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SAMANTHA

Astrained noise escapes my dry mouth as I sink into the movement, welcoming the burn running through my legs.

My muscles scream.

My heart thunders in my head.

I rise again, but this is shakier than the last, as expected.

Roughly exhaling, I blow loose hair out of my face, but it’s no use—it sticks to the sweat on my forehead like a fly in honey.

It’s so damn hot.

“That’s it, baby,” Jason says from behind me, his arms out in front of him with palms up to catch me if I fall. “One more. One more for me.”

I blink the salty droplets out of my eyes and go down once more—ass to grass, as I always coach my followers.

Lungs squeezing and legs wobbling with each step, I barely make it to the rack. The barbell is so heavy across my shoulders that I’m sure it’s leaving an imprint. Jason follows closely behind and helps me set the bar back in place until I limbo my way out from beneath it.

“Shit,” I hiss, tilting my head back and placing my hands behind my neck, where my fingers get tangled in my matted hair.

I don’t know why I bother throwing my hair up, anyway. The wild strands always find their way out of the bun on top of my head. By this point of a workout, it’s too heavy with sweat to stay there.

This is partly why I record my videos at the beginning of my workouts. It’s when I have the best hair, form, and ability to talk in full sentences while I give followers tips and ideas to change up their routines. By the end of my sessions, I can barely stand, let alone speak coherently.

Contrary to popular belief—rather, what I callously lead people to believe—I work out hard, and it’s not pretty. I encourage them to be their true and authentic selves, but at the end of the day, I know they don’t want to see my pink bra turn dark purple from boob sweat.

The fact is, people want the shiny parts of my life on social media, and outside the gym itself, I have a lot of those parts.

I have a small condo in Santa Monica that I can afford because of my Instagram family, which has recently reached two million people.

I travel a lot too, everywhere in the United States and beyond, posing in front of the bluest waters or the most breathtaking mountain views.

And I even have enough savings right now at twenty-six years old to stop working for a while.

But my day-to-day is not glamorous. It’s messy behind the scenes, and I have the tears of my body accumulating on my upper lip like a bathtub to prove it—just not to the public.

Instagram is for beauty, after all.

“You did it, gorgeous.” Blood stops rushing so quickly to my ears, and Jason’s voice eases through the thick fog over them.

Slowly, the sounds of the gym come back into focus too. Clinking metal, heavy breathing, and loud counting of reps from workout partners.

“That was brutal.” I give Jason a weak smile, my heart still racing, and not just from his naked abs on display thanks to him chucking his shirt during his set.

While his abs are, in fact, chiseled and glorious, I’m more riled up from this session. It was an adrenaline rush. With Jason’s help, I pushed myself to surpass a couple of personal records, and I mentally pat myself on the back.

No matter how sore I’ll be tomorrow—and I’ll definitely be can-barely-walk-to-the-mailbox sore—it was a morning well spent.

I wrap my arm around his bare waist and lean in to kiss his lips, but he shies away at the last second.

“Whoa, whoa. Before we can do any of that, you need to take care of this.” He draws a circle around my face, and I immediately frown. “I’m just saying—that workout was intense, and it’s showing.”

“Right,” I mutter and withdraw my arm from him. Rubbing my fingers together, I note his sweat on the pads of them, but instead of calling him out on it, I ignore the urge and sling my bag over my shoulder as I head to the locker room.

He’s just messing around, anyway. It’s what he does.

Jason doesn’t like to mix bodily fluids unless we’re in bed, and it makes sense. It’s logical and fair, even.

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