He found a shady spot in the grass beneath a Spanish oak tree and laid out the black mat. It was hot in the sun, but there was a slight breeze that, combined with the shade, made me glad we had moved outside.

“Lay down,” he commanded and I shivered again. His eyes were on me as he moved down to sit beside me, holding the tennis ball in his hand. “I’m going to roll out your muscles. You can do this at home, too — with a foam roller, a tennis ball, or just your hands.”

I nodded and he slowly moved his right hand to my right quad. The moment his hands touched my leg through the thin fabric of my workout pants, I sucked in a breath that I forgot how to let go of. He applied pressure, softly rolling his fingers over the muscles. I winced, and then groaned in a mixture of pain and pleasure when he hit a spot that sent an electric current through my entire leg and up to my hip.

His eyes snapped to mine when I groaned, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he moved the ball to replace his hand and began rolling it up and down my quad. I tried not to make any noise, but every time he hit that spot, I involuntarily moaned again, closing my eyes and letting the unfamiliar mixture of feelings overtake me as I gripped the edge of the mat. It hurt like hell but then again it felt amazing. I was so confused.

“It’s a trigger point,” Rhodes finally said. “It’s like a knot that forms in your muscle. Rolling it out will release it and allow you to move properly again without the pain you’re feeling now.”

I nodded, but words were lost for me at the moment. He moved to the opposite leg and the process started all over again. It started off incredibly painful, but at the same time I enjoyed it, and when I stopped moaning, he would move to a different area of my body. He worked meticulously, and I peeked an eye open to glance at him from time to time, watching as his eyes skated over my body while he worked.

When he moved to my abdomen, I cringed, my hands flying down to cover my fat. It was then that I realized how vulnerable I was in that position.

Rhodes paused, the ball just above my navel. “It’s fine, Natalie,” he said softly, grabbing my hands and placing them back at my sides. “You need to do abdominal work today and it’s not going to be effective if you’re hurting this badly.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, but timidly laid my head back down and stared up at the moss flowing in the breeze. It moved fluidly, casting the sun’s light in a wave over Rhodes’ face as he tenderly rolled the ball around my upper abs. When his thumb grazed the bottom of my sports bra, I had to suck both of my lips between my teeth and bite down to keep from moaning for a completely different reason. What was wrong with me? Rhodes eyed me cautiously, but didn’t acknowledge it.

“You went to Poxton High,” he said after a moment. I waited for him to say something else, but he left it at that.

“Yeah, I was a freshman when you were a senior.” I groaned a little louder as he moved to my upper chest. I was incredibly sore there from the push-ups and burpees we’d been doing.

“Poxton High,” he mused. “That title have anything to do with your last name, by chance?”

I laughed a little. “My step-dad. He kind of owns, well, almost everything in this town. Including the high school.”

He nodded, but didn’t comment. “And you were a freshman when I was a senior?”

This time I nodded, but he had moved the ball to my biceps and I was focusing on not making noises that would cause my cheeks to heat.

“Roll over,” he demanded. As I did, I noticed his brows knitted together in concentration, even when he wasn’t rolling the ball. I wasn’t sure why he was suddenly talking to me. Maybe because of the fit I threw the day before. Whatever the cause, I wasn’t going to question it. I was thankful to not work in silence. And as strange as it sounds, getting that ball rolled over my muscles felt a lot like work.

“I just don’t understand,” he said as he began rolling the ball up my calf. I moaned out loud, realizing that area was packed with trigger points, as he had called them.

“Don’t understand what?” I asked, still holding my breath as he rolled over my other calf. I leaned up on my elbows and turned my head back to meet his eyes.

He paused, holding the ball in place as he gazed back at me. “How could I never have noticed you before?”

I swallowed, almost more afraid of the brief tenderness I caught in his eyes in that moment than the usual hardness that existed there.

Shrugging, I answered his question just above a whisper. “I’m easy to miss.”

I held his eyes for a moment more before laying my chest back to the ground, resting my head on my arms. He started rolling the ball up my hamstrings and I closed my eyes tight. I thought I might explode from the mixture of pain and pleasure that rocked through my body. After a few moments, he spoke again.

“Maybe I just wasn’t looking.”

My eyes shot open, but I didn’t respond.

Rhodes finished rolling out my muscles and then we headed back into the gym without another word. He didn’t work me any less than the days before, but he was more patient, taking the time to explain the drills to me and making sure I took the rest I needed between sets. Still, he pushed me hard, and sweat was dripping furiously down my face and into my eyes as I drove home that evening with the windows down. The salty water was irritating my contacts, but I didn’t swipe it away. In fact, I didn’t even care. My mind was too busy running over the words I’d heard Rhodes say to give attention to anything else. They played over and over again in my head until I was sure I’d dream of them that night.

Maybe I just wasn’t looking.

No matter how many times I replayed the words, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he meant. And I was right. I thought about it so much that when the night came, I dreamed of Rhodes for the second time.

And for what I knew wouldn’t be the last.

I told Mom and Dale about my weigh-in the next morning and they both flipped out. Mom jumped up from her barstool excitedly and wrapped me in a bone-crushing hug while Dale clapped me on the back. His hand lingered there as I told them about how my sessions had been going. Dale joked about taking us out for ice cream to celebrate and I shrugged out from under his hand and glared at him. He laughed, then, and I joined him. I was happy. It was a good start to what I hoped would be a life-changing summer.

My session with Rhodes was pushed back to six that night and by the time we finished at eight, I was starving. We’d had another great session, and I felt us falling into a comfortable rhythm. He talked to me a little more, which made me happy, and I learned not to push him when he stopped talking and focused on working, instead. Maybe we were figuring each other out, after all.