All The Glory (18 page)

“Your dad home?”

“Nope. He’ll be gone all day. Come spot me.”

I walked into the room, not exactly sure what he wanted. I stopped at his feet.

He lifted his head, his hands gripping the bar above him. “What are you doing?”

I shrugged. “Spotting you.”

“Kiiiind of difficult to do when you’re nowhere near the bar.”

I pointed at the weights. “You want me over there?”

“You’ve never spotted before, I take it.”

I walked around and stood behind his head. “Do I look like I hang out at the gym?” I paused and then added, “Don’t answer that.”

He wiggled around, getting comfortable on the bench, and then tightened his grip on the bar. I could tell his attention was no longer on me. He was staring off into space while the sweat on his body was pooling in the curves of his ab muscles and dripping down his sides.

Sweat. Ew.
Even on Jason it was gross. Kind of.

All of sudden the bar surged upwards and came off the things holding it on either side of Jason’s shoulders. His face was getting redder and redder as he lowered the weights to his chest and then pushed them up again.

I figured he was done with just that one lift, seeing as how much effort he was putting into it, but instead he went for another one. Down the bar went and then up again. His lips were stretched into thin strips and pulled away from his gritted teeth. I never thought before that Jason could be unattractive, but I had been wrong. His expression made me laugh.

“What are you …,” he huffed and puffed as he pushed the bar up. “…laughing at?” He lowered the bar once more.

“You. Your face is seriously ugly right now. I never thought I’d see the day.”

Jason was in the middle of pushing the bar up, but then it just stopped. Halfway between his chest and the bar’s resting spots, it floated in the air.

Jason’s face got redder and redder and redder. Then he started sputtering and spitting a little. His face went kind of purple.

“Spot me … dammit,” he grunted out.

My heart flipped. “Oh, shit. Me? You want me to help you?”

“Grrrrrr!” The muscles in his face, neck, arms, and chest were bulging out all over the place.

“I can’t lift that thing!” I yelled. I grabbed the bar anyway and yanked on it.

“Up, not back!” Jason roared.

Using both hands, I lifted with all my might. Together, we slowly got the bar high enough that it could rest on the rack. It seated itself into the supports with a loud
clang
.

I was breathless from four seconds of effort even though he’d pretty much done all the work.

Jason’s hands fell away and his arms flopped down to the floor, making them look like they were broken at the shoulders.

“Are you okay?” I asked, staring at him with worry creasing my brow.

His words came out with a lot of breath added to them. “You completely suck as a spotter, in case you didn’t already know.”

My heart was racing from the earlier panic, but I sounded cool as can be. “Thank you. And you’re welcome for saving your life, by the way.”

“If you’re going to spot for me, you’re going to have to build up some of those muscles in your arms.” Jason looked up at me and then stared pointedly at my biceps.

I looked down at my right arm along with him. “I’ve got muscle.”

Jason sat up. “The muscle of a spaghetti noodle maybe.” He wiped his face off with a small white towel that had been lying on the floor next to the bench.

“I’ll have you know that I’ve won every arm-wrestling competition I’ve ever entered.”

He looked up at me, wiping his arms off. “Oh yeah? How many have you entered? One? When you were five?”

I snorted and looked around the room. “Whatever.” It was when I was about seven, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

The room went silent for a few really long seconds before Jason spoke again. “You could work out with me.” He paused. “If you want. I’m not saying you need to or anything.”

I looked at him quickly, to see if he was mocking me. “You messing with me now? After I saved your bacon?”

He smiled and it made my heart squeeze a little in my chest.

“No. I’m saying that you could hang out here in my personal gym if you want. But only if you want. I know how sensitive girls are about working out and their weight and stuff.”

I looked down at myself, wondering what he saw. I knew what I saw when I looked in the mirror — a girl who’d eaten way too many cookies and not enough carrot sticks for the past seventeen years.

“I wouldn’t have the first idea how to work out. Plus, I hate sweating.”

He laughed. “Sweating is kind of part of it. But you could just do high reps and low weights. It wouldn’t be too bad. You’d just get a sheen.”

“I don’t know what high reps are but low weights sound like my kind of exercise.”

He shrugged. “Come tomorrow with shorts on and I can show you some things.”

A hint of a thrill ran through me. I hated exercise in all forms, but to be able to use Jason’s gym and hang out with him while possibly losing a few pounds … it could be fun.

“Ready for lunch?” I asked, trying to distract myself from visions of my sweaty workouts with a half-nude Jason. They were getting better and better with every passing second, curse my vivid imagination.

“Lunch?” He stood. “Sure. I guess. You like ham?”

“I have it all figured out. Come downstairs when you’re ready.” I started to leave the room.

“Ready? Am I supposed to get dressed up?”

“Just de-sweatify yourself and you’ll be fine. And put a shirt on.” I didn’t add the last part that was on the top of my tongue:
So I can eat in peace and not be drooling over your muscles
. That would have made lunch awkward.

While Jason cleaned up, I opened up the contents of my backpacks and laid them out on his living room floor. I was glad his dad was gone for the day. I had no problem feeling kind of goofy around Jason so long as we were alone; it was the idea of having witnesses watch me being a dork that made me want to run back to my house and never return.

“What’s this?” Jason asked, walking into the room as he toweled off his wet hair. The smell of his soap wafted into the room and made me smile. It was so uniquely Jason, and I was kind of touched that he’d bothered to take a shower. That had to mean something, at least that we were actual friends, right? That’s what I told myself, anyway.

“A picnic.” I couldn’t look at him, afraid he’d make a face that said I was a complete loser. “It’s so nice outside, I thought a picnic would be fun, but I knew that you probably wouldn’t want to actually
go
outside and be mauled by those dogs out there, so I brought the sunshine in.”

Verbal diarrhea. It always happened when I was worried I’d gone too far.

Jason walked over without saying anything, slowly lowering himself to the ground and criss-crossing his legs in front of him. He tossed his towel over the arm of a nearby chair.

“What’s this?” he asked in a softer voice, picking up a framed picture that was lying next to the contents of the picnic blanket I had spread on the carpet.

“That’s the sun.”

I finally looked up at him. He was staring at the framed photo.

“Is this from today?”

“Yeah. I shot it with my camera and put it in a frame I already had.” At the time I’d come up with the idea and went out into my backyard to grab the picture, I felt really inspired; now I just felt like a complete paste-eater. Who takes a picture of the sun and puts it in a frame?

“We can throw it out after,” I said, my face heating up.

“Nah, I like it.” He put the frame down on the ground next to the blanket, setting the back support up so picture stayed upright.

I started pulling the lids off the various containers I’d brought, trying not to let my heart read too much into his charitable response.

“Soooo, we have potato salad and egg salad … I wasn’t sure which one you’d like. Or you could eat them both, whatever. And I got some fried chicken. It’s still pretty warm. And there’s some pickles and chips. I know you like chips because I saw you inhaling them yesterday…”

Jason’s hand on my arm stopped me from passing out from lack of oxygen.

“Thanks,” he said.

I looked up, our eyes meeting.

“I mean it,” he said. “You really thought of everything.”

“You haven’t seen what I brought for dessert yet.” The words came out all soft. I hadn’t meant for them to, but his eyes were kind of watery, and my heart was breaking over the idea that he might cry over my totally gay picnic.

His eyebrow went up. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

I shrugged his hand off me and slapped him on the leg. “Shut up. It’s Rice Crispie treats, idiot.” My face was so hot, it probably looked like Jason’s had when he was lifting those weights. I couldn’t look at him. I held up the open plastic tub for him to see. Then I pulled it away. “But you aren’t getting any.”

“Whaaaat? Come on, don’t be cruel. Rice Crispie treats are my favorite dessert of all time.”

I looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Seriously?”

He made a cross on his heart. “Swear to God.”

“They’re my favorite too.”

He smiled. “I thought all girls’ favorite desserts had chocolate in them.”

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head at his ignorance. “I’m not all girls.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said, pulling a drumstick out of the mass of tinfoil I’d wrapped the meat in.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I took a drumstick too and bit right into it.

After he put the entire end of the drumstick in his mouth and pulled all the meat, gristle and everything else off in one bite, he gestured at me with the bare bone. “Right there,” he said with his mouth full. “Chicks don’t usually just grab a leg of chicken and bite right into it.”

I pulled the meat away from my face and looked at it. “What was I supposed to do with it? Use it as a wand?” I started waving it all over the place.

He laughed. “No. That’s what Harry Potter dorks would do.”

I immediately stopped. “Hey, I liked that series.”

He shook his head, still laughing. “No, I’m just saying … you’re cool. Not like other girls.”

I sighed, letting the drumstick drop to the paper plate in front of my crossed legs. Talk about the kiss of death. I’d now been deemed
cool
. Cool girls never get to see the hot guy naked. It was one of those universal truths. I shouldn’t have been so bummed about it, but I clearly wasn’t capable of controlling my emotions or reactions to things Jason said.

“You’re lucky you’re so damn good-looking,” I mumbled.

“Why do you say that?” He finally stopped laughing.

“Because without those looks, you’d never get a girlfriend.” He really wasn’t smooth at all. A smooth guy would have shined me on and gotten more Rice Crispie treats out of me before revealing I’m a cool-girl.

His mouth dropped open, revealing the rest of his chewed up food.

“You are like … not smooth at all.” I took a spoonful of potato salad and plopped a small serving on my plate. At home, I would have eaten three times that much, but around Jason I was going to pretend I didn’t eat like a horse.

“I’m smooth.”

He sounded offended. I couldn’t tell if the emotion was fake or not.

“No, you’re not. You’ve insulted me like eight times already today and I haven’t even been here a half-hour yet.”

“I did?” He looked genuinely confused. “When? How?”

I waved my fork in the air. “Never mind. I’m over it already. Are you going to eat any of these salads? You’d better. I slaved over a cold grocery cart for, like, ten minutes.”

He leaned over really far to grab the salads and put half the container of each on his plate. “Happy?” he asked.

“Very.” I smiled, chewing up my chicken and potato salad mix.

We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes and I mostly forgot about the cool-girl comment. When Jason’s plate was clean, he wiped his mouth off with the paper towel I gave him and then started leaning towards me.

I leaned away, keeping him from getting too close.

“What are you doing?” I asked, suspicion lacing my voice.

His grin looked devilish. “Just trying to get a Rice Crispie treat. You worried I’m making a move on ya?”

I frowned, pretending to be way cooler than I was. “Yeah, right. As if.” I sat up straight again. “I told you. No Rice Crispie treats for you.”

He play-frowned. “Pleeeease?”

“No.” I lifted my chin.

He pointed to his face. “Look at this.”

I looked at him, ignoring the way that face made me want to give him anything he asked for. “So?”

His expression dropped back to normal. “That didn’t work on you?”

“Was it supposed to?”

He shook his head. “You’re a strong woman. I’ve never known anyone who can resist the puppy dog eyes. It’s patented, you know.”

I lifted up the container that had the dessert in it. “It’s going to take a lot more than patented puppy-dog eyes to get me to give you one of these babies.” I took one out of the box and bit into it, rolling my eyes with the pleasure. “Mmmm, marshmallows and butter, get in my belly.”

The next thing I knew I was on my back and the box of Rice Crispie treats were flying out of my hand. Blobs of sticky cereal fell all over the carpet behind me and in my hair.

“Tackle!” Jason yelled, half his body spread out over my torso.

“What the …! Get off me, you giant ogre … idiot …
buttcheese
!” Obviously I panicked; I’m never eloquent when in a blind panic. I struggled to get out from underneath him, but it was about as easy as escaping an elephant who’s decided to take a nap on you.

“Say uncle.” Jason’s face was inches from mine. I could smell the chicken on his breath.

“You have parsley in your teeth,” I said, trying not to laugh.

He grinned really hard and leaned in closer. “Get it for me.”

I twisted my head left and then right, trying to get away from him. “No! Get off!” Too close. His mouth was too close. I could have kissed him if I’d just lifted my head a half-inch.

He went still and then all I could feel was his breath on me. I opened my eyes and he was staring down at me. The mood went electric in half a second and then I
really
panicked. Fear took over.