Chapter 59
JUSTINE KNEW SHE probably shouldn’t use the equipment without a trainer present, but she’d been there long enough to feel she could at least do something, say, ten rounds of five pull-ups, ten push-ups, and fifteen sit-ups?
She was into round six, hanging off the bars, when she heard the front door open. It was that guy, Paul. His curly brown hair hung above his soft, nice eyes, which found her immediately.
“We the only ones?” he asked, coming in, looking up at the clock. It was five past six.
“No class this morning,” Justine said, and explained about Ronny.
“Oh,” Paul said. “What happened?” He was pointing at the bandages on her forearm. The one on her chest was hidden beneath her shirt.
Justine looked at her arm, hesitated, then said, “Fell Rollerblading.”
“I broke my wrist once doing that,” he said. “Are you working out?”
She told him she was.
“Mind if I join in?” he asked.
Justine once more noticed how appealing he was.
“Sure,” she said. “Just no weights or rowers. Liability issues, I think.”
Paul grinned. He warmed up and stretched while Justine finished her last four rounds, which left her sweating and heaving for air. When she got to her feet, Paul was crossing toward her, carrying a heavy green rubber band about three feet long.
“Can you show me how this kipping thing works?” he asked. “Ronny said I should use the bands to learn it.”
“Uh, sure,” she said, checking the clock. Six-twenty. No one else was coming.
She helped Paul set up the band, looping it over the bar at the top of a pull-up station. She showed him how to step into the band with one foot while holding on to the bars.
“Now fully drop down,” she said, recalling how she’d been taught to kip.
He did. The band stretched. His feet hung two inches above the floor.
“Okay,” Justine said, “now you want to get your body rocking, as if you were pushing your stomach out and then snapping it in and back toward your spine. That momentum carries you into the pull-up.”
Paul tried. It was a pitiful attempt. He was throwing his knees forward, not his belly. “Here,” she said. “Can I put my hands on you?”
He smiled down at her, a nice smile, a very nice smile. “If it will help.”
“It helped me,” Justine said.
“Okay, then.”
She smiled, nodded, moved around to his side, put one hand on his lower back and the other on his stomach. “Jump up.”
Paul jumped up and caught the bar with both hands. Justine pressed against his back so his belly arched against the band; then she pushed backward quickly. He swung on the band and lifted.
“Feel it?” she asked.
“I did,” he said, then began to play with the motion. “It’s almost like what trapeze artists do.”
“Exactly.”
In less than ten tries, he had it and was using his body and the band to snap himself up into the air, six, then seven times in a row.
Justine clapped. “You’ve got it!”
Paul slowed, stepped out of the band. He was grinning. They were very close. “You’re a natural, you know that? Teacher, I mean.”
Justine noticed how good he smelled, blushed, but did not look away or try to create space between them. “I just did what—”
“No,” he said, taking her hand. “I mean it, you … you’re really wonderful. I’m sorry to be so forward, but ever since I met you, I’ve thought about you a lot.”
They stood there looking at each other for several beats. Justine’s heart raced. She felt outside herself somehow. She heard her own voice as if from far off, like in a dream, saying, “Did you ever just want to give in sometimes and do something totally crazy? Totally not you?”
Paul’s gaze went lazy, and he nodded. “All the time.”
Justine could not believe that she replied, “We should lock the door, then. Turn out the lights.”
A moment of surprise, then Paul murmured, “Perfect. No one will even know we’re here.”