When I heard his clear, decent laughter, I assumed it was because of the stupid expression plastered on my face. I ducked my head down as I felt my face heating up, only to peek up at him a second later. God—he's hot.
"Yes, I'm your personal trainer," he said, his laughter only dying slightly.
"Um . . . sorry I didn't think my personal trainer would be someone like—you," I admitted, blushing brighter, as I glanced down at the floor.
"What do you mean?" I quirked my eyebrow at my feet. Was this boy oblivious to his good looks?
"Well, I thought that my personal trainer would be slightly older . . ." not hot, "and well, you're quite young."
"Oh. I'm sorry I'm not some balding, old guy bulging at the neck," he joked.
"For your sake, I wish you were," I admitted.
His brows creased together. "Why?"
"Um . . . you see, my brother—" Before I could even finish my sentence, I was pulled backwards, John's body now in between Alex and I.
I sighed, slapping my forehead. Great, here we go again.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his eyes narrowed down.
"Alex, Isabella's personal trainer, and you?" he asked, holding out his hand with a pleasant smile.
"John, Isabella's big brother," he said back, rudely ignoring Alex's outstretched hand. I sent a frown towards my brother, which he blatantly ignored.
Alex's hand dropped. "Oh, well it's nice to meet you." His smile never wavered.
"Yeah, you too," he said, dryly.
I tugged John down with my hand. "Lay off will you? He's just my personal trainer," I whispered. His need to be in control was quite annoying, quite being an understatement.
"I don't like this guy," he muttered back, totally ignoring me.
"You don't know him, and he's only here to help me. Will you really stand in the way of that?" I asked, giving him a frown as I pulled the works on him.
Just like I knew he would, he gave in with a long, exaggerated sigh. I silently thanked, Amanda for her training.
"Fine." He sighed. "I won't do anything, but I'm still going to keep an eye on him while he's here, got it?"
"All right, deal." I turned back to Alex to see him looking at us with his brows lifted, and his head titled. "Um, when do we start?" I asked, trying to keep my tone light and airy as I brushed off the awkwardness still lingering around.
He lifted his shoulders. "Whenever you're ready, I suppose."
"I guess since you're already here, we can start now," I told Alex. I turned to look at John. "Could you show Alex where we'll be?"
"Fine," he grumbled out loud. "Let's go Alex."
He nodded and followed John down the hall. "See you in a bit, Isabella," Alex said in mid-step and grinned.
"See you," I said, smiling back.
John narrowed his eyes at him, but luckily Alex wasn't paying attention to John.
I looked at John, mouthing the words 'be nice', but I doubted he was going to listen.
Sighing, I ran up the stairs to my room as fast as my legs could carry me, which probably wasn't fast, but who cares? I kept running until I reached my room and when I opened up my door, I found Amanda still sleeping. Gosh, she's actually worse than my brother when it came to waking up in the mornings.
I headed over towards her side of the bed and lowered myself down to her level. Leaning close to her ear, I sucked in a deep breath and screamed, "wake up" at the top of my lungs.
Amanda's eyes shot open as her body jolted forward. She looked around hazily, taking a minute to progress her surroundings, but once she did, her chest went back to breathing normally again.
"What the hell? What are you doing screaming in my ear this early in the morning?" she asked.
"One: it's not early in the morning, it's already noon, and two: screaming in your ears was the only way to wake you up."
"You know, you could've just said, 'wake up' like any normal person would. I'm not a heavy sleeper," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. Kicking the sheets with the pad of her foot, she made her way towards my closet.
"Yeah, you keep thinking that." I rolled my eyes at her. "You do know you sleep like the dead, right?"
"What?" she asked. Does she really not know her own sleeping habits?
"Nothing," I said all too quickly, giving her a bright smile when she narrowed her eyes at me. "Just get dressed and ready, we have to be in the gym soon."
"Why do we have to do that?" she asked, rubbing her dark eyes.
"My brother's with my personal trainer right now."
Amanda went inside my closet, grabbing some of her clothes she'd stashed inside. When she came back she asked, "And, what's so bad about that?"
"Everything, because, for one, he's about ready to murder Alex."
She cocked a brow. "Who's Alex?"
"My personal trainer, who else?"
"I don't know." She shrugged. "Anyways, why does your psycho brother want to kill Alex again?"
"Oh, you know." I waved my hand in front of me. "The same old' reasons. He has major trust issues with Alex."
"Why? What does Alex even look like? I bet he's ugly right? He's probably bald too." She laughed, pulling her hair back, and into a ponytail. "Trainers are always bald." She was a bad guesser this morning . . . or, afternoon rather.
"Not really, just the opposite, actually. Alex is smoking hot!" I exclaimed, blushing at my boldness.
"Really?" she asked wide-eyed. "You only think Jason is hot though, so this guy must be like really hot," she gushed, her eyes lighting up.
"Oh, he is." I grinned. "But, hurry up and get ready. I don't want to go downstairs and find Alex's dead, gorgeous body on the floor," I said, as I pushed her towards the bathroom.
"Okay, okay. I'll hurry!"
It literally took Amanda forever to finish her bathroom routine. But once she showed herself, she was looking as perfect as ever with her acne-free face and her flawless figure dressed in a plain white t-shirt and leggings. For some reason she could anything look good.
"Finally," I shouted. "Now let's hurry before John interrogates Alex half to death," I rushed my sentence as I grabbed Amanda's wrist, and pulled her outside my room.
"Slow down, Izzy," she huffed. "Alex will be fine."
"You know John could be pretty temperamental when it comes to new faces, especially if that new face happens to be a guy."
"Trust me. I know."
"Exactly! So all the more reason to pick up the pace." Once that sentence left my mouth, Amanda automatically let out a groan in protest, but obeyed. Even though she was super skinny, she hated anything to do with exercise. Her level of fitness was probably worse than mine. She's lucky she has a fast metabolism, unlike me.
"I seriously hate running!" Amanda groaned, as she caught up to me.
"It doesn't matter, just hurry," I called, as she kept a steady pace with me. As we ran down the stairs, I started to slow down, trying to breathe through my nose. She patiently waited for me to catch up, cheering me on while she opened the door to the gym for me.
When my eyes searched the empty studio, everything seemed to be normal. Maybe my brother actually listened to me this time?
"See Izzy, Alex's 'gorgeous' body isn't dead on the floor." She laughed, taking a seat on one of the four benches we had. "You had nothing to worry about."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," I said, as I repeated Amanda's actions and grabbed the seat next to her.
"Aren't I always?" She winked, as her eyes made its way around the spacious room. "But now that I think about it, where exactly is your brother and Alex?"
"I have no idea." I shook my head. "They might be in the locker room getting ready or something."
"Maybe." She nodded. "Let's take a look."
"I rather not." I wasn't taking any chances of seeing my brother practically nude again. One can only take so much in a day. "You go."
"Suit yourself." She shrugged and leaned forward. "I'll be right back," she said.
Once she started her walk over to the far left corner, I watched as her dark hair swung back and forth behind her. When she pushed open the double doors, she gave me a small smile over her shoulder and headed inside.
When she finally emerged minutes later, her face was beet red with a slightly dazed look in her eyes.
I eyed her. "What happened?" I asked, when she was in hearing range.
"Um . . . let's just say, I saw Alex," she said and wiggled her eyebrows at me. "And if I do say so myself, he's smoking."
"See, I told you!"
"Yeah well, our taste in guys are world's apart, so I didn't expect Alex to look like that!" She squealed.
I couldn't help but nod in agreement. To put it simply her taste in guys were unique. She even thought Jason's looks were average compared to her band crushes. "So, was it Alex's looks that made you blush like that, or was it something else?" I teased, grinning widely.
She rolled her eyes, laughing. "Of course not. They were about to change—"
"—wait a minute, you saw them changing?" I ended my sentence with a high-pitched scream, and jumped up from my seat.
"No," she yelled, shaking her head furiously. "When I came in, they were in the back getting ready to change. I didn't exactly see anything."
"Thank gosh." I did not need my best friend catching my brother and Alex changing . . . or my brother and personal trainer realizing that she'd seen them changing. That would be totally awkward on their end and on mine.
It looked like Amanda was about to say something when my brother's voice filled the air. When I saw him, I breathed out a sigh of relief. Luckily he was fully dressed this time.
"Hey, Bell." He grinned, once he stood in front of us. "Amanda." He gave her a smile.
Amanda smiled back. "John."
"Where's Alex?" I asked once I had John's attention.
He jabbed his finger behind him. "He's coming."
On cue, Alex's lean body appeared, carrying a bag over his shoulder, wearing nothing but a thin t-shirt and some basketball shorts. Let's just say the slightly see-through shirt left nothing to the imagination.
"Hey, Isabella." His voice snapped me out of my dazed state. I blinked, feeling the heat rising to my cheeks again. Hopefully, he didn't notice me staring at him. "Are you ready to begin?" he asked and got straight to business.
"As ready as I'll ever be," I said with a smile, trying to sound optimistic but failing miserably.
"Cheer up." He chuckled. "You'll be fine." He gave my shoulder a small pat. His eyes then made its way towards Amanda. "And you must be the girl I just saw."
"Um, yeah, I'm Amanda," she said, the corners of her ears turning pink. I eyed her, wondering if she really did see them changing or not.
"Alex." He lifted his hand up, a grin plastered on his face. "It's nice to meet you."
"Ditto." She grinned back, giving him a firm handshake.
He returned her smile, before he focused his attention back towards me. "Now Isabella, before we start, I need to ask you a question."
"Okay, shoot."
He lowered his head in response. "Do you know how much you weigh?" he asked, as he grabbed a few things out of his bag that was strapped around his shoulder.
"Last time I checked, I was a bit over 200."
"Okay, let's get an accurate measurement then." He motioned his hands to follow him as we made our way around the exercising equipments to an area he had set up earlier today. Most likely when I was waking Amanda up. Hearing footsteps behind me I knew John or Amanda was following closely behind.
"Step on the scale please," he said, while he smiled at me.
I bit my lips, hesitating. But after seeing the smile on Alex's face, encouraging me forward, I stepped on it and closed my eyes. What if I was heavier than what I'd intentionally thought? Then what?
"Your total weight is 250.3," he murmured, scribing some stuff down onto his clipboard. "You can step off now."
"I weigh so much . . ." I whispered, disappointed at myself for letting my weight get to this point. Why did I let my body go like this?
"Don't worry about it, Bell. No matter how much you weigh, you're still beautiful to me," John reassured, patting me on the back.
"Thanks, John," I softly muttered, smiling gratefully at him.
"No problem, sis," he said, as we made our way back over to Amanda. I took the seat next to her, while John took the remaining spot next to me. I eyed Alex as he stood in front of us, still scribbling some things down onto his clipboard. Once he was done, his blue eyes flickered over to me.
"Isabella, you'll be eating healthy from now on, so no more junk food or soft drinks," Alex uttered, sternly. "I'll be informing your personal chef later on, and letting him know you're under a strict diet. So no more fattening foods, and your friends and family will be watching you as well."
"Okay," I said, smiling at how efficient he was. Maybe this was going to work out after all. Maybe with Alex's help I can finally get down to my goal weight.
"Great. We'll have the next year to get you down to 150 pounds, which means you'll have to lose about two to three pounds a week." He paused, giving me a moment to absorb everything, and then he continued on, "We're aiming to get rid of the fat in your body, and build up muscle, so if you see yourself weighing more or staying the same, don't worry about it, it's pretty normal."
"Wait a minute, is that that even possible?" Okay, scratch my previous thought. This wasn't going to work. I never even lost a pound in a month, how could I even lose more than a pound in a week?
"Yes." My shoulders slouched forward at his response. There's no way I can do that. No way. As he caught a glimpse of my slightly defeated look, he smiled widely. "Don't worry Isabella, with my help you'll lose those pounds like they're nothing. I promise."
My eyes shut closed. You can do this Isabella. Alex's right. With him here, anything is possible. There's a reason why Mom hired him. I sucked in a large gulp of air, and opened my eyes.
"Thanks, Alex."
"No problem," he said, pulling out the whistle under his shirt. "Since that's settled with, shall we begin?"
"Um . . . sure?" I said, trying to sound as excited as he was, but all I could think about was the torture my body would be going through—absolute hell.