He took a couple of deep breaths, bounced on his toes again, and then he was gone. Round off, back-handspring, whip back, whip back, whip back, motherfucking full-twisting double goddamn layout. His power nearly shook the foundation of the goddamn warehouse, he drove through his toes so well, and once again I felt the fool for thinking I knew better about my stupid tumbling than he did.

At the exhale of my breath his head jerked in my direction, and I whipped my head around again, sinking into the mat and biting painfully into my cringing bottom lip.

Please don’t let him see me, please don’t let him see me.

The sound of the floor exploding let me know he hadn’t as he started another pass and my head whipped out immediately, as not to miss the rest of the skills.

This time he finished with a double full-twisting double layout. And still made it look freaking easy.

No sweat shone on his forehead, and his hands didn’t shake with unease. He was completely in his element, focused on the music and the skills and not in the slightest bit winded. He was practiced. He did this a lot, and he did it well.

I found myself hoping he’d stay all night as I watched pass after pass, each one increasing in difficulty and speed. Each skill had to be timed perfectly, each hand and foot placed with precision. And God, he was fun to watch.

He barely smiled, but I could see a glow light him up from within. He loved doing this. He loved it without bias or question, and he did it wholeheartedly.

In that moment, he didn’t want to be doing anything but this, anywhere but here.

I used to know how that felt, and I longed to feel that way again.

After the fifteenth pass, I sank my butt to the floor and my back into the wall. I was tired from watching and he’d finally formed a few droplets of sweat on the center of his chest.

I couldn’t actually see the droplets at this distance, but based on the glow, I could imagine.

By God, I could imagine.

The music still raged in the background and his stupid hair still flopped around his ears. But something else had changed in the time it took for me to watch those passes.

A part of me had accepted him as someone I could trust. Someone who I could relate to. Someone who just might end up knowing how I felt. I could see myself in him, at least the way I used to be. The way he worked at his own pace with no shortage of self-instilled ethic. I could see the years he’d put in to get to that point, plain as day in the level of his talent, and I knew it had to be equal to if not more than my own.

But all of those realizations cloaked more unknowns, the hows and whys of a talented athlete like him coaching me a real-life mystery.

He looked happy on the outside, but I knew better than anyone that no disguise should make you assume what’s underneath. Funny people can be depressed. Outgoing girls can suffer from crippling self-esteem issues. And someone who seems sullen and withdrawn might just be happier in their head.

This pass would be tough, the increase in difficulty, as he progressed, speaking for itself. But he treated them all the same. The same little bounce of his toes, the same soft flex of his fingers.

Two bounding steps preceded a round off, back-handspring, double layout, whip back, whip back, and the grand finale—a triple pike.

Hysteria made me pull at the top of my leotard violently.

Was it hot in here?

What kind of twilight zone was this?

And how much energy did he have? I needed him to be done already.

Oh shit. Don’t think about sex.

I said don’t.

Don’t.

DO NOT.

Stamina. Power. Flashes of his sweat-beaded skin slick against mine.

Too late.

If I knew what it felt like to orgasm, I’d imagine watching him do something like that felt similar. As a shiver worked its way down my spine and the muscles of his strong stomach flexed and contracted, I decided for possibly the first time ever, I’d be open to being proven wrong though.

Oh man. This was not the direction my thoughts needed to go about my coach.

I was just stressed and tired. That’s all. This wouldn’t become a regular thing. Nope. Definitely not.

Get me out of here.

Finally, he headed for his bag, switching off the stream of music and tossing his t-shirt over his shoulder. He rifled through the bag slowly, taking his goddamn time, and each passing second made my skin itch more and more to the point of crawling.

Standing to full height, he pulled the bag to his shoulder, rounded the corner.

A deep breath filled my lungs with fresh oxygen and released the tightening on my starved brain almost instantly.

Thank God.

I waited for him to be gone, the bang of the bathroom door signaling my movement like the bat signal did for Batman.

Mats compressed slightly under my tennis-shoe-encased feet as I hauled ass back to the locker room door, grabbed my bag, and shot toward the door of the gym like it was on fire. I had only a short window of time to get out, and I planned to make the most of it.

The late night humidity nearly choked me as I transitioned into it at full speed, taking big gulps of the freedom it represented.

Unfortunately, I had only taken two steps in the direction of my car before the light slammed off behind me.

He was coming.

Honestly, it probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if he’d seen me, but my mind was too far gone to accept it. The car and the far corner of the building were just about equidistant from me, and I of course, made the predictably bad, slasher film-esque decision to flee mindlessly for the cover of the building.

The door opened just as I rounded the corner, and my heart beat rapidly against the metal siding exterior.

Two silent bangs of my forehead later, I peeked around the corner to get a glance.

Well-fitted jeans encased his muscular legs, and his plain white t-shirt had returned to its flesh-covering duty.

He glanced at my car once before approaching a motorcycle that was parked even closer to me, but he didn’t look my way. I didn’t trust that the subterfuge would last.

Talk about royally screwing this up.

I had the nearly skin-evacuation-inducing urge to get out of there before he spotted me, but as I watched my car from the corner of the building with him in between, I realized one important thing.

I had nowhere to—

Go.

As much as I doubted Callie would want to, my heart wouldn't stop shoving letters into the suggestion box of my brain.

“Ask,” my heart said. “What does it hurt to ask?”

My heart sounded a little like a girl.

I shook my head at myself, squeezing my eyes shut to quiet the riotous fluctuation of my emotions.

I’d known she was there between my fourth and fifth tumbling passes. A shadow had lurked on the far wall of the warehouse from behind a stack of mats. The swish of a ponytail confirmed the shadow’s identity.

She didn’t know I knew she was there though, and that was where asking got tricky.

To me, I’d felt like she was sitting there next to me the whole time despite her efforts to stay hidden, and to my complete shock—I didn’t mind.

I’d always liked to have my alone time at the end of the night. Always.

But tonight, with her, I’d liked having her there with me.

I was too confused to know what that meant, but I wasn’t too confused to know I shouldn’t be feeling it. Because I wasn’t feeling strictly professional thoughts and affection a coach has for an athlete. Hell, there’d been no time to form that kind of a formal bond.