Bond (Klein Brothers 1)

Now that we were here, I could see his three brothers at the far end. Reid on his back, lifting a weight, while Jarrod and Canon watched and discussed something.

They all did it. How crazy was that?

“And you do this voluntarily?” I asked slowly, making sure he wasn’t being coerced into it.

His lips twitched. “I do. Working out’s not only good for your body and health, but it’s also good for your mental health, too.”

I had nothing to say to that. For me, my mental health was balanced by my daughter, my family, him, my job, and just doing things that made me happy. And I repeat—all of those things involved movement, which counted as working out.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Bond smiled widely at me. “I can see you’re not looking forward to this.”

Throwing my arm out to point at the machine next to us, I argued, “I just don’t see the point in it. You run on that machine, but you don’t get anywhere. Why would you do that?”

“That’s an elliptical machine, not a running one, and people usually do it because they don’t want to run for miles outside. It’s easier for them to do it inside.”

My head jerked at the explanation. “What the shit’s an elliptical machine? See what I mean? There’s one for everything, but if I want to run or walk somewhere, I do it where man intended for it to happen—outside. Do you think back at the beginning of evolution, apes thought it’d be wiser to walk in the same spot? Perhaps Cro-Magnon Man found a rock to use as a stepping machine?”

His head fell back as he burst out laughing, making the muscles on his stomach ripple visibly through his t-shirt. Yum!

“Holy shit, Bond, you managed to get her here?” Canon chuckled as he walked up to us, leaving Jarrod watching Reid, who was still lifting weights.

Huh, these guys needed to try lifting a baby who grew at a crazy rate for three years while juggling work and all of the movement it involved.

“She’s arguing about evolution, the pointlessness of running on a machine and not getting anywhere, and that perhaps cave men used rocks as elliptical machines,” Bond snickered, revealing all of my embarrassing—yet, correct—suppositions to his brother.

Ah, so that’s what an elliptical machine was. So why did they have those step things, too? I’d seen them in a movie once, and it never really made sense to me.

“You’ve got a point,” Canon said, winking at me and making him my favorite Klein at that moment.

“So I don’t need to try anything. Cool, I’ll sit here and read a book on my phone,” I suggested brightly, feeling happier about the situation now. I didn’t mind doing my own thing while Bond worked out.

Grabbing my hand and preventing me from walking away, Bond shook his head. “No, you’re going to try working out. It’s good for your health.”

“I’m healthy enough as it is,” I argued. Then I had a lightbulb moment. “Are you telling me I need to lose weight?”

I swear, all noise in the gym stopped, and Canon looked around us, like he was searching for somewhere to hide.

“What?” Bond spluttered, looking at his brother for support. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

Seeing that I’d found his Achilles heel, I pouted. “That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

“No, I just…” his mouth opened and closed as he searched for the right thing to say. “You go read your book, and I’ll do a quick workout, okay?”

Smiling sadly at him while I jumped for joy inside, I pointed at one of the machines that looked like a tiny seat on a bar close to the ground. “I’ll sit on there. Do you think it’ll hold my weight?”

“Of course it will. There’s nothing wrong with your weight.” And with that, Bond turned and almost ran to where his brothers were, leaving me with Canon.

“Damn, you’re good. If I hadn’t seen that play out up close, I’d never have believed it went down the way it did.”

Smiling at my man’s brother, I waved and walked over to the machine. “Have fun. I know I will.”

I might have felt guilty, but I did end up buying and downloading an excellent book. I also discovered about ten minutes into it that I was sitting on a rowing machine which was kind of fun to use.

So, with my air pods in my ears, I changed to the audio version of the book using one of my credits and listened as I slowly rowed to nowhere. By the time Bond was done, I was an hour into the book, staring into space as I rowed away.

It wasn’t until he crouched down beside me that I snapped out of the world I’d rowed myself into, where all that existed was the mental image of what was happening in the book at that moment.