“You sure?” he asked. “I don’t mind.”
She shook her head. “Jealousy has never been a good look on me, and I will not be able to hide it if I see any more of this house.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I bought it as more of an investment than anything else,” he explained, a hint of embarrassment tinging his voice. “I only use about a third of it.”
“Well, damn. Now I feel bad,” Taylor said. “I didn’t mean to wealth-shame.”
“Is wealth-shaming a real thing?”
“You’re the one trying to justify your house to someone you just met.”
“Point taken.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she really did mean it. She’d heard stories of athletes who blew through the millions they earned and had to get jobs selling insurance or bagging groceries once their sports careers were over. Hell, she was only three years older than he was, but if she’d had access to the kind of money he did when she was twenty-five, investing in real estate would have been the last thing on her mind. She would have probably spent it all on Disney Vinylmation figurines.
“You have every right to be proud of this gorgeous house,” Taylor added. “And I reserve the right to that tour at a later date. For now, let’s talk strategy.”
Jamar pulled out a high-back stool and motioned for her to take a seat at the kitchen island. “What am I getting myself into over these next two months?” he asked, taking the seat next to hers.
She unzipped her duffel and pulled out a poly folder with the Taylor’d Conditioning logo imprinted on the front. From the folder, she slid the chart she’d created and set it between them so they could both look over it.
“I usually call this the plan of attack, but you can think of it as your playbook or game plan, or whatever they call it in football.”
“I like plan of attack better,” he said. “It makes it feel as if I’m about to do battle, which I am.”
“I like that attitude, Twenty-Three.”
“Are you planning to call me Twenty-Three for the next two months?”
“It’s that or Chicago Bears. Pick one.”
“Why would I choose either of those when Jamar is so much easier?”
“I never take the easy way. Let that be a warning,” she said with a wink.
He grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Apparently the flutter that swept through her belly had not gotten the memo that this was a no belly-fluttering situation. She cleared her throat. “Let’s go over what I came up with.”
After a few minutes of reviewing the various cardio drills she’d designed, he got up and asked, “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Orange juice?”
“Water is fine.”
He pulled two bottles of water out of the refrigerator; then he went into a walk-in pantry and came out with a bag of potato chips.
Potato chips? Was he serious?
He reclaimed his seat and unfurled the top of the bag. Taylor took it out of his hand before he could reach for a chip.
“If you’re going to get back in tip-top form, you’ll have to say goodbye to these,” she said. She slid off the barstool and looked around for a garbage can. There was none. “You’re ruining my dramatic effect here. I wanted to toss the chips in the trash and slam the lid closed for emphasis.”
“Don’t throw away my chips.” He rounded the kitchen island and plucked the bag from her hands. “They’re organic and they’re baked.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She tried to snatch the bag back, but he held it out of her reach. “You need to limit your complex carbs. If you’re craving a crunchy snack, go for those made from lentils or white beans instead.”
“I don’t like lentils,” he said as he retrieved a chip.
Taylor plopped her hands on her hips. “Are you seriously going to eat those in front of me? Okay, you need to decide if you’re going to take this seriously. If not, I can leave. I won’t have you saying in two months that I didn’t do my job because you can’t say no to a potato chip.”
He dropped the chip back into the bag and held it out to her. Taylor snatched it from his hands.
“You see, this is why I wanted to hire you,” Jamar said. “Another trainer wouldn’t have had the balls to tell me off the way you just did.” He dusted his fingers, as if wiping away crumbs. “I’m done with potatoes. Bring on the lentil chips.”
“You have to earn lentil chips.”
His brow arched, amusement shimmering in his dark brown eyes. “Is that how it is?”
“You wanted a drill sergeant,” she said.
Taylor wiped the grin off her face before he misconstrued it as flirting. Except this totally felt like flirting. Shit.
“Wait, you do meal prep, don’t you? How much to add that to what you’re already providing?”
“You want me to cook for you too?”
He shrugged. “If you think it will help get me into shape.”
She thought for a moment, then said, “I can prep your meals, as long as you pay for the cost of groceries.” She crumpled the bag in her hand, crushing the remaining chips into inedible crumbs. She handed it back to him. “We’ll start working on your diet tomorrow. Go change into your workout clothes. It’s time for you to show me what you’ve got.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jamar tugged a pair of running shorts on over his tighter compression shorts and grabbed a tank made of wicking material from the neat stack the cleaning service had placed in his dresser. Pulling the tank over his head, he made his way to the walk-in closet that housed more than four hundred pairs of tennis shoes, each in custom-built units that lined the walls.
He was willing to be sensible with every other aspect of his life, but when it came to his Jordans, Vans, and old-school Chucks, sensibility went out the window.
He slid a pair of white-and-gray New Balance from their cubby and brought them to the bench in the center of the walk-in closet. He loosened the laces on one shoe, then dropped it to the floor.
Jamar hung his head, braced his hands on his thighs, and sucked in a deep breath.
What was he doing, thinking he could pull off something like this? Did he really think a new diet and changing up his workout routine would make a difference? Some of the best doctors in the world had evaluated his knee, and all but one had determined that he would never run onto a football field as a professional ever again. What made him think he could defy the odds?
“Because you always defy the fucking odds,” Jamar said, sitting up straight.
He’d been defying the odds since birth, when he’d spent six weeks in an incubator before his parents could even take him home from the hospital. He’d defied the odds when he’d made the varsity team at Katy High. When he’d earned his football scholarship to UT.
He wasn’t the kind of natural athlete his best friend Silas had been. None of this shit had ever come easy for him. If his teammates ran five miles, he ran seven. If they spent two hours in the weight room, he stayed for an extra thirty minutes.
He put in the work and made shit happen. And he would do it again.
He stuffed his feet into his tennis shoes and jumped up from the bench.