I tore my eyes from the wall of donuts on display and looked up at Jake standing at my side.
“You eat donuts before you work out?” I queried.
“Not every time, but do it occasionally to remind myself why I’m workin’ out,” he responded.
This was absurd but I had to admit, it also made an absurd kind of sense.
“Josie, need to get to the gym to open it,” he told me and prompted, “What d’you want?”
I looked back to the wall. There was a large variety and donuts were donuts. It was impossible to make a split-second decision when donuts were on offer.
“Um…” I mumbled.
“Fuck it,” Jake mumbled back, then louder and to the counter assistant. “Two Boston creams. Two glazed. Two cinnamon twists. Two maple glazed. Two chocolate glazed. Two buttermilk.”
“You got it,” the counter assistant assured and moved to the back, grabbing a box.
“Is it necessary for us to have that amount of donuts?” I asked and Jake looked back down at me.
“It’s necessary for me to open my gym which means it’s necessary for me to get you to get a move on, so yeah. You got choice. And what we don’t eat, the boys will.”
“Oh.”
He tipped his head to the travel mug I was still carrying with me, holding it like it was a lifeline, even though we’d entered an establishment that served coffee and he asked, “You need that warmed up?”
I absolutely did.
I nodded.
His lips quirked and he looked back to the counter assistant. “And my girl here needs a warm up.”
His girl.
Oh my.
“No problemo,” the clerk assured again and dropped the box of donuts on the counter in front of us.
I got a warm up.
Jake just got a coffee.
I ate a Boston cream in his truck on the way to the gym.
* * * * *
“Right, now, skip rope,” Jake ordered and I stared at him.
Donut consumed, travel mug sitting on a ledge beside where we were standing in his gym, I stared at him.
Suffice it to say, my perusal of his gym from my car through a dreary day was not thorough. I knew this when we entered it from the back ten minutes ago and I looked around, taking off my jacket, while Jake walked around, turning on lights and unlocking the front door.
It was much larger and that was to mean cavernous.
There were not two boxing rings but three.
There was also a good deal of equipment. Further, there was an office at the back that was several steps up from the main floor and was made mostly of windows so you could see the gym from there. Beyond the office were doors that had words on them that I assumed described what was behind them, one declaring it was the Locker Room, another declaring it was Equipment and the last that it was Utility.
And finally, on the walls in the gym proper in very big script quotes were painted, including:
“Life is like a boxing match. Defeat is declared not when you fall but when you refuse to stand again.”
And “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made of something they have deep inside them—a desire, a dream a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. - Muhammad Ali”
And “I can show you how to box. I can teach you every technique and trick I know, but I can never make you a fighter. That comes from inside, and it’s something no one else can ever give you. – Joe Lewis”
And my favorite “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. – Muhammad Ali”
I had no time to share with Jake that I thought his inclusion of these quotes was quite clever. He took my coffee, set it aside and gave me a jump rope. I noted he had another one in his hands.
This was when he ordered me to use it.
“You wish for me to skip rope?” I asked.
“You gotta warm up,” he informed me. “You also gotta work off that donut.”
I stared at him some more then asked, “By skipping rope?”
“Babe, not much you can do that’ll burn more calories than jumping rope. Also gets the heart beating, increases stamina, challenges agility and works the entire body.”
“Skipping rope?” I asked incredulously.
He grinned at me and commanded, “Josie, just do it.”
I studied him a moment before I prepared my rope and started skipping and I did this by literally skipping over the rope, one foot and then the next, like I learned decades ago on the playground at school.
Jake watched my feet and he did this smiling big then he looked at my face and he was still smiling big.
And his voice was shaking with humor when he ordered, “Stop.”
I stopped.
He kept ordering by saying, “Now watch.”
I watched.
Jake started skipping rope but not like me. I was pretty certain my lips had parted in wonder as the rope went so fast it whistled through the air and he jumped on the balls of his feet, sometimes lifting one but an inch to jump on one foot, then moving to the other, then using both of them.
He ceased doing this and asked, “Can you do that?”
“Absolutely not,” I answered truthfully because I…could…not. I might kill myself and this was not an exaggeration. Me, rope, speed and jumping was not a good mix. I knew this about myself completely.
He was smiling again when he noted, “Slick, it isn’t hard.”
“Jake, I think it isn’t lost on you that I’m not the most graceful of females,” I pointed out.
Or males. Or any being with legs.
I didn’t go on to include these options.
“Yeah, in heels,” he replied.
“Also not in heels,” I shared.
“And when aren’t you in heels?” he asked.
“This morning, when I slammed my head into your jaw.”
“I surprised you.”
This was true.
“Try it,” he encouraged.
It was then I found myself wondering how I was wearing Amber’s workout clothes, had a donut in my stomach, far less caffeine than was required for me to face the day and was in Jake’s gym at the ungodly hour of seven fifteen in the morning contemplating the idea of taking my life in my hands to skip rope for Jake Spear.
My eyes wandered to his body-hugging t-shirt and I had my answer.
Thus, I arranged my rope and started.
First pass was good, second pass I caught the rope on my ankle and tripped.
“Shake it off, try again,” Jake murmured then began jumping rope.
I took in a deep breath and tried again.
Three jumps into it, I failed again.
“Again,” Jake said, still jumping.
I gave him a look and tried again.
Ten seconds later, I failed again.
“Don’t give up, babe,” Jake urged.
I sighed and tried again, failed again, tried again and failed again.
Jake stopped jumping and I looked to him.
“Right,” he said, his voice again trembling with humor. “Do that schoolyard skipping thing instead. It’s not as fast but it’s something and we need you warmed up.”
“I feel like a fool,” I murmured, looking down and preparing to start again, the girlie schoolyard way with Jake beside me doing it the manly boxing gym way, but my hand was stayed by Jake’s fingers wrapping around my wrist.
I looked up when the fingers of Jake’s other hand curved around my jaw and I saw he’d gotten close.
Very close.
“You are not a fool,” he whispered. “You can never be a fool. You’re total class from top to toe. You’re also a klutz. Own that, baby, because it’s cute and because it’s you. If you learn to accept yourself just as you are, learn to laugh at your quirks instead of hating them, show the world all that’s you without tryin’ to hide things that are not even a little unattractive, that makes you more attractive. What you got is a fuckuva lot. You own all of it and let it all hang out, you’ll go off-the-charts.”