My Gym Trainer Counted Every Rep and Then Counted Me In novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Ex

"Marisol," Travis said, and smiled with all his teeth.

He had turned from the sign-in desk with the pen still in his hand, tan and neat.

I stood there in my gym clothes with my hair wet from the cold shower and my knees still weak from the sauna.

"You look good," he said. "You look flushed."

I said nothing.

"I joined this morning. Nice place. Good racks."

"Excuse me," I said, and walked around him and out the glass door into the parking lot, and I sat in the Mazda in row three with both hands on the wheel until they stopped shaking.

On Tuesday he was in the six o'clock class.

There were eight of them on the floor in a loose circle, warming up with resistance bands.

A trainer I knew by sight led them.

Travis stood at the back in a gym shirt that fit him exactly, doing a hamstring stretch with his foot up on a box.

He was watching the door.

When I came in with my bag over my shoulder, he lowered his foot and grinned.

I had trained for five months at this hour so that nobody would see me do it.

Now there were nine people on the floor, and every one of them was about to.

Rudy was already at the squat rack, loading the bar.

He glanced at me and at Travis and back at the bar, and his face didn't change at all.

"Ms. Ruelas," he said. "Squats. Warm-up set is empty bar."

"Fine."

I walked to the rack.

I heard Travis come up behind me.

"Still stopping at nine, babe?" he said.

He said it loud and friendly, so the whole class could hear.

A band snapped somewhere.

Nobody laughed, but somebody looked down at their shoes.

"I used to count them for her," Travis told the room. "Every set. She'd get to nine and look at me like I'd hit her. Isn't that right?"

I looked at the bar.

I heard the sentence he had said in the driveway fourteen months ago with the truck running.

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