Which pissed me off thoroughly. I didn’t teach classes.
However, Jasper and Sophia both had something going on today, too, as well as our regular coach who taught mostly everything at normal hours—he was a single dad and had a young boy that was now six months old.
Which all meant that the only other person that could take over was little old me.
“I’ll send them to the gym, then,” Chief offered.
I felt my throat constrict.
The chief’s phone rang and I jerked my chin at him. “See you later.”
He jerked his own chin in response and placed his phone to his ear.
I walked away from the house and didn’t look back, my mind spinning with possibilities.
CHAPTER 4
Thighs before pies.
-Coffee Cup
FRAN
I was sore.
Sore wasn’t actually descriptive enough for how I felt.
Handicapped maybe.
I wasn’t sure.
What I was sure about was that I was going back to that class.
Though, I was sort of bummed out this morning.
I had to go to the six o’clock in the morning class instead of the six o’clock in the evening. And from what Mavis had told me, Taos didn’t teach any other classes but the one in the evening, meaning I wouldn’t be seeing him today.
“Stupid job,” I mumbled as I wobbled on shaky legs to my bathroom.
I looked around at my brand-new rented townhouse.
I was the first person to move into the townhomes, and the one I was in was so new that you could still smell the fresh paint.
I’d put my stamp on the house, though, by adding flowers to the front flowerbeds and the small area right around the mailbox. I’d gotten a couple of lawn chairs from Lowe’s, too, allowing me to be able to utilize the front porch.
My alarm went off and I groaned, looking back at the bedroom over my shoulder and decided that it could just continue to go off.
I was too sore to turn around and walk back for it.
Which caused me to have to listen to my alarm going off, louder and louder, until I’d finished in the bathroom.
Waddling to the bed, I leaned over it and snatched my phone out of the middle before turning the alarm off.
That’s when I smiled at my background photo.
My sister had taken one of herself, which happened to be a very unflattering selfie of all the rolls that she could manage under her chin.
Swiping it open, I sent her a text that said one word.
Me: Dead
She replied within ten seconds.
Mavis: It’s called the CrossFit walk for a reason.
Rolling my eyes, I shoved the phone down into the front of my underwear—seriously, I wasn’t wearing a bra so where was I supposed to put it?—then headed to my closet.
My eyes landed on all my old workout gear.
All the old workout gear that wasn’t nearly as flattering now as it had been once upon a time.
Seriously, I knew that because I’d tried on nearly every single piece I owned to find something to wear to the gym yesterday. But now, there I was having the same dilemma.
In the end, I chose to wear the booty shorts. They stretched, had a wide waistband that seemed to hold in the pooch the best, and looked good with a crop top. That, and the shorts were a little more forgiving around my thighs. Or maybe it was because the shorts came up to almost where a pair of underwear would sit.
“I should change,” I said, looking down at my shorts.
They were tight.
They were short.
They were… indecent.
“I should change,” I repeated as I started to head back into the closet.
However, just as I was about to change—or at least look for something else to wear because again, I didn’t have much that fit anymore—my alarm went off indicating that if I didn’t leave now, I’d be late.
Sighing and taking one last look at my underwear shorts, I snatched my tennis shoes, a pair of no-show socks, and headed for the front room.
The living room/kitchen area was great.
Great as in, really pretty, had great color on the walls—beige—had exposed wood and beautiful, warm looking wood floors.
But that really was it.
I didn’t have any furniture yet because I didn’t know anyone with a truck, and I refused to pay the ridiculous prices of having a couch delivered from the store in town.
Meaning, there I was without a couch.
But it worked out well because I had a bed in the middle of the living room for when people came over and wanted to sit.
I got that from my friend Jacob. Well, actually, Jacob was a friend of Mavis’s, who then happened to become a friend of mine out of association.
He had a truck—I didn’t ask Jacob for the use of his truck because he always tried to barter for more. More as in a date. Which I did not want to give him.
Jacob was a nice guy, but I wasn’t ready for anyone that looked like Jacob.
Jacob was pretty. He was a chiropractor. Had soft, supple hands that had never seen anything rough in their life. They were so soft, in fact, that I was fairly sure he got manicures on a weekly basis.
Speaking of Jacob, I had a missed text from him from last night.
I’d gone to bed around nine seeing as I couldn’t physically scrounge up the energy to do much more of anything but sleeping. I’d even forgotten to dry my hair before bed, and now it was a wild nest of corkscrews.
Ignoring Jacob’s text, as well as the mess in the kitchen from last night, I ran out the door with my keys in my hand and my phone now behind my pair of shorts, but still practically in my underwear.
By the time that I got to the car—I always, always ran when it was dark, or if I was by myself—my phone had slid down to uncomfortable levels.
Fishing it out of the front of my pants as I got in the car, locked the door, turned the key in the ignition, and then reached for a sanitizing wipe on the seat next to me.
After cleaning my phone off, I threw it on the passenger seat and then backed out of the driveway.
My eyes lit on a disturbance down the street with police cars in front of it, but I didn’t slow or check it out.
Mostly because I knew how it felt to be the center of attention, and I didn’t much like that feeling. So I tried not to put anyone else in that situation if I could help it.
I arrived at the gym with about two minutes to spare until class started.
I was all but dragging my ass inside the doors when I heard his voice.
“I want everyone to head out for a four-hundred-meter run.” Taos headed for a big bay door at the back of the gym. “You run out until you see the four-hundred-meter sign and turn back.”
I froze in the entrance, unable to make myself go. The darkness was heavy this morning. What little light that there was cast shadows everywhere. Anyone could be hiding in them…
Memories of my assault peppered my poor little brain, and I couldn’t make my feet move.
Recalls of a time when things were really bad for me practically hit me over the head.
It was dark. Really dark. I knew that I shouldn’t be running in the dark on this particular trail, but I had somewhere to be at nine in the morning, and if I didn’t get the run in, I wouldn’t get my long run of the week in, and that would just throw my entire week off…
A strong arm gripped my hand, and I blinked, looking up right into the face of the man that had saved me.