Chapter 3

Santa saw your Instagram pics. You’re getting a Bible and clothes for Christmas.

-Coffee Cup

Nola

I was going to throw up.

There I was, holding my most festive gear that I’d had overnighted—yes in hope, partly, that sexy DG would make it to my house—and standing in the doorway of a CrossFit building that scared the literal bejesus out of me, only minutes after I’d gotten off of work.

My eyes took in everything.

It was the Saturday before Christmas—which happened to be in four days—and they had everything decorated. The barbells were wrapped with red and white tape, making them resemble a candy cane. The weight rigs were wrapped in bright sparkly tinsel. There was a massive Christmas tree right inside the door. The bike looking things that had massive fans attached to their fronts were blinking with lights.

It looked like a winter wonderland… disguised hell.

Literally, what the hell was I thinking?

“Hello.” A deep, male voice had me looking up toward where I’d heard the sound.

I found him standing in front of me.

He was dressed in red shorts, a black t-shirt with the words Mad CrossFit on it, and red, white, and blue CrossFit shoes.

He looked absolutely adorable.

“Hello,” I managed to say. “My name is Nola.”

“It’s very nice to have you here.” The gym’s owner held out his hand. “My name is Madden, it’s nice to meet you.”

I held out my hand to Madden and grinned. “Just go easy on me. I’ve never done CrossFit before, and my sister begged me to go after I received an invitation to come to your community workout.”

“Who invited you?” he asked curiously.

I looked for the man responsible but didn’t see him.

“Umm,” I said as I tugged lightly on my scrub pants. “I don’t actually know his name.”

His eyes took in my attire, and his smile widened.

“Soren?” he asked.

I frowned. Soren?

“Umm,” I hesitated. “I don’t know? Like I said, we weren’t actually formally introduced.”

His lips formed into a smile. “Where did you meet him?”

I frowned. “He delivered some packages to me.”

“Soren,” he confirmed. “Him and his brothers own a parcel service in town. Didn’t know that he was delivering with them, though.”

I didn’t know either.

I didn’t know anything about this Soren person.

Soren.

Wow. What a great name.

And it fit him well.

“Blonde, built, sex… uh, attractive?” I asked.

There was a snicker from behind me, and I turned to find another beautiful person standing behind me.

She looked adorable, but she was much younger than me by about ten years at least.

“That describes that sexy beast well,” the girl—almost woman—agreed. “Well clipped beard? Blue eyes that resemble a Husky’s?”

I was laughing with her then, too.

“Ice blue,” I agreed. “Yes, that’s him.”

She nodded as if that was all the confirmation she needed. “Definitely Soren. He’s not here yet. He’s still at work, from what I was told, but he should be here in time for the WOD to start. Do you want to go get changed?”

There was a dark chuckle from behind me, and I turned to see Madden staring at me with amusement.

“This is my daughter, Sophia,” he said. “My son, Jasper, is around here somewhere.”

My brows rose to my hairline. “Your… daughter?”

He did chuckle then. “I had them young.”

Yes, I imagined he would have to.

“That’s impressive. You’re still able to get around and live your life, and you don’t have to chase after toddlers. Go you.” I grinned. “And yes, I will take you up on changing my clothes.”

He gestured toward a door at the back of the room, beside a massive pile of dumbbells that were stacked in the shape of a Christmas tree.

“That door marked ‘ladies.’” He pointed.

I gave him a grateful smile and then went into the locker room to change, surprised to find about ten other women doing the same.

“Oh, hello.” I smiled, waving at each of them like the weirdo that I was. “Are any of the bathrooms available?”

Since they were all literally changing out in the open.

“Those two are free.” A short mocha skinned woman pointed. God, she was muscular. I wanted her arms when I grew up.

I whisked myself away into the stall and came out a couple minutes later to find the entire room empty but for a pile of bags and purses.

Thinking this was where I should leave my stuff, I did, hooking it on to a hook instead of leaving it in the middle of a floor.

When I made my way out of the bathroom, Sophia was waiting for me. “Oh, that’s adorable.”

I looked down at my red and green striped short shorts, my black tank top that said ‘Elf Me’ and then my matching red and green tennis shoes.

“I was going to order some longer socks, but I wasn’t sure whether that would be a good idea or not. I wasn’t sure if I’d get hot,” I admitted.

Just as I said the last bit, a clapping started, causing us all to start working our way to the lit-up bikes near the front of the room.

I held back, not wanting to get too close in case someone noticed me, and waited for instructions on what I had gotten myself into.

The owner that had greeted me went on to explain today’s workout, and then split us into two groups, girls on the left, boys on the right.

I was nervous as hell as I allowed my gaze to move down the line of people.

Sadly, I did not see the one I was looking for, and almost felt a sense of betrayal that he would lure me here to this torture chamber and then not show up himself.

Only, just as I thought that, the door opened behind me, allowing a blast of arctic air to flow in, and causing the entire room to look to see who the latecomer was.

“Ren!” several of the men and ladies yelled. “You made it!”

My entire heart seized in my chest as I watched the sexy man make his way inside.

He was wearing a pair of nice black slacks, a button-down shirt in a deep red, and black dress shoes.

All of which he stripped off the moment he walked in the door.

I’d never felt like I’d had an out-of-body experience before, but I did right then.

The moment he reached the button on his pants, I felt my entire body tense with excitement.

All of the men went back to what they were doing, obviously used to this kind of behavior from ‘Ren’ or Soren as Madden had called him. The ladies, on the other hand, all watched him strip himself of his clothes.

I was almost sad when I realized that he had a pair of knit shorts underneath his pants.

Knit shorts that were really quite short, and fit him like a glove and left very, very little to the imagination.

Just as he got his pants off, that’s when I noticed his socks.

They were red and green striped just like mine were, only a bit longer and up to about mid-calf.

He tossed all of his clothes in the corner, then went a step farther and ripped his shirt off and tossed it into his bag before bending over and pulling a pair of shoes out of his bag.

Black ones that were big, and…

“Any questions?” Madden asked.

There was a short, hesitant silence before one of the ladies said, “Sorry. We all lost you at the sight of Ren ripping his pants off.”

There were a few agreements from the ladies, and a flash of a grin from Ren who was now on the floor putting his shoes on, but thankfully Madden started his explanation over.

By the time he was done with the second explanation, Ren was standing at his end of the long line, completely catty-corner to me.

And I sank a little farther behind, hoping that he wouldn’t see me.

Why?

Because the man was built.

I had no idea, none, that he was that built.

Sure, he looked good in his brown uniform, but I had no clue just what that uniform was hiding.

Now I felt silly for coming.

Because before, though he was sexy as hell and had invited me, I hadn’t felt out of his league.

Now, though, seeing what all he had to work with?

Yeah, now I was more than sure that I was kidding myself.

I wished I could disappear.

Even better, I wished that I could rewind to a few days ago when I didn’t immediately tell him ‘I really suck at working out, and the best I can do workout-wise is run up and down my stairs when I forget my phone that I leave in my office.’

Hells bells.

“Now, I want each of you to line up and stretch out your calves. We’re going to do a little light running,” I heard Madden say. “We’re going to play musical weights.”

Musical chairs.

“When the Christmas music stops, that means you stop, too, and find a weight. Make sure it’s one that you can lift or you’re out,” Madden called.

And then we were off.

There were tons of single weights on the ground. Barbells. Flat plates. And each time the music stopped for the first twelve rounds, I managed to find a weight that I could lift.

Except for the second to last round.

When Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer stopped playing, I found myself in front of a seventy-pound dumbbell that I had zero hopes in picking up.

Right next to a very tall, much larger than I remembered, Soren.

He grinned down at me wickedly.

I’d been so caught up in the game that I hadn’t realized that he’d been very much aware of my presence until right then.

“Can you pick that up?” he asked, waiting for me to say no.

I pursed my lips, then glanced down at the weight.

Yeah, with my line of work, I didn’t need to be chancing picking that up.

But I wanted to try, based solely on the fact that I was really competitive and wanted to win.

“Uhh,” I hesitantly said. “No, I don’t think that I can.”

“I can, Ren!” a girl behind me called.

I looked over my shoulder at the woman who was obviously a Ren fan.

She, like Ren, was in great shape. She was tall, blonde, and had a six-pack set of abs that I could only dream of. Okay, let’s be real here, people. I like eating food way more than I like the idea of having abs.

So my body would never look like hers. Not ever.

“We know you can, honey.” Soren rolled his eyes and turned back to me. “So that means that you’re done?”

I shrugged and looked down at the weight one more time. “Yep.”

Then I stepped over the weight and walked to the sideline where the rest of the disqualified people were standing, watching the show.

When Madden came in and effortlessly picked up the seventy-pound dumbbell, throwing it off to the side as if it weighed nothing, I flinched.

Geez, to just so effortlessly pick something like that up and toss it like it was nothing!

Three more people were left, with the three heaviest weights.

And, when next Soren just moseyed around, seemingly not in a hurry to win, he waited for the girl who’d said she could lift the heavy dumbbell to try the barbell with what looked like more than my body weight and fail.

Then, grinning wickedly, Soren picked it up and proved his worth.

Then effortlessly dropped it, causing it to slam and clang, before pushing it off to the side, leaving him with one last man.

One that looked a whole lot similar to him in build, but not in hair color.

Mostly because the man didn’t have any hair. He was bald as a baby’s ass and didn’t seem to care that he was.

“That’s Soren’s brother, Johan,” Sophia whispered. “Spelled with a J, not a Y.”

“Johan pronounced Yohan, got it.” I paused. “They’re both very lovely looking.”

“Lovely?” She snickered. “You mean, hot as fuck?”

I felt a flush rise in my face at the use of her words. “Yes, hot as fuck.”

Sophia snickered beside me. “I’ve had a crush on Johan as long as I can remember. He’s fourteen years older than me, and though I’m twenty-one, he looks at me like I’m still the snot-nosed kid I was when he first arrived here.”

I looked down at her. “You don’t look twenty-one. When I first looked at you, I would’ve bet that you were sixteen at most.”

She batted her eyelashes at me. “Good genetics, I guess. Dad looks super young, too, but he’s thirty-five.”

I started to add up the numbers, coming up with her father being fourteen when he’d had her.

But instead of saying anything, I chose to keep my mouth shut and keep my nose out of other people’s business. See, when I’d become a doctor, I’d come across a lot of tremulous situations, and this was definitely one of them if the set of her mouth was anything to go by.

I looked over at Madden who was leaning against a garland wrapped metal upright. He was grinning as both Soren and Johan circled around the bar.

“All right,” Madden announced just then. “We’re just going to see who can clean the most and call the winner.”

I had no clue what that meant.

Not until each of them added weight to the bar and then started to lift it up off of the ground and stop with the bar right around their shoulders.

At one point, Soren even picked it up and allowed it to bounce off of his collarbone, and I winced.

“This sport looks rough,” I admitted. “Like, they might have bruises after this.”

“There are bruises,” she agreed. “Rips of the skin on your hands from the bar. Sore muscles galore. When I first started, I was sixteen. I tell you what, I don’t have soft hands, and all the boys notice.”

I would’ve replied but then Johan picked up the barbell, was about to bring it to his shoulders, but couldn’t quite seem to get it and dropped it.

The sound of the barbell hitting from that high was deafening.

When it finally clattered loudly to a stop, Soren moved and then did his own ‘clean.’

Though, unlike his brother, he was able to lift it up to a ‘complete rep’ or whatever Sophia called it.

When he dropped it with a laugh, he gave his brother a high five and then turned to survey the group that was cheering for him.

That was when his eyes caught mine and my heart skipped a beat.