Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
It was bullshit to say the least.
“Let’s get started,” I grumbled.
One
Yet, despite the look on my face, you’re still talking.
—Coffee Cup
JASPER
Eight years later
“Wall balls suck. Running sucks. Rowing sucks. Handstand push-ups suck.”
Smiling as best as my fucked-up face could, I turned to the new girl and said, “Tell us how you really feel.”
She blushed and looked up at me, her eyes wide and surprised, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to notice her mutterings.
Normally, she might not have been noticed. But I tried to stay to myself. Staying to myself meant that I paid attention more.
“Oh, sorry.” She giggled. “Do you do cross-training a lot?”
“Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “My dad owned a cross-training gym. I’ve been in a gym most of my life.”
“Does he own this one?” she asked.
“No,” I answered. “He passed away quite a few years ago now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” She held out her hand to me. “I’m Bernadette Waters.”
“Bernadette.” I tasted the name on my tongue. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jasper Madden.”
She didn’t comment on my burn scars—most didn’t.
But she was the first woman that didn’t flinch when they shook my hand.
The burn scars were bad, and always would be.
That was what happened when you had third-degree burns that traveled the length of your right side when a bomb explodes only a few meters away from you.
It was weird, because in clothes, on the left side, I looked completely normal. Though, that wasn’t always the case. In the beginning, I had redness and swelling that made me appear much different. Now, the swelling and redness was gone, leaving me with a completely devastated right side.
One angle, I looked like the old me. The other? I looked like I stepped straight out of a horror show.
“Hi, Jasper.”
“Let’s get started, nine A.M.!”
I reluctantly pulled back from Bernadette and turned to face the coach, Alex.
I liked Alex a lot.
He was a great coach for being so young, and he had a great personality for someone that was running their own gym.
Personable. Tough. Yet could talk to just about anybody.
And he had a really funny habit of giving everyone a nickname that wasn’t quite complimentary.
No one truly cared, though. They loved it.
Hell, I didn’t even care when he called me Firebringer.
It was a solid nickname, considering.
“Today, we’re going to do wall balls and handstand push-ups. Who has their handstand push-ups?”
I didn’t raise my hand.
I didn’t like bringing attention to myself.
But the girl beside me wasn’t shy in the least when she said, “I can do one.”
My lips twitched.
The rest of the class was truly a treat, because Bernadette was there working out beside me, grumbling and complaining the entire way.
Even after class had ended, she was still ranting.
Just as I was about to go talk to the girl some more, a voice had me changing my mind.
“Jas!”
I turned to find my best friend, Harlow Degraw, standing there looking at me like she’d called my name multiple times, but I hadn’t answered.
Grinning sheepishly, I headed her way.
“What’s up?” I asked.
She’d been the only one to stay from day one after I’d woken up from my medically induced coma. She’d been there the day that I’d finally been able to talk and shared that I wasn’t Bayne Green. She’d been there the day I was sprung and allowed to go to Sophia’s wedding.
She’d been there through it all, and I loved her like my own sister.
She looked at me like I was nuts. “We were supposed to meet for lunch, remember?”
I looked at my watch and noted the time.
I still had at least thirty minutes until I was supposed to be there.
“Yeah?” I asked. “But wasn’t I supposed to meet you there?”
“Yes, but my car broke down, and I called you like twelve times.” She rolled her eyes.
I winced. “Sorry, Low. What’s wrong with it?”
The new girl slipped out as Harlow described everything that was going on with her car—which included a flat left front tire and the back left tire as well as some wheel well damage—and I cursed to myself.
I’d been working up the courage to ask for her number.
“You like her.”
I looked up at my best friend as I said, “Who?”
“The girl that just walked out of here.” Harlow smiled. “You should go ask for her number.”
“I was working up to that when you got here.”
She winced. “Sorry. Go ask for it now. I’ll wait here.”
I took one last, longing look at the knockout across the parking lot and sighed.
“I’ll never see her again,” I grumbled.
“Why?” Harlow asked.
“She was dropping in,” I murmured.
Harlow looked to where I was looking and her face twisted. “Not your usual type, Jas.”
“No,” I agreed. “And that’s why she’s pulling me in. Not my usual type.”
“If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”
It was meant to be.
The next day when she showed up for a second drop-in, I’d learned that she’d taken a contract with the local hospital where she was a travel nurse.