A Chance for Normalcy

CHAPTER 16; conflicted

"I can't believe you let me sleep in again," you say as Max laughs cooking up some food for the two of you.

"It's still before noon." Max says passing you a cup of coffee.

"Barely," you say looking over at the clock on the oven, 11:54am.

"Come on, let's eat. We have to meet Bradley at the gym in an hour." Max says passing you a plate of pancakes.

"Then we can go grocery shopping?" You ask pouring maple syrup on your pancakes.

"Sure." Max says sitting down next to you with his own stack of pancakes.

The two of you finish eating breakfast and get ready for the gym, not bothering to shower since you're just going to get all sweaty at the gym anyways. You throw a change of clothes in your bag for after the gym and meet Max at the front door.

"Just missing one thing," Max says smiling and you look around. I don't think so, keys, gym bag, running shoes, water bottle, purse?

Max puts a Red Bull cap on your head, and you smile.

"Baby steps," Max says smiling putting on his matching cap.

"How about I just show up in Miami decked head to toe in Red Bull gear?" You say laughing as Max locks the front door behind you. "Ooooo or a t-shirt with your face on it?"

"I'm still thinking an autograph just right across your chest," Max says laughing reaching for your hand as the two of you head down to the garage. Max opens the car door for you, and you climb inside putting your bag between your legs as Max closes the door gently before walking around to the driver's side door throwing his bag in the back. Sometimes it's nice not to use the valet, less public, especially when we haven't even showered yet.

You get to the gym and see Bradley already waiting outside for the two of you.

"Arya! How are you feeling?" Bradley asks opening the door to the gym.

"Much better today, thanks for asking." You say smiling.

"Well, I'll let you take it easy today Arya, but not you Max," Bradley says patting his shoulder.

"When are you going to let me take it easy?" Max says laughing.

"Never. That's why you're a world champion." Bradley says and you can't help but laugh along with him.

You hop on the treadmill, putting your headphones in and zoning out to your music and Max and Bradley work in the weight section. No matter how many times you've seen Max putting weights around his head to train his neck you still can't get over how funny he looks when doing it. You hop off the treadmill almost an hour later and check your phone taking a sip of water, sweat dripping down your face and chest. You see a text from Curtis with a pinned location and a time. 6pm. You try to zoom in on the location, but the map just shows it in the middle of a field. Looking over at Max who is completely in the zone working out, you sigh lightly and text Curtis back that you'll be there.

Fuck now I need to burn off this anxiety.

You look around the gym and a playful smirk comes across your face as you realize the squat rack is right in front of Max's eyeline. You walk over setting your phone and water bottle down next to it adding some light weights to start. You pull the bar off the rack squatting down, and back up, you can't help but wink at Max in the mirror as you watch his jaw clench as his eye catches you. You do a couple of sets before you hear Bradley call for a cool down. Re-racking the weights you can't help but smile walking over back to Bradley and Max standing on the mat as Bradley leads the two of you through a cool down stretch.