If You Really Love Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

is history. It shriveled away after we finished signing in, buying new sweatpants for me, and getting locks at the front desk. Saul led the way across the lobby to the door that went to the locker room. That was when it hit me that I was about to see Saul undressed, a temperature-raising prospect for sure, but it had an unfortunate flipside: Saul was about to see me undressed.
    I’m looking at his butt again as we walk down the hall, yet my whole body is tingling with cold dread. He’s talking—babbling actually—as we go, repeatedly looking back over his shoulder at me, a bundle of excitement. I don’t understand a word he says. We turn at the first door to our left, and we’re in the locker room. The dark green lockers line the walls, with wooden benches spaced out in front of them. In the rear wall is another door that goes to the showers. Except for us, the locker room is empty, although I can hear the hissing spray of showers beyond.
    Oh jeez. What the hell am I doing here?
    Saul stops walking abruptly and turns to me. “Ellis?”
    “Huh?”
    “I said, have you ever worked out before?”
    “No. I mean, I took PE up through tenth grade because it was mandatory, so I’ve done calisthenics and stuff, but nothing like working out in a gym.”
    “No problem. I’ll show you the ropes.” He goes to a set of lockers that don’t have any locks dangling from them and dumps his duffel bag on one of the benches. He opens one of the lockers and starts getting out of his jacket. I go to a locker several spaces up from the one he’s chosen so that I have a bench all to myself and we’re not so close to each other.
    He’s humming one of the rock songs we heard on the radio as he pulls his hair back from his face and ties it in a ponytail with a rubber band. He hangs his jacket in the locker and then pulls off his sweater, and that’s when I see that his leanness is an illusion. Saul is a big guy. Not big as in fat but big as in built. Under the sweater he is wearing a white tee, and it clings tightly to wide shoulders, biceps that bulge up to the size of cantaloupes with every move, a broad chest, and ripped abs. All the hugeness of his torso tapers down to a waist as narrow as mine. He hangs up the sweater, kicks off his sneakers, unbuttons his jeans, shoves them down, and steps out of them. Under the jeans, he is wearing a pair of navy, knee-length workout shorts that display his thick, muscular legs.
    I’m intimidated, titillated, and confused, all at the same time. He wears all those loose, oversized clothes at school to make himself look smaller than he actually is. To hide a body that is… oh hell, it’s gorgeous. Why does he do that? I’ve watched guys on the football team run drills in tees and shorts, and none of them have a body as good-looking as Saul’s. Why doesn’t he show off his muscles the way the jocks at school do?
    After his jeans are hung in the locker, he sits down on the bench to pull on his sneakers. He looks up at me. It takes a second for me to realize I’m staring at him. My face heats up with a blush, and I look down as if there’s something very interesting going on with my feet.
    “Say, man, get a move on,” he urges. “What’re you waiting for?”
    I see in the brightness of his brown eyes how eager he is to move on to the gym and get at those machines and free weights. Still, I hesitate. I look like a skeleton next to an average guy. I don’t want Saul to see me undressed. I don’t want any of the guys in this place to see me undressed.
    Saul stands up and walks over to me. “Hey,” he says quietly, and I look up at him. There’s something gentle and patient in his face. “Ellis, you don’t have to be nervous or ashamed or anything. Every bodybuilder in the world had to start somewhere. And building up shouldn’t be hard for you. You’ve got great body structure.”
    I can feel a timid little smile tug at one corner of my mouth. “Thanks,” I reply.
    “Okay, then.