My Remedy (Open Door Love Story Book 3) (7 page)

Duncan hangs back, running in place waiting for me to catch up to him.

“How long is four hundred meters?” I gasp, already trying to catch my breath.

“It’s not that far, just to the pole with the blue tape on it and back.”

I look off in the distance and cannot see a pole with blue tape on it. However, some of the more overachieving runners in the class – namely everyone but me, Duncan, and this pregnant lady who must be at least eleven months along, are already turning back.

“We gotta hustle,” Duncan says, picking up his pace.

I decide that the only way I’m going to survive this is if I pretend like I can already do all of the things expected of me. I am a runner. I can run fast.

I start sprinting, bypassing Duncan, giving it everything I’ve got. I see the blue tape on the pole and I push myself to get there. I round it and Duncan jogs by shaking his head.

“I said hustle, not go balls to the wall!” he scolds me.

This makes me go faster. I’m going to beat him, I decide. He can be the last one in the door. I’m gaining on the insane preggo lady, I might even beat her too.

“No ya don’t!” Duncan shouts as he whips by me, running backwards. He sticks his tongue out at me. I scowl at him and increase my pace to the point where I’m sure my legs are going to fall off my body.

He and preggo still get to the door before I do, but Duncan waits for me.

“All right,” Ashley says, rolling her eyes, “now that everyone has returned, let’s do some air squats. Give me ten and feel free to hang out at the bottom and get in a good stretch.”

Ten minutes later, we’ve stretched our inner thighs, our butts, our shoulders, our ankles, and our wrists.

“Now let’s talk about the W.O.D. It’s a partner W.O.D. So, everyone find a partner.”

I look at Duncan. “Are you going to be my partner or should I find someone else who doesn’t know what they’re doing?”

He grabs my hand quickly and then lets it go. “No. I’m subjecting you to this. I’ll be your partner.”

“Cool.”

Everyone gets partnered up. There’s one group of three guys, but they’re the ones that are wearing the meggings, so I figure they’ve got it handled.

“Partner one goes out for a four hundred meter run,” Ashley begins, “while partner two starts with ten burpees. This is the kind of burpee we’re looking for today. Don’t get caught up in being perfect.” Ashley thrusts her feet back, lands in a push up stance, goes all the way down to the ground, hops her feet back up to where her hands just were and then jumps into the air, clapping her hands above her head. She does this like she could do it all day while carrying on a leisurely conversation.

She continues. “If partner two finishes the ten burpees before partner one gets back, partner two will move on to ten air squats – which we did in the warm up. If partner one still isn’t back, they move on to the mountain climbers. Sasha will demo the mountain climbers.” Another coach steps forward, she’s a petite thing, appears to be made out of one hundred percent muscle, and would totally kill on American Ninja Warrior. She demonstrates the mountain climbers, which is more holding your body in a plank position while jumping your feet up to your hands. Only this time, alternating! I’m so going to die.

“Thanks, Sasha,” Ashley says. Sasha takes a little bow. “Now, if your partner still isn’t back from the run at this point, you better go out and find them.” Everyone laughs, but I feel like there is a distinct possibility that I’m going to run to the Buffalo Wild Wings instead of the pole with the blue tape.

Duncan raises his hand. “Hey Ashley, what happens if I come in from the run and Izzy is on mountain climber number five? Do I wait for her to finish?” Duncan asks, clearly knowing the answer to his question already.

“Why thanks for asking, Duncan. No, you would wait for her to finish that fifth mountain climber and then you would do number six through ten, before starting in on the burpees.”

“Oh, Ashley,” Duncan says again, “how do we score this W.O.D?”

“Another good question.” She gives him a thumbs up and the end of her thumb is missing. I’m really hoping that’s not a CrossFit-related injury. “Every time the mountain climbers are done, that’s one round. Any more questions?”

I have about a million, but everyone is already walking over to the counter and grabbing poker chips out of a set.

“This is how we keep track of the rounds,” Duncan says, taking out a tall stack of white chips. “The W.O.D. is eighteen minutes long, so we’ll probably go through all of these.”

“That’s optimistic,” I say, wishing the butterflies in my stomach would land already. “I’m aiming for two.”

We come to an agreement (basically Duncan tells me) that I’ll start off running, while Duncan does all the other exercises. A big timer on the wall by the door counts down and the running group rushes outside. This time, I decide that keeping an easy pace is smarter than going all out. I mean, the warm-up was more exercise than I’ve done in years, so this really is going to kill me.

Lorilee runs past, chanting, “I will not die. I will not die.” She laughs and then takes off.

I complete the four hundred meter run, glad that’s over, and head back into the gym. Duncan is doing burpees, two red chips laid out by his side. Damn, I’m slow!

He finishes the burpee he’s doing. “You’ve got two more,” he says, barely out of breath, and then he takes off.

I do one burpee, count to three, force myself to do the second burpee, and then move onto the air squats. Those aren’t too horrible, until I get to the eighth one and my legs are feeling kind of wobbly. Duncan comes back in and stops in front of me.

“Uh, you’ve got one more squat!” I shout.

He immediately launches into them and I head back out the door.

We continue on in this manner for the longest fucking eighteen minutes of my life. By the time we hit fifteen minutes, I can’t wait to run the four hundred meters because it’s a break from the neverending hell that is burpees, air squats, and mountain climbers. All innocuous enough, but when combined for an endless amount of time – I feel like, forget waterboarding, we could get info out of terrorist a lot faster if we just forced them to CrossFit.

The clock apparently goes off while I’m dragging my ass back through the parking lot because a swarm of people come outside, panting and sucking off water bottles and start walking circles in front of the door. Inside, the rest of the people are lying on the floor, trying to get their breathing to go back to normal. I go over and collapse next to Duncan. We’ve used up all of our chips.

“Nice job, partner.” He holds his hand up for me to high-five, but I can’t seem to make my arms work.

Eventually, we peel ourselves off the floor. Duncan goes to get us some water.

“Sweat angel,” Janna says to me as she walks by to put her large stack of chips back in the holder.

I turn around and see that I have indeed left a giant, wet imprint of my torso on the black mat. The largeness of my flabby ass is especially noticeable. I swipe my shoe through it trying to get it to dry faster.

“What did you think?” Hector asks, clapping a hand on my sweaty back. He’s also drenched in sweat, but he seems really happy about it.

“I didn’t die?” I manage to reply.

Lorilee saunters by, chuckling. “That a girl.”

––––––––

A
fter being warned by no less than twelve people that I’m “going to want to stretch really well,” I take it to heart. Gaby tells me she’ll get her clothes from me the next time we’re both at the gym and leaves before I can tell her there might not be a next time.

Duncan leads me over to the pull up bar station – a row of pull up bars all lined up against the back wall of the box – and tosses a square padded mat on the ground.

“This is called the death stretch,” he explains, kneeling down on the mat. He puts one foot flat on the mat with his knee up and bends his other leg up so his heel is touching his butt and the top of his foot is against one of the pull up station posts. Then he straightens his back as much as he can. The expression on his face is one of utter agony.

“No way am I doing that,” I say.

He points to his face. “This is my good pain face, I promise. If you don’t do this you’ll be able to walk even less than you’re already not going to be able to walk.”

“I actually feel okay. I think you’re all underestimating how in shape I am.”

Duncan snorts and loses his balance, falling over onto his side. “Just do the stretch, Izzy.”

I get on my knees and find that my first obstacle is simply getting into position. I can put my leg back on the post or I can bend my knee and put my foot on the mat. I can’t do both of these things at the same time.

“I didn’t know I was going to be expected to do yoga,” I say, failing for the third time.

“This is called mobility. Sasha actually does teach yoga on Wednesday nights – we call it yobility. And you definitely could use her help.” Duncan holds onto the tops of my arms and lets me lean into him while I get set up. Success! He takes my hands and places them on my bended knee, slowing scooting away.

“Oh my God, this hurts.” I find my face can’t stop itself from contorting. My eyes squeeze mostly closed and I have to purse my lips to keep from moaning.

Hector comes over and stands next to me, tapping a clipboard against his massive thigh. “Damn Izzy, you need some yobility stat.”

“She’s working on it,” Duncan says. He takes my hands while I un-pretzel myself. “Switch legs.”

If it is at all possible, this leg hurts more.

Hector laughs. “Ah, you found your bad side. Everyone has one.” He holds the clipboard in front of my face. There’s a contract on it. “We’ve got an Izzy special going on right now. I’m going to give you a month of CrossFit for free as long as you let Duncan practice coaching you for a month first. He’ll be under my supervision of course, so wipe all those visions of pull up bar sex out of your mind.” He chuckles. “Duncan needs to get in some coaching hours and you need to take our On Ramp series – which is where you learn the basics of Oly lifting and more difficult things like box jumps and how to row correctly – before you can come to a regular class.”

“It’s a good deal, Izzy,” Duncan says. “And I could really use the help.”

I’m still stuck on Hector’s mention of pull up bar sex, which isn’t something normally in my fantasy arsenal, but will now be making an appearance. I’m suddenly hyper-aware of Duncan’s hand on mine and the way he’s looking at me directly, intently. We stand up together, my legs shaking like crazy. “Sure. Yeah, okay.”

“Awesome!” Hector hands me the clipboard. “Just sign this and we’re good to go. You guys can get started any time.”

I sign the paper, in a daze. I feel tipsy. That’s what it’s like exactly. That warm moment before I get too drunk, where I’m just the right amount of relaxed and still in control. I always screw that moment up by having the next drink and the next.

I want to have the next drink.

“Do you want to go to a noon meeting with me?” I ask Duncan after Hector goes back to the counter and starts putting info into the computer.

Duncan smiles apologetically. “I can’t. I usually hit the nine pm meeting on Saturdays – I take an early lunch. You should go to the four pm. There’s no nooner today.”

He walks me over to the cubbies and I collect my stuff. I’m disappointed, but I hope my face remains neutral. This is not a thing. Duncan and I aren’t a thing. We are friends. We’re getting to know each other. There is zero possibility of pull up bar sex happening between us. I need to chill. Maybe it’s not even that! Maybe I grossed him out so much by admitting to being a selfish little bitch without a moral compass at the last meeting he’s just trying to let me down easy. He probably just needs a newbie to coach so he can help Hector out, and I’m an easy mark.

Duncan chucks me on the chin. “The only reason I’m not asking you to come to the nine o’clock meeting with me is because you’re probably going to be in bed by eight. That’s it, okay? It’s not because I don’t want to go to a meeting with you. I can see you’re going over things in your head and wondering if you did something to turn me off of you, but I can assure you, you haven’t. Totally the opposite, in fact.”

“Oh, okay,” I say and nod, because he’s just called me out, but not in a bad way, so there’s nothing for my defenses to defend.

He takes my clothes out of the cubby I stashed them in and hands them to me. “Now go home and take a shower. You smell.”

~

M
y aunt is sitting on my bed again when I get out of the shower. Apparently, this is going to be a regular occurrence.

“I was exercising!” I say, pulling my towel around me tighter and plopping down on the bed next to her.

She puts her arm around my shoulder awkwardly and squeezes me tight. “I know. That must have been quite a change of pace for you. You’ve never been the athletic sort.”

“Hey,” I scoff. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

Aunt Nina chuckles. “I’m not, really.” She takes a deep breath. “So, I wanted to let you know that Stan and I have decided to give Duncan a shot for a trial period. This way, if he doesn’t end up liking it here, or it’s too much for him, we can part ways easier than if he is a full-time employee.”

I bounce up off the bed, wincing at my already stiffening legs. “That’s great! When does he start? Have you spoken to him already?”

“Stan is calling him right now, and we’ll have him start on Monday for a few hours in the morning if he accepts our offer. I understand that he’s also the night manager at Ringo’s.”

“Yeah, he is, but he doesn’t love it.” I sit back down on the bed. “His brother got him the job. I don’t go in there. He wouldn’t let me even if I tried.”

“Well, I would hope not,” she says, and then, “I’m not an expert by any means, but I thought it wasn’t a good idea to get involved with someone when you’re in recovery?”

I straighten the drooping towel turban on my head. “Who said anything about us being involved? We’re friends, helping each other out. I got him the job here – he’s going to be coaching me for free at CrossFit. That’s it.”