The Slam (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

ENDER

The sun was baking down on us as we ran up the hill. Adelaide jogged beside me, keeping up with my rapid pace with little effort.

“How far are we running?” she asked.

“Twelve miles.”

“How often do you run twelve miles?”

“Every single day,” I said, trying to keep my breath even and pace myself. “Up this hill.”

“Why?”

“Why else?” I huffed. “I’m training. Coach’s orders.”

“Humph,” she grunted.

Adelaide continued jogging beside me, keeping pace, barely breaking out in a sweat. But by the time we neared the final stretch, she was wheezing and gripping her sides in agony. “Have you ever run twelve miles in a match?”

“No.”

As soon as we hit a steep incline, she came to a stop, hands on her knees. “I’m done,” she said, panting and gasping for air.

After taking a moment to catch her breath, she said, “If you ask me, tennis is not about running. It’s about sprinting. Short bursts of energy. You need to be quick on your feet, change directions in a blink of an eye, and explode after a ball. And in order to do that, you should be practicing your short and long sprints. Running up this hill—twelve miles, every day—is not going to help your tennis game. In fact, it tunes your body up incorrectly for tennis, and you actually start to fade in long matches.”

Now she had my attention. That was probably the most logical thing I’d ever heard anyone say about tennis.

Why didn’t my coach ever tell me this?

“So what do you suggest?” I said, wiping the sweat from my brow with my forearm.

“I find that running in sprint interval bursts is much better for tennis,” she said weakly, panting to catch her breath. “Run for one minute, walk one minute, repeat for twenty minutes. Then sprint hard for thirty seconds, and walk for one minute, repeat for ten minutes. Shuttle sprints are good, too.”

“Shuttle sprints?”

“How about we head back to the court?” she said, holding her sides. “I’ll show you how to shuttle sprint. I’ve got some other drills you can try out, too.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m up for that. But first…” My lips tugged upward at her dog-tired expression. “We gotta make it down this hill.”

Back on the tennis court, Adelaide had me sprinting from the baseline to the serving box and back, then up to the net and back.

“Now,” she said squarely. “You can repeat this with either no rest or a short rest. This will improve your pivoting and short distance bursts. We’ll try sets of five at first and improve each session by two sets.”

I nodded and went at it, determined to work myself to exhaustion.

When I thought we were done, she had me working on another drill. She placed a number of tennis balls across the court and I had to sprint to each one, pick it up, return it to the baseline and continue in this vein until all the balls had been recovered.

After thirty minutes of sprinting after balls, she had me doing square versions of a ‘figure eight’ across the court. Starting at one corner of the baseline, I sprinted to the net, shuffling along the sideline, going back to the other corner and repeating until I hit all four corners, and then starting over again. And again. And again.

All the while, she timed me and tracked my progress.

By the end of Sergeant Adelaide’s drills, all my muscles were burning and my quads felt like they were on fire. Soaked in sweat, I limped stiffly off court.

“Nice work.” She delivered a solid punch to my arm. “We’re going to work on these drills four times a week and rotate it with weight training.”

“Right.” I grunted with an air of machismo and tossed my tennis racket into my gym bag.

“Great!” she said cheerfully. “Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we’ll head to the gym and I can give you some pointers.”

I grabbed my towel and wiped the sweat off my face. “Why are you doing this?”

“You’re my social coach,” she said simply. “And I’m happily returning the favor.”

Wiping the sweat from my neck, I said, “So you’re my tennis coach now?”

“Your coach, trainer, instructor—all rolled into one. Of course I’m not replacing your official tennis coach,” she added in a matter-of-fact tone. “But
clearly
, you need my help.”

I frowned, but I didn’t disagree with her on that point. And maybe she was right; maybe my coach’s training methods were doing more harm than good.

As I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and crossed the court, Adelaide fell into step beside me and playfully smacked my butt.

I stared at her. Then my mocking smile turned into one of genuine amusement. “What was that for?”

“Isn’t that what coaches do?” she said in all-seriousness. “It’s known as the extra-low five or the butt-slap. I’ve seen it in movies. A coach will either tap a helmet or slap a butt. Nothing says ‘good job’ like a butt-slap, am I right?”

“
Riiiiiiight
,” I said slowly.

She gave me a quizzical look. “Don’t most coaches do that?”

“I’m sure Sandusky did,” I said dryly.

“What?” She squinted at me, confusion on her too-honest face.

“Nothing.” My lips tugged upward at her naïve expression. “What does a butt-slap mean to you?”

“I think it’s pretty open-ended depending on the context and relationship between the slapper and slappee. It could mean ‘Nice job,’ or ‘You’ll get them next time,’ but it can also mean, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ or ‘Wow, your butt is pretty muscly today. Have you been working out?’ In this case, since I’m your de facto coach, it simply means, ‘Great job!’”

“Adelaide.” I kept from laughing, but only barely. “Feel free to smack my ass anytime… morning, noon, night, and all the hours in between—”

“Adelaide?” A gruff voice interrupted me. “Such a pretty name,” he said, staring at her far too long for my liking. “You can slap my ass anytime, too.”

She smiled at him, and their eyes lingered on each other a moment longer before she looked away.

A muscle worked in my jaw. “Cade,” I said tersely.

“Ender,” he said equally tersely.

“To what do I owe the displeasure?”

Ignoring my blatant barb, he turned his attention to Adelaide. “Why haven’t I met you before?” He grinned broadly. “Ender must have been hiding you.”

“No, he hasn’t,” she said lightly. “We just live together.”

“You live together?” Cade’s surprise showed in his voice. “I didn’t know Ender had a live-in girlfriend.”

“Oh, I’m not his girlfriend.” Adelaide let out a dismissive laugh. “We’re just friends.”

“Friends?” Cade said suggestively. “Just
strictly
friends?”

“Correct,” she said. There was a fine crease between her eyebrows and she was chewing on her bottom lip, looking as though she was trying hard to decipher the meaning behind his words. Then she added, “We aren’t fuck buddies or anything like that. I’m single.”

Cade let out a full-throated roar of laughter. “Well, that’s good to know.”

I clenched my jaw, not bothering to hide my growing impatience.

“Listen.” Cade whipped out his phone and placed it in the palm of her hand. “I’d like for us to be friends, too. Why don’t you give me your number?”

Smooth bastard.

Cade cut me a smug-ass smile as Adelaide began entering her phone number, tapping his phone screen using one index finger.

Ten minutes went by. Well it felt like ten fucking minutes.

Who the hell texts with one index finger?

Adelaide Vikander, that’s who!

Cade flashed her a grin as she handed his phone back to him.

It was more smarm than charm.

“I’ll call you,” Cade said. Then he took one long last look at her before striding off the court.

I stared at his retreating back with steady contempt.

“He seems nice,” Adelaide said thoughtfully as we started walking toward the parking lot.

“He’s an arrogant asshole.”

“But aren’t you an asshole, too?” she said, not unkindly. “Edric says you are. But I think you’re a sweet, well-meaning asshole.”

When I frowned and said nothing, she continued, “And what is it about assholes that makes them so darn appealing when they stop being assholes long enough to let a sliver of empathy poke out from the wall of assholery?” The look she gave me was long and considering. “Is it the contrast alone, I wonder?”

The fuck was she even talking about? “Look,” I said. “I
know
the guy. Long story short, we’ve been tennis rivals for years. I hate his guts. Cade hates mine.”

“And now you’re both on the same team.”

“Right. But other than practice, I don’t have anything to do with Cade. I’m telling you, the guy’s a player; he’s made a play for every girl I went out—”

Beep!
The sound from her phone interrupted our conversation.

Adelaide glanced at the display. “It’s Cade,” she said happily. “He just texted me and asked me out on a date.”

I scowled. “When?”

“Next week. Friday.”

“So…” I hesitated. “Are you gonna go?”

“Of course I am,” she said at once. “He’s the first guy who’s ever asked me out on a date.”

“What about Miguel?”

“That doesn’t count.” She made a dismissive gesture. “I like Miguel but he’s a homosexual and we’re just good friends.”

“But why Cade?” I reached inside my gym bag, pulled out my car keys and pressed the unlock button on the key fob. “When there are plenty more fish in the sea.”

“Actually,” she countered. “That’s becoming an inaccurate term. Many ocean species are disappearing and losing their habitats due to decades of overfishing. The evolutionary process of marine species is also being altered, causing cycles of premature reproduction and relative decreases in the size of fish across generations. As predators diminish, the populations of smaller fish escalate because they were previously the food source of the bigger fish. And the disappearance of these species affects many others like seabirds and sea mammals, which are all vulnerable to the lack of food.”

“Adelaide.” I sighed heavily as we slowed to a halt in front of my car. “It’s just a saying.”

“I know that.” She opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. “But it’s a highly inaccurate one. And even if there were plenty of fish in the sea, I’m not a very good fisherman. So I’m going on that date with Cade,” she said stubbornly. “I don’t care what you say, Ender. You can’t change my mind.”

With a snarl, I got behind the wheel and pulled my door shut with a sharp bang. “You wanna go out with that douchebag, go right ahead.”

“I fully intend to.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Then she tipped her head back into the headrest and closed her eyes, effectively ending the conversation.

Switching on the ignition, I backed the car up and floored it, leaving skid marks all over the road. I clenched my jaw, silently fuming as I gripped the gearshift. I wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much that she was going out with that dick… but it did.

It fucking did.

Chapter Fourteen

ENDER

“She said no.” Frodo grabbed the bottle of JD off the kitchen table and took a long pull. “Can you believe that?
Can you
?” Then he took another swig and burst into tears.

“I feel your pain, man.” Edric clapped his shoulder. “I feel your pain. At least you got to ask her,” my brother said wistfully. “I never even got the chance to pop the question to Natasha.”

Leaning against the kitchen counter, I crossed my arms, watching those clowns with mild disinterest.

Adelaide breezed into the kitchen just as Frodo was cradling himself, sobbing uncontrollably. “My… my heart can’t handle it.” His broad shoulders heaved with the effort of getting the words out. “Why did she say no? WHY? How am I supposed to live?”

At once, Adelaide snapped her gaze to me and I said, “That’s Frodo, by the way.”

“Frodo?” She blinked. “Like from The Lord of the Rings?”

“Yep.” I nodded. “That’s what everyone calls him since he’s drunkenly proposed to all of his girlfriends, proving his unhealthy obsession with the ring. And last night, he drunkenly proposed to his sixth girlfriend and—”

“She said no,” Frodo said tearfully, then he gave a great shuddering sob and wailed. “Ashley said
noooooooo
.”

“He’s fucking drunk right now,” I said in a toneless voice.

“But…” She checked her watch. “It’s only seven in the morning.”

“He’s been drinking all through the night,” I said dryly. “So has Edric.”

“Oh,” she said, casting a worried glance at my brother who was sitting at the kitchen table with his head buried in his hands. “What happened?” she asked, her voice dripping with concern.

“Natasha broke up with him. And to be honest, I don’t even know why he’s so upset. All she wanted to do was parade him up and down campus like he was a broodmare.”

“Ender!” she hissed. “Stop being such a boiled cabbage and be nice to your brother! This is really hard for Edric! He has second child syndrome. Everyone knows that second children need extra support and validation. And it certainly doesn’t help that you’re comparing him to a broodmare.”

“I’m not a broodmare!” my brother said suddenly.

“Of course you’re not, Edric,” Adelaide said meaningfully. Her features softened and she strode over and patted his arm affectionately. “I’m sorry, Edric,” she said in heartfelt tones. “I’m truly sorry about Natasha. But you deserve so much better.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to be supportive. “You do. Just be glad you escaped from the clutches of that woman. She burned you alive, dick first. Don’t go back to her now. If you do, we’ll all know you’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome.”

Adelaide sent me a cutting glare and I gave a careless shrug.

“
There, there
now,” she soothed, rubbing Edric’s back. “It’s all right, Sausage. I’m here for you.”

“Sausage?” I said mockingly. “Did you just call my brother a sausage? How is
that
helping him cope with his second child syndrome?”

“Shhhhhh! He can hear you, you know. Besides,” she said. “Sausage is a term of endearment. I call everyone Sausage.”

Humph. I scowled. She didn’t call
me
Sausage.

She called me a boiled cabbage!

Meanwhile, Adelaide was busy fussing over Edric. “Can I get you anything, Sausage? Anything?” she said tenderly. “Anything at all?”

At her gentle words, tears began streaming down his face.

Niagara fuckin’ Falls was falling from Edric’s eyeballs.

Jesus fuckin’ Christ
. I rubbed my temples.
Now my brother is crying, too?!?

“For the love of God!” I exploded. “WHERE DID ALL THESE LADYBALLS COME FROM?!?”

In the midst of all this chaos, Adelaide was fluttering around the kitchen like a Mother Hen on steroids, frantically opening the pantry, grabbing boxes of cereal and power bars and piling heaps of food on the kitchen table. “You guys need to eat something. And you need to drink water,” she said urgently, darting to the sink and filling up two glasses. “Water! It’s important you drink water. Alcohol is a diuretic that causes you to lose more liquid than you consume, which leads to dehydration and—”

“Adelaide!” I snapped and she jumped. “What the hell are you doing?”

“We have classes tomorrow.” She stood staring at me like I was a complete idiot. “Obviously, I don’t want them to suffer from a hangover on their first day of classes. Hangovers are caused by dehydration so it’s important that they hydrate themselves as much as possible before they pass out.”

Shaking my head I stalked to the fridge, yanked it open, grabbed two bottles of Gatorade and slammed them down on the counter. “Then they should be drinking this.”

“Gatorade?” She lifted a skeptical brow.

Crossing my arms, I repaid her cynical gesture with an arched brow of my own. “Gatorade.”

“Why Gatorade?”

“Pantera,” I said, “arguably the hardest-drinking band ever—they used to drink those Pedialyte things before crashing. It’s basically Gatorade for kids.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, nodding with understanding. “It’s the electrolytes. Too much water when you are dehydrated can cause you to lose valuable electrolytes. And drinking sports drinks can help replace those electrolytes while hydrating your body.”

“Yep,” I said, popping the P sound.

“Gatorade,” she muttered to herself. “I never knew it was a cure for a hangover.”

“Well,” I said, yanking the fridge open and grabbing another Gatorade for myself. “It’s not something you learn from a text book.”

“See!” A grateful smile came over her face. “That’s why you’re my social coach, Ender.”

“So…” I tossed the bottle of Gatorade into my gym bag. “Are you gonna stay here all day and babysit these clowns?”

“No,” she said. “I’m coming with you to the gym. Remember? You agreed to let me train you. You’re my social coach and I’m your tennis coach. We help each other. We need each other.”

Yeah, I’d almost forgot about that. “All right.” I exhaled forcefully. “Grab your things and let’s go.”

“Don’t mind me,” Adelaide said, standing off to the side as I did a couple of bench presses. “I’m just observing. You just keep doing what you normally do. I should be nothing more than a tiny blip on your radar.”

Problem was, she was a GIGANTIC blip on my radar.

From the corner of my eye, I could see her studying my form as I powerlifted, all while tapping madly away at the touch screen of her iPhone.

With every rep, every set, I could practically feel the disapproval rolling off her in waves.

When I moved on to leg lifts, she frowned.

And when I started doing curls, her frown deepened, the creases in her forehead becoming deeper and deeper until I finally snapped. “What?” I demanded. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Everything,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Everything…”

I waited and she took a deep breath before continuing. “For one, if you keep doing bicep curls like that, you’re bound to have elbow problems. And two, the decline press you were doing is a useless exercise because the angle of the body in the decline position shortens the distance the bar can travel, thus decreasing the amount of work done in respect to the distance the load moves. This has the effect of increasing the weight used in the exercise by decreasing its difficulty. This leads to an inflated perception of your ability, and is essentially masturbation. Much of that useless routine could easily be accomplished with a thirty-degree leg press or a half-squat.” A pause. “Or masturbating.”

I stared at her. “Anything else?”

“Not only are the exercises you’re doing all wrong for you, your form is bad. This can lead to back problems, knee problems, and not to mention, you can really hurt yourself, Ender. And I will
not
have you hurt or injured. No,” she said with conviction. “Not on my watch.”

A moment passed before I found my voice. “So what do you suggest?”

“Dumbbells are a lot safer. They have fewer joint consequences compared to barbells, and are far superior for developing independent motor control with resistance. And placing your feet up during flat presses can help enhance muscle fiber recruitment. Basically,” she said simply, “it all boils down to physics.”

“Physics.”

“Correct,” she said, hurrying to my side. “Look right here.” She pointed to her phone where she had essentially detailed an anatomical diagram of my workout. “What you need is to make gravity work for you when you train. Try doing a set of upright rows immediately followed by a set of military presses. The upright rows fatigue your biceps and shoulders but leave the triceps fresh; now with the presses, the strong triceps push your already fatigued shoulders even harder. This pull and push method is a lot safer than what you’ve been doing. To be honest, you’re lucky you haven’t already injured yourself.”

“Interesting,” I said. “That probably explains why my back and knees have been hurting after workouts.”

“Precisely,” she said. “It’s important that you understand your body, to know what it needs, how to push it and when to stop.” Adelaide went on to give me a lesson on the force of gravity in the form of weighted bars, dumbbells, and weight stacks, and how to oppose the force generated by muscles through concentric or eccentric contraction.

Leaning my back against the weighted bars, I linked my arms behind my head and watched her as she chattered on animatedly, schooling me on the subject.

I found myself smiling as I stared at her, listening to every word she said with interest. Usually, I hated lectures, but if all lectures were like Adelaide’s, I probably wouldn’t doze off in the middle of class nearly as often as I did.

Later, after the two-hour long session in the gym, tweaking my workout routine as Adelaide kept tabs on me, I checked myself in the mirror.

Just as I was reaching for my phone, Adelaide gave a little laugh. “You’re not actually taking a gym selfie, are you?”

“I’m about to,” I said, flexing as I flirted with my reflection. “Why? You wanna be in the shot?”

“No!” she cried. “You couldn’t pay me! And why do you keep turning this way and that?”

Hollowing my cheeks, I checked the effect in the slant of light. “Just trying to show off my best side.”

She stifled a giggle. “Then may I suggest you take a picture of your butthole?”

I scowled. “My butthole?”

“Correct,” she said lightly. “Because that’s precisely what you look like. By the way,” she added, “you just gave me a grand idea. I’m going to invent a built-in phone app that warns users when they’re about to upload a gym selfie.”

“Warn them about what?”

“D’oh! That they’re at risk of looking like a butthole loser.” She gave a self-satisfied smile. “There! My financial future is solved!”

My chest moved in a silent chuckle.

“Or,” she continued. “I could build a selfie firewall into the gym’s Wi-Fi network.”

“But,” I said dryly. “Could we
really
live in a world without #beastmode captions?”

“Most definitely,” she said fiercely. “
Most, most
definitely. And what about green juices and wheatgrass shots? I feel that’s a real issue that also needs to be addressed.”

I smiled. “Not into the whole juice cleanse fad, are you?”

“Nope.” Distaste flickered over her face. “The only thing those green juices will ever cleanse me of is my will to live and…” She broke off as I drew my shirt up over my chest and cast it aside. “Seriously?” She stared at me. “A shirtless selfie?”

“Don’t be hating,” I said coolly. “Most girls would love to wash themselves on these washboard abs.”

“Ender,” she said sweetly. “You sound like a special kind of moron.”

Ignoring the barb, I snapped the selfie and showed her the picture. “What do you think?” I asked, scrolling through the many Instagram filters.

Adelaide snorted. “I think you’re glowing like a supernova made of entitlement.”

“Admit it,” I said. “You like it.”

“I do not!” she huffed, hoisting her gym bag over her shoulder.

Grabbing my own bag off the floor, I said casually, “Then why are you blushing?”

She turned even redder.

I struggled but failed to keep the grin off my face. That was one of the things I remembered about Adelaide—her blushing syndrome.

I always thought it was cute, endearing even.

“I do blush very easily,” she admitted. “And it’s a lose-lose situation. I feel it coming on, I get really hot, and I look wretched. It’s not even a normal blushing. It’s not like a nice English Rose blush. Ugh. I hate that.”

I love that
.

“However,” she insisted. “I was
not
blushing at your post-gym selfie.”