Page 24 of Wild For You
Finally, she asked quietly, hopefully, “You… You want to start your new exercises? Really?”
“Yeah, might as well get the torture over with so I can walk again.”
She was still standing at the bedroom entrance as I opened the door. I towered over her, but instead of the meek expression most women got when they looked up at me, Kelsey had a sheen of tears in her eyes.
“What?”
“I’m just… so proud of you,” she claimed, and then she wove her arms around my waist, nearly knocking me off the crutches.
Seeing her happiness from something so trivial did something inside me… and I fucking hated it. But I let her get the most of her embrace, since it wasn’t likely to ever happen again.
“Okay,” I said, once she pulled back. “Where do you want me?”
“On your back,” she replied, and I chuckled as her cheeks matched the color of the macintosh apples on the counter. “I mean…. I’m sorry. I just meant I need you lying on the mat.”
“I knew what you meant, but I don’t think I’ll ever tire of seeing you get embarrassed.”
Standing near the wall of pictures Rory had taken, I watched Kelsey move around the living room, setting up a mat, rolling a towel, and adding a light dumbbell.
“So, just to summarize, this past week, we’ve been working on your arms and back so you’d be able to do things like get dressed and use the crutches. Today, we’re starting on your leg, and we’re just going to take it easy at first to get a general range of your motion. The first set is to work on regaining muscle control.
“Lie down on your back, and we’ll start with a static quad exercise.”
Following her directions, I carefully laid on my back while she positioned my legs, the good one bent and the injured leg out straight. She had me flatten the leg as much as possible and then release the tension with a slight bend. I repeated the motion ten times before she moved on to another exercise.
After that, she added one more, before repeating the trio of exercises three times. By the time we were done, I had already worked up a sweat. Kelsey went to grab me water, while I leanedup on my elbows, surprised at how much work went into fixing just one part of my body.
The water was gone in a matter of seconds as I chugged.
“Now comes one of my favorites.”
“Great,” I said, lacking any actual enthusiasm.
“It’s called static glutes. What I need you to do is tighten your butt as hard as you can without using any other muscles. Just the ones in your cute behind.”
I rolled my eyes and frowned. “What does this exercise do exactly?”
“Muscle control, Andrew. Muscle control.”
I was convinced Kelsey got sick pleasure out of watching me squeeze my ass cheeks over and over again, as she giggled through the entire drill. I wasn’t going to tell her that the action was harder than I expected on my injured side.
“I hope you’re enjoying this,” I grunted.
“I am. I really am.”
“Get your kicks while you can, because once I can walk, you’re going to pay for this.”
“Despite how much enjoyment I’m getting out of your twerking, you should know that these are standard exercises for patellar injuries.”
“They better fucking be.”
Kelsey didn’t allow my attitude to dissuade her. I was pretty certain she added extra exercises to the routine just to spite me.
In total, there were nine exercises in the routine, and it took me a solid hour to work through them. I was fucking exhausted.
“You did really well, Andrew. There is just a stretch we need to do, and then I can sign you off for today.”
I mumbled a slew of curse words under my breath as she helped me stand. This time, Kelsey advised me to put some weight on my leg as I stood.
