As it turned out, not much.

Their Justin Bieber giggles were the sounds of my nightmares, and, for me, gossiping about homework and boys lost its interest about ten years ago. They knew the pain of a hard week’s worth of bumps and bruises and the sting of a bucket full of ice water.

But they didn’t know what it felt like to be past the point of help, their bodies demanding real rest and care that no tape or Ace bandage could provide.

I didn’t begrudge them their health, and I certainly didn’t wish my aches or pains on anyone. But as the divide grew on the inside, the outside did a valiant job of trying to keep pace.

Unzipping my grip bag, I pulled out my grips and clutched them in one hand, freeing up my access to the wristbands below them.

The grips tucked easily under my arm as I pulled each band onto my wrists, settling them into the position I’d learned was just right. Not too high and not too low, the Goldilocks sweet spot was secure and comfortable at the same time.

At twenty-six, I’d spent so many hours with grips and lion paws (wrist supports) on my wrists, that the absence of them made me feel as naked as a stripper on her first night. Any touch of fresh air pebbled the unsuspecting skin.

But like this, with my wristbands on and my grips velcroed tight, everything felt right in my world. At least on the outside.

Sauntering up to the chalk bowl, I grabbed the wire brush and roughed up the already worn leather of each hand. A water bottle hung on the edge of the bowl, but people like me—well versed in practical experience—knew that I had my own personal moisture maker at my disposal that was a far better option.

Don’t ask me the science behind it, but spit just worked better. Period. It wasn’t sanitary or PC, but neither of those things were ever the kind of discouragement known for stopping me.

Pulling each hand up individually I spit into the palm of the left and then the right, going back for seconds when my first hand lacked the coverage I’d been seeking. I’d done it a million times, but as I dipped both hands into the bowl, the sound of a very male, very deep throat clearing alerted me that this would be a time like no other.

Startled, my eyes jumped from the chalk to him, and my spit-soaked hands stayed artfully pressed into the loose powder at the bottom of the bowl.

Vivacious, vivid blue eyes launched themselves toward me as if assisted by catapults and a knowing smirk settled into the corner of some of the plumpest lips I’d ever seen. They were perfect in a completely un-ridiculous, normal way, and the shock of his starkly black, overabundant hair made it nearly impossible to get lost in any feature other than those two.

I wanted to explore the rest of him, as you do on any first meeting, but he ruined it with words.

“Calia?”

“Yeah,” I replied cautiously, fully registering that he was a stranger in my gym—my safe place—for the first time.

“Nikolai Bagrov,” he said by way of introduction, shoving a hand out toward me to shake.

My eyes flicked quickly from him to my spit hands, still tucked safely in the harbor of the chalk bowl, and back again. It wasn’t something I’d ever been conscious of before, but I’d never been propositioned for a handshake directly after either.

He followed my eyes a beat behind, realizing what had me balking quickly.

A low, sexy chuckle swept out his mouth and across his face, completely transforming his features from intimidatingly handsome to warmly welcoming in a heartbeat. I’d never been one for theatrics, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some small twinge deep in the valves of my heart that realized how disarming it was.

His hand never even threatened to retreat. “I’m not scared of a little spit. Shake my hand, Calia.”

“Callie,” I corrected as I reached for his hand, heedlessly minding his command. Normally, I went with the flow of my name, accepting it as it came and swallowing my insecurity at its formal version. But with him, I wanted to hear him call me Callie from the beginning.

“Callie,” he repeated, shaking my hand with a nice, solid pump before taking his hand back and sliding it into the pocket of his perfectly fitted, blue athletic pants.

I immediately knew I’d made the right decision at the sound of my name on his lips, a delicate shiver making my spine sashay slightly from side to side.

Moments passed, and an awkward silence started to take shape. He seemed to be mulling something over in his head, but he wasn’t saying anything and I had nothing to go on. And my own thoughts raced at too quickly a speed, making any attempt to latch on to one or all futile.

“Can I—” I started at the same time he blurted, “You can—”

Relieved to not be in charge, I gestured for him to continue and zipped my mouth.

He took one more deep breath, and then started over. “I’m a new coach here.”

“Oh, cool,” I shrugged, relaxing for the first time since he’d opened his mouth.

People cycled in and out occasionally, but aside from the occasional consult, I was largely in charge of myself and I liked it that way. My parents owning the gym not only helped in the way of funding such an expensive sporting endeavor, but it also gave me the freedom to train how and when I wanted.

“No,” he replied, confusing me by answering my non-question with what I thought was a completely unrelated answer. He shook his head, looking a little nervous. “I’m your new coach.”

“What? Says who?”

“Your—”

“My father,” I finished for him, knowing the answer as soon as I asked the question. If one of my parents was going to meddle, I could pretty much guarantee it would be the one with the Y chromosome.

To him, his dreams were my own and vice versa. In my world, the one where the gym was my country, and my father was the government, freedom wasn’t really quite free. He had veto power and he used it, but only when he thought it was in my best interest.

And I wasn’t the one who decided when that was.

Nikolai shrugged, managing to look both bashful and unrepentant at once.

I turned away, headed back to the chalk bowl, and started my process all over again, talking through my back as I went. “Listen, Nikolai—”

“Just call me Nik.”

I rolled my eyes knowing he couldn't see it. “Listen, Nik, I’ve been coaching myself for the last four years, aside from my time on the actual Olympic team. I think I’ve got it handled.”

I gasped as his face appeared right in front of mine, his body stooped low with his white t-shirt-covered shoulders curling in toward the front while his eyes worked at pinning my jumpy ones down with a spear-like intensity.

“All due respect, Callie, but if you weren’t lacking something, you would have been satisfied two Olympics ago.”

My eye started to twitch way in the back, where the muscles attach to the socket, the way it always did when someone hit a particularly sensitive nerve. He wasn’t saying anything I didn’t know or hadn’t realized, but the fact that he thought he had me all figured out when the complexities of my psyche were still a twisted mess to me really irked me.

At one point, I’d been so lost inside of my own inner workings, gridlocked by the traffic noise of my insecurities and an equally powerful stubbornness to “hard-work” my way out of them, my mom had suggested I see a therapist.

I hadn’t done it, obviously; bullheadedness had always been my more dominant emotion.

After rejecting someone’s psychoanalysis who literally studied, practiced, and got paid to do it, I wasn’t about to let some stranger step into my life one minute and mindfuck me the next.

My mind wasn’t nearly that loose or easy—even for criminally attractive men with uniquely layered, multifaceted, dangerous-as-fuck blue eyes.