
My stomach growled loud enough for him to hear as we did a cool-down walk around the golf course and he chuckled, which was sort of a foreign sound when it came to Rhodes.
“Hungry?” he asked, the sky fading from a gold to a light blue behind him. It was an intriguing contrast, such hard features against such a soft background. No one was left on the course but us, and other than the buzz of the trail lights and insects, it was silent. I welcomed the quietness.
“You have no idea,” I murmured, rubbing my stomach. “All this rabbit food is killing me.”
“Rabbit food?” Rhodes quirked a brow. “Are you hungry like this all the time?” I nodded and he shook his head. “You shouldn’t be, if you’re eating enough protein. Do you have plans tonight?”
I stopped mid-stride, staring at Rhodes like he’d just asked me to take my pants off, but he just waited for my response with a calm demeanor.
“Um, no?”
“Good. Come over to my place and I’ll cook us dinner, show you that eating rabbit food isn’t as bad as it seems if you know how to do it right.” He continued walking but it took me a minute before my legs would move again. Did Rhodes just ask me to come over to his house? And did he just say he was going to cook for me?
The same guy who would barely say more than two words to me before was asking me to come over to his place for dinner. He’d gone from ignoring me to asking me to hang out with him, like we were friends.
I smiled at that possibility.
“I just need to lock up the office real quick.”
I nodded and he jogged off while I pulled out my favorite strawberry lemonade lip balm, gliding the tube over my lips repeatedly as I waited for Rhodes. I was counting my breaths and trying not to overthink.
It was just my trainer making me a healthy meal. That’s all.
Rhodes led me around to the front of the club after he locked up. I traded my lip balm for my keys as he climbed onto a sleek black sports bike. The way he straddled it highlighted the defined muscles in both his arms and his legs and I couldn’t help but stare as he pulled on the matching all black helmet.
“I’m not too far from here,” he said, nodding up the street. “Just follow me and flash your lights if I’m going too fast. Cool?”
“Cool,” I replied, but it barely croaked out. I smiled to try to cover the weakness in my voice. For a moment, I thought Rhodes crooked the tiniest smile, but he pulled the helmet the rest of the way down and I couldn’t be sure.
I threw my bag in my trunk and slipped in behind the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white from the ferocious grip I had on it. I was going to Rhodes’ house. His house. I tried to breathe steadily, but I was pretty sure I sounded more like a horse than anything.
Deep breaths, Natalie. Deep breaths.
Yeah. Easier said than done.
Chapter Five
WE PULLED INTO A small apartment complex less than ten minutes later. His place was in the exact opposite direction of my house from the club and even though I was only a half hour from home, it seemed like I was in a different country.
When I stepped out of the Rover, I locked the doors and stared up at the chipping blue paint on the wood-paneled building. The upper apartments had small balconies that I could see some residents sitting on. They were staring at me like I didn’t belong, their eyes hard and cold. I crossed my arms over my chest and walked to Rhodes just as he hopped off his bike. Surprisingly, he started pushing it up on the sidewalk toward the building.
“Don’t you need to park that?”
“I am,” he responded simply. I didn’t understand until he unlocked the bottom floor apartment door on the back right side of the building, pushed the bike inside, and leaned it up on the kickstand just inside the small foyer at the entrance. He was parking it — just not outside.
It was dark inside the apartment and when Rhodes flicked on the light, I blinked my eyes until they adjusted. It was small, that was for sure, but I was surprised by how it looked on the inside. It was clean, nice. Simple — but nice. We were standing in the small foyer with basic, white-tiled floor. It led right into a living room with beige Berber carpet and one dark brown leather couch facing a flat screen mounted on the far wall. There was an entertainment center filled with cookbooks and movies and a simple coffee table — wood with a glass center. There were no photos, no paintings, no quote embellishments — just a clean white wall, furniture, and the TV.
I followed Rhodes further into the space as he stashed his helmet in the hall closet and caught a view of the kitchen. It was pretty large, considering the size of the apartment as a whole, and it looked like Rhodes had renovated it from the original setting. The countertops looked like new granite and he had installed a hanging rack above the stove to hang pots, pans, and utensils. The sink had a fancy faucet that looked like something Christina would want installed in our kitchen. All the appliances were a dark gray and seemed brand new and there was one cabinet above the fridge that had the cabinet doors removed. The shelves housed at least a dozen more cookbooks. And one lone apron hung on a small hook just beside the pantry.