Page 13 of Resistance Training
“I’m not mad at you, Vivian. It was eight years ago. Why would I be mad at you?”
“Right. So my sister somehow knew this badass personal trainer named Mitch is my long-lost former best friend—who ghosted me—and she thought she’d surprise me by reuniting us, but it turns out you still bear a grudge. Is that an accurate description of what’s happening?”
“I am the badass personal trainer who owns this gym, correct.”
“Got it. Cool. Let’s proceed, then.”
“Fill that out quickly, and then we’ll get to the workout. You good?”
“Oh, yes,” I say, giving him my most charming smile while also ensuring I have excellent posture, for confidence and boob reasons. “It might take you a while to remember, but I’m kind of amazing.”
“We’ll see,” he says. “We’ll see.” He crosses his arms—his beautiful, muscular forearms—leans back further in his chair, gripping the armrests, causing a couple of veins to protrude slightly, and waits for me to fill out the forms.
We’ll see.
I narrow my eyes at him.
I’m going to make you feel so terrible for missing out on me for eight years, Brad Mitchell.
Good luck trying to resist me now.
CHAPTER 5
BRAD
Vivian Elizabeth Sparks.
I see this woman sitting before me, this gorgeous mess of a woman. This woman with a face that’s so beautiful I want to punch a wall. This woman with a body that curves and sways and entices, even in that horrible lime-green workout gear. I watched her walk in, saw her reflection in the mirror. I watched her smile and take in the space.Myspace. I saw the men check her out, and I see that she has no idea, absolutely no clue how stunning she is.
And that pisses me off.
Because her sister told me what her ex did to her and I wanted to throat-punch that motherfucker.
But I’m also not going to let on that she’s still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. Because I’m a motherfucker too. Because she no longer has the power to bring me to my knees. I have spent the last eight years building up my resistance to Vivian Sparks. Eight years forgetting the way she made me laugh like no one else ever could, before I met her or since I last spoke to her. Eight years forgetting she was the only person at our school that I actually liked. Eight years reading so many booksI knew she’d love but never reaching out to her. Eight years watching TV and film adaptations of books we read together and physically stopping myself from emailing her. Eight years becoming strong enough to stare into her big brown eyes and give exactly zero fucks that she broke my heart.
And then she’s standing there looking at me like she’s so happy to see me. And I did it. I refrained from dropping to my knees. I refrained from wrapping my arms around her and telling her how good it was to see her too. How right it felt to look at her. I refrained from telling her that the instinct to share every single thing I like in this world with her is still there, it never went away, no matter how much I wanted it to. That the emails she sent me went straight to an archived folder and I never even checked to see how many there were in there, but I wondered. I wondered, and the wondering nearly derailed me. But it didn’t.
Restraint. That’s the kind of strength I care about. That’s my fortress.
I anchor my feet to the floor and grip the armrests even harder to physically prevent my consciousness, my entire being, from rearranging itself around her.
But fuck.
She still looks like the hot British actress fromThe Mummy, only she’s filled out in all the magnificent ways a woman can fill out when she moves from her teens into her twenties. I can only imagine how gorgeous she’s going to be five, ten years from now. Twenty years. But I still see the girl I knew in those eyes, hear it in her voice.
Something is happening. Some kind of emotional time travel. One minute I was in my gym telling Larry to keep his elbows bent at a forty-five degree angle to protect his shoulders and then…and then I saw her and I was seventeen again. As in love as a guy can be with a girl that he refuses to admit to being in love with. Eighteen again, heartbroken and angry. Fourteenagain and seeing her for the first time. The shock and awe of a beautiful new girl walking over to me on the way to school, smiling, asking about the book I was holding. Forcing myself not to say out loud the question that was always running through my mind:Why are you even talking to me?
You could hang out with anyone at this school and you’re choosing to hang out with me—why?
But also, don’t ever stop.
She probably wouldn’t have.
Thank God I did.
Except where are all the zero fucks I was supposed to give after all these years of forgetting about her? Because it feels like I have nothing but fucks to give her. I definitely want to give Vivian Sparks all my fucks.
God dammit. This was a terrible idea. I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that my face and body language and voice are doing exactly what I want them to do. Keeping her at a distance. Holding up the wall between us. But every square inch of the entire surface of my skin, every vein and muscle, every cell in my body, and the energetic frequency of my aching soul is pulsating with desire for this woman. I have never felt this with anyone else. Not even when I wanted to. Not even close.
