Page 20 of What It Means To Be Found

Large warm hands wrapping themselves around my waist startled me. It wasn’t a firm grip, it felt more like Logan’s hands ghosted across my skin as he gently helped me get some more air under my feet with this pull.

“There ya go!” I heard Courtney cheer as I finally completed one single pull-up.

I ignored her and went for another one, Logan’s hands staying in place on my bare skin as he helped guide my movements. I was only wearing a black sports bra and exercise shorts because even though I planned to get sweaty and gross this afternoon, I also wanted to look cute. I loved matching sets, and this one showed my ribcage tattoo as well as the tattoo I had on my hip, the top and bottom of the flowers on my skin playing peekaboo out of my bike shorts. I opened my eyes again, wanting to see how I looked exercising like a fucking badass. I could feel every muscle in my forearms, biceps, and shoulders working.

As soon as I lifted myself again, my arms folding as my chin made it over the bar, I noticed Logan’s eyes drop from the back of my head to what was almost eye level with him.

My ass.

I gasped, and accidentally let go of the bar to my surprise.

“Whoa!” Courtney called as I fell, Logan’s grip on my waist tightened enough to hold me up until I regained my footing on the ground, “Are you okay?”

“Yup!” I replied a little too loudly, stepping out of Logan’s hands and shaking my arms out as if I didn’t just catch him staring at my ass. “I think my arms just gave out. I must be more out of shape than I expected.” My voice was only a little shaky, but thankfully I could excuse that with the pull-ups I had just done.

“You did great, Lo!” Courtney finished her last set and dropped to the ground, picking up her water bottle and shaking it to find it empty. She frowned before she looked behind her to where a water fountain was on the far wall near the bathrooms.

“How is your water bottle already empty? We just got here.” I asked her, skepticism on my face. Courtney shrugged.

“I must have forgotten to fill it before we left,” she glanced between Logan and me, “I’m going to go pee and then fill it up. Be right back.” She then turned on her heel and took off, her blonde ponytail swishing with her movement. I widened my eyes in panic at her retreating form, because I didn’t want to be left alone with Logan. I was still recovering from how warm his hands were on me. How my heart jumped up into my throat when I felt his gaze move to my ass.

I didn’t want to be rejected by him now when my body was still physically recovering from that experience.

I turned away from him and pulled my phone out of my bag. I had zero notifications, but I unlocked the screen anyway and pulled up my email as if I had something to read. I could feel his eyes on me, and I thought I could literally feel my heart slowly climbing up into my throat.

“Did you do your set?” I asked, a little louder than normal. I gave up on pretending to read emails. I was feeling weirdly jittery about having to deal with being rejected by Logan, even though I didn’t even intentionally hit on him in the first place.

I glanced up to see Logan nod, his eyes slightly narrowed as he eyeballed the phone I had just tossed back into my bag.

Fuck, I was acting so weird.

“Okay…” I rocked back on my heels, my arms crossing over my chest as if to protect myself from his gaze. “What’s next?” Logan blinked at me once before he nodded toward some weights behind me. I smiled and nodded too, walking over to the rack to find the smallest ones.

“What do we do?” I asked, lifting two fives in each of my hands. Logan stared at me before he lifted his hands, signing something too quick for me to catch and pointing his thumb over his shoulder where Courtney ran off to.

“What was that?” I asked, dropping my hands to my sides that still gripped the weights. Logan redid Courtney’s name sign for me a little slower, and then fingerspelled, FOMO.

“Oh, yeah she would want us to properly wait for her,” I agreed, twisting my wrists in and out a little bit more as I continued to avoid eye contact with Logan. I nibbled on my bottom lip, looking everywhere but at him. I understood that it was kind of a dick move because he couldn’t speak up to get my attention. He required people to look at him in order to communicate, but I was also a huge chicken.

Finally, Logan stepped into my line of sight. I blinked up at him while he frowned at the weights in my hands and reached towards the rack to get a set of tens. He then held them out to me, telling me to size up my weights.

“I thought we established I had no arm strength?” I asked, even as I put the fives back and took the tens from his hands. Before I could pull my arm all the way back, Logan’s hand gripped my wrist and he held my arm up a little higher. I had to gulp what felt like my heart back down my throat before I realized he was just using his grip to look at my newest tattoo.

Is it hot in here?

“If you’re judging me for another basic bouquet of flowers, Taylor already beat you to it.” I piped up, feeling defensive as he inspected my latest artwork as if it needed his stamp of approval. Logan’s dark gaze flicked over to mine as his lips twitched at the corners, and I felt my cheeks heat again.

He noticed, his eyes barely bouncing between either side of my nose.

My body was such a traitor. Didn’t it know we didn’t like him? That he was mean to us for literally no reason?

I was screwed. There was no chance I could act normal around him now.

I was torn between begging him to reject my solicitations from my voice messages already or turning on my heel and running away. I had already run away from him once in this gym, the first time we met. So I wasn’t ready to do that again. It would be just as embarrassing.

6

LOGAN

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