Hearts Racing Read Free

said.
    She’d taken off her beret and puffy winter coat. The effect was transformative. Her looks hit Buck like a baguette to the face. She was gorgeous. Athletic. She looked like she could leap five feet directly upward, like she’d been genetically engineered to grow the shiniest hair on Earth. He seemed to be having some sort of problem with his lungs that was effecting his speech. “Hmmm, ung. Yoga,” was all he could manage.
    She gave him a quizzical look, and he emitted a high, fluting laugh.
    He collected himself. “Well, anyway, yeah, let’s get this WOD going or take another selfie or whatever.”
    “Fine,” she said, and turned to the dry erase board behind her. She wrote a series of what he assumed to be exercises in the gibberish these CrossFit weirdos used.
    Faith turned to face him and caught his eyes flick up. He’d been looking at her butt! What a perv! A beautiful-eyed, limbal-ring-having, finely-sculpted perv. Her face was doing something now. Oh god, it was smiling. Take control!
    “Okay,” she said. “Today we’re going to do what’s called a baseline—”“Couldn’t we skip forward a bit? I mean, I’m . . . you know. I’ve worked out before.”
    “Everyone starts with a baseline. It’s how we judge progress.”
    “Okay, well, see, I just need to beat New Orleans. That’s how I measure progress.”
    He was looking at her with some sort of unwavering glare that he clearly thought was impactful.
    “Everyone starts with a baseline,” she repeated. Glare all you like, Mr. Dimples, you’re in my house now, and we do things my way, she thought.
    “Fine,” he said. “Whatcha got?”
    She gestured at the board for his benefit. Five-hundred meters on a rowing machine, forty air squats, thirty situps, twenty pushups, ten pullups, for time, meaning she’d be timing Buck’s progression through the workout.
    He nodded.
    “I think I can probably do pushups one handed, but I’m going to have problems with pullups. My collar bone is broken.”
    “Don’t worry about that. I’ll help you.” She said.
    Buck climbed aboard the rowing machine and moved back and forth a few times, and then looked at her. “Ready?”
    “Are you?”
    “Born ready,” he said. “Hit it.”
    She hit the timer with an exaggerated motion to show that he should start, and Buck did exactly what she’d thought he probably would. He started immediately putting out as much power as he could. In her experience, the best times on the rowing machine came by taking it easy to start, and then pushing it near the end if you still had the gas. In most cases, a trainee wouldn’t have the gas toward the end. But Buck was going hellbent for leather. He’d never last 500m at this pace. After a minute passed, she peeked at the display to see how far behind he was.
    Holy shit, 475 meters!
    He was going to smash the gym record. He finished at 1 min 15 seconds then stood, a bit wobbly, and sank into air squats with decent form.
    Faith bit her lip to keep from smiling. Why was her face trying to smile all the time now? Stupid face. Focus.
    Buck blazed through the rest of the workout, his lean muscles showing a sheen of sweat. He was obviously used to working out, even if he wasn’t perfectly familiar with the movements. He had some trouble with pushups, but anyone with a recently healed collarbone would. Those done, he popped up then leapt to grab the overhead bar to begin his pullups. Faith grabbed his lower legs and used them to add upward force so he could pull his body up without his full weight.
    She could smell him now. He was wearing some kind of intoxicating cologne, a mesmerizing scent. She felt an urge to put her face next to his back and sniff him deeply, but held herself in check. Wow that stuff smelled good.
    At last, he was done. She helped him down and checked his elapsed time. It was as good as some of the top-ten students at her gym. She couldn’t let on that he was good, or that smirk would come back for