Page 20 of Puck You Very Much
“That’s going a little far, isn’t it?”
“Swearing on my mother’s grave instead of something less serious?”
“No, I mean swearing on anyone’s grave when you’re full of shit. Disrespectful as hell.”
I drew a deep breath, struggling to keep my sanity in check.
“Tell you what,” he said, “why don’t you do some bench presses and let me spot you? See if I would do anything to you.”
“Deal.”
I slipped onto the bench, reached for the barbell, and curled my fingers around it. Then I slid it out of the holder and tensed my arms, prepping myself to bear the weight. I grunted at first. God, it felt so heavy. I lowered the weight and struggled to push it up from my chest, wondering how the hell Jakob could’ve managed that. I mean, the weight had challenged him too, but he probably would’ve finished his set had I not interrupted him. Normally, I would’ve performed ten to twelve reps, but that was with lighter weights. With this barbell, I swore my arms would give out after the first six, but I had to press on.
After the seventh, I couldn’t lift the barbell from my chest. I felt stuck. Honest to God, my arms seemed to quit on me. Like I said, I had to press on, especially with Jakob spotting me. So, I summoned all my might, struggling to force the weight from my chest, but my arms balked.
I gritted my teeth and grunted, but I couldn’t look like a weakling in front of Jakob. I had to at least keep up with him. As I struggled, I watched Jakob hovering over me. His chest and arms looked even more powerful from that angle. Don’t ask me why I would entertain those thoughts when a two-hundred-pound barbell was about to crush me. I knew it wouldn’t help matters.
Oh God, I couldn’t do it. My muscles might as well have turned to mush, and I was totally screwed, but I held out hope until the very end that I could handle it myself.
Finally, Jakob reached down, and lifted the weights from my chest. Then he stuck out a hand for me to grab and pulled me upright. I waited for him to make some dumbass comment about how the barbell had almost flattened me, but he didn’t.
Surprising tact for a Larkin Lion.
“So, do you trust me now?” I asked.
“Trust you? Why the hell would I?”
“I just let you spot for me.”
“Dude, that was just to see if you would be willing to make yourself a little vulnerable. You passed that test, sure, but I can’t really trust you. Not after everything that happened.”
Then the kind of laugh that suggested he considered me a complete idiot spilled out of his mouth. And I almost screamed, honestly concerned that I might lose my mind.
But I still had to ask myself the million-dollar question: Why did I give two shits about Jakob Martin?
10
JAKOB
“What’s going on between you and Zane Hirst?” Levi Dunn kept his eyes on the road as we drove north down Grant Street toward Amherst Street.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t know what I’m talking about? You’re workout buddies with the enemy. There has to be something going on. Don’t play dumb with me, Jakob. I invented it.”
Busted. Only I had no idea who’d ratted on me, so I didn’t know who to kill. Time to find out, I decided.
“I don’t suppose you’ll do me the honor of actually saying who told you that?” I asked.
“No idea where it came from, bro, but I got the dirt from Ryan Detenbeck.”
“Ryan Detenbeck better sleep with one eye open. Ditto for whoever told you about him.”
“Shit, dude, that’s intense.”
“How do you think Detenbeck’s informant found out?”
Levi shrugged. “This is Buffalo, bro, the dinkiest city in the Northeast. You can’t shit in this town without everyone knowing what color it is.”
