Socially Awkward (12 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

A few days later
,
Tom was back from his little vacation,
the
Smith sisters were back in action with their original trainer at the gym
, and I’d lost Claire’s attention for good
.
With Tom in the way, there was no hope of me convincing her to help me with Sean. I’d have to think of something else.

Now that we were back in Tom’s line of fire
, I
realized how little I’d really missed his kamikaze training approach
. His vein bulged and his spittle flew about me as I did some burpees that night, sending a fiery burn right up the muscles of my arms into my shoulders. I kept hoping that Tom would walk behind me just as I was lunging backwards, kicking out my legs, but it never happened.

What did happen, however, shook things up in a way
I
didn’t expect at all.

“Ouch!” Claire yelped,
collapsing onto her
mat. “Oh no. Ow, ow, owwwww.”

She cradled her ankle with two hands, rocking against the pain. Tom was by her side in a spl
it second, leaving me mid
-
count
down. I didn’t have a problem with that, since I’d already stopped doing the reps anyway.

“What happened, Claire?” I said meekly, wanting to help her but not sure how. Tom seemed to be taking care of it, though, by stretching out her leg and tenderly inspecting the injured ankle.

“I’m fine,” she answered. Tom turned her ankle over in his hand. “Just…ouch!”

“I don’t think it’s broken,” he said
, sitting back on heels
. “But we should probably get you an x-ray to be sure. It’s better not to take any chances with a joint injury.”

Still on the mat, I watched Tom play efficient nursemaid to my sister. With the ice pack and bandage Noah brought over, Tom had Claire’s ankle padded and cooling down in no time. Then he swung her up into his arms, called out some orders to the other trainers, and started heading toward the door.

“I’ll call you, Jen,” my sister yelled out to me. “
Don’t worry about me.”

And then she was gone,
literally
swept
off her feet by
her trainer.

It all happened so quickly
that
,
when it was over, the room felt oddly quiet. Noah, sitting on the mat next to me, was the first to speak.

“He didn’t waste any time, did he?” He almost added a chuckle, but my sharp look cut him off.

“She could be really hurt, Noah.”

“No, that’s not what I—”
His face fell. “
You’re right.
Sorry, I’ve just never seen Tom move so fast.”

The idea that Tom would be so concerned, not because one of his patrons was injured but because it was
Claire
, cheered me a bit. I knew how Claire felt about him, more or less, but it was nice to see that the object of her affection returned some of those feelings. I offered Noah a smile as thanks.

“He’s not like that with any of the other clients?”

“Well, he’s a careful guy, pretty attentive. And he generally doesn’t mess around with injuries,” Noah said, thinking. He stretched his legs out in front of him, the toes of his sneakers touching. “But I can’t say I’ve ever
seen him carry someone out the door. He usually just
calls the ambulance
.”

We laughed about this for a moment, and the almost frantic reaction Tom had to something as commonplace as a sprained ankle. I mean, I hoped Claire
would be okay, but the whole incident
had been a bit comical in its severity.

“Hey,” Noah straightened up suddenly, struck by an idea. “What are you doing right now?”

I looked down at myself, still clad in my sweaty gym shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt, sitting cross-legged on a mat in the middle of an empty gym. I needed a shower, badly, and I wasn’t even sure I’d
packed my
deodorant in my gym bag today.

“Why?” I was a bit hesitant to go anywhere, especially with Noah, looking like this.

“What if we take the rest of your workout on the road?” he shrugged. “I’m off the clock and I need to get my own workout in, but this is the last place I want to hang out after I’ve been working all day. Want to go for a run?”

He stood up, offering a hand to help me to my feet. I took it, but stayed sitting for a moment, considering
the
myriad excuses I could make to get out of this.

“Running?” I stalled, pushing off the mat while
Noah pulled me up
.
“Like,
off
the treadmill?”

He feigned a look of shock, leaning back. “Jennifer Smith, if you’ve never gone for a run outside, I feel genuinely sorry for you.”

“That’s not nice,” I said, hands on my hips. “Can you
please
try to remember that I’m new to all of this and cut me some slack?”

“As your interim trainer, I will do no such thing. Come on, you can leave your stuff here, we’ll pick it up on the way back.”  With that, he was jogging toward the door, leaving the empty gym to the other two trainers, and waving for me to follow him. “Let’s go, Lazy.”

With one last look of lament for my comfortable square of padded gym mat, I decided it’s not every day that you get permission to chase after a hot man in public. And outdoors, no less. So I threw caution to the wind, quite literally, and sprinted toward the door.

“That’s more like it,” he said, winking at me. And as soon as the door opened, he took off.

****

Noah ran like he was born to
do
it, every one of his muscles working together in a choreographed motion. Like a cheetah hunting its prey, his every movement was graceful and smooth. Despite running behind him, I felt like I might be
best portrayed
as the escaping prey, clunky in my attempts to keep up. I stumbled over a few rocks or tree roots here and there, the debris of the sidewalk proving to be an unforeseen challenge of running outside instead of on a treadmill.

A nice and safe treadmill, stored indoors without any natural interference like weather or falling leaves.

The day was brisk, since it was
early November
, but between my previous workout at the gym and the exertion of the run itself, I didn’t feel the cold after a few minutes. Noah was still running up ahead of me, only a couple hundred feet or so, but I couldn’t tell if I was catching up or if he was letting me. Determined to make up the difference, I dug deeper to pull out that last bit of whatever it was that motivated me when I was near Noah. I found it,
and the result was a sudden push forward. Within a few moments,
we were finally side by side, our legs working in sync
.
He
actually grinned to see me
running next to
him
.

“Welcome to the front of the pack,” he said, barely fighting for breath.

I couldn’t answer, I was so winded. Instead of waiting for a response, he stepped up his own pace a notch, leaving me behind again. So this is the game, I thought to myself. Cat and mouse.

He darted around the corner, headed toward Boston Common, and I followed as closely as my
throbbing
muscles would allow. My thighs burned, my arms ached, and my stomach was growling. Audibly, I was sure of it. But there was Noah, up ahead of me, running like some
jungle cat
set loose on the city streets. I couldn’t let him get away from me and I had no idea why it mattered so much, just that it did.

I checked my energy reserves again, seeing if there was anything else to come up with. Scraping the bottom of the fuel tank, I found one last burst and let it propel me forward, closing the gap between us. I leapt over the curb as we crossed the street, closer and closer to him. Just as we crossed the gateway into the Common, I caught up
again.

“Ooh, kitty has claws, doesn’t she?”
He chuckled and I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me.

I wanted to laugh
with him
, but there wasn’t any oxygen left in my lungs. Seeing the pained look of struggle contorting my features, Noah
mercifully
slow
ed
things down. He always seemed to know exactly when I needed some time to recover. He
eased our pace to a light
jog, enough to keep my heart
rate elevated
while
let
ting
my lungs get reacquainted with air.

“Thanks,” I said, managing a weak smile. “For the break.”

“Don’t get too
comfortable here,” he warned playfully. “You never know when I’ll take off again.”

“Yes, I do,” I smirked. “You’ll only take off again when you’re confident I can catch you.”

“A full sentence? You’re speaking in sentences, now? I think that means you can catch me.”

And then, once again, Noah took off across Boston Common, leaving me in his dust. My arms and legs had just gotten u
sed to the slowed pace, the aching in my lungs had just started to dissipate. I wasn’t ready for this yet, but somehow, because Noah believed I was, I found something
inside
to push
myself
forward. 

I started going faster and faster, darting
around
a stroller here or there, hearing the thumps of my feet on the pavement. As I let my mind finally process everything that was around me, I realized how much more exciting it was to run outside, with so much to see and hear, people to pass by, nature to enjoy. The cool air was another bonus, wicking the sweat from my forehead as it swept by me. Noah was right to get me out of the gym, out of my comfort zone, and give me something to really push for.  At that thought, I noticed he was almost near enough to reach out and grab his t-shirt, so I looked down at my feet and silently pleaded with them to keep moving.

When I looked up again, it was too late to do anything. Another body was mere inches from colliding with mine, someone walking or running
toward me
along the pathway. I’d drifted in front of him,
while I was
talking to my shoes, and we crashed into each other. On impact, one of my hearing aids popped out and bounced over the sidewalk
. The rest of me crashed to the pavement i
n a tangled heap of limbs, and my skin
stung in several places, scratched up on rocks and other
natural
debris.

Just when I thought treadmills were for losers.

Disoriented, I tried to absorb what had happened, and see who I’d hit.  It was a young guy, around my own age, wearing a baseball cap and sweats. He must’ve been out for his own run across the Common when I’d so unkindly cut him down.

“I’m really sorry,” I stumbled over the words, shamed beyond reason. My face burned with the effort. “I should watch where I’m going.”

“Me too,” he said, climbing to his feet. He wasn’t too tall,
a little
shorter than Noah, but he had a nice, trim build. A daily run was probably part of his regular maintenance, just like Claire. The thought made me feel like a total hack, out here running, disturbing the good-doing
athletic
citizens of the world by crashing into them mid-stride. “Are you okay?”

I’d know what voice anywhere.

I managed a nod, swallowing the embarrassment and anxiety threatening to spew forth from my mouth. I kept my lips closed against the words
and concentrated instead on standing back up. I shook out my legs, finding them in perfect working order, although a bit scratched u
p
. I felt okay to keep moving, so I looked at my victim to tell him as much, but my voice froze up instead.