Mending Heart |18+|

Chapter 26

Feel Better

"You're worthy of being chosen, fought for, and loved. Remember that." – Mark Groves

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"You dragged me out of the comfort of my apartment for this?" I cocked an eyebrow, my eyes shifting between him and the large building he was parked in front of. After Ethan threatened to forcefully throw me over his shoulder if I didn't cooperate, I grudgingly agreed and followed him out to his car – no idea where he was taking us.

"Yes." He replied, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car to walk around to my side. Opening my door as well, he looked at me expectantly.

"Are you serious?" I asked in disbelief, picking up my step so that I was walking next to him.

He brought me to a gym.

A fucking gym.

Following him as he led us through the revolving door entrance, I asked, "Are you trying to tell me I'm fat?"

Ethan twisted his head just enough to be able to shoot me a glare, before handing the receptionist a card. "You ask too many questions."

When the receptionist was all done checking us in, she handed him back his card and told us to go ahead. Trailing behind Ethan as he led us towards the back of the room, my eyes scanned the surroundings. The place was large and heavily equipped with workout gear. However, unlike your regular LA Fitness gym, this place only had two or three treadmills and stair masters. Instead, they had an unnecessarily large amount of weight-lifting workout equipment and punching bags.

"What is this place?" I found myself asking.

"Did you skip your morning coffee or something?" Ethan retorted, setting his black duffle bag on the ground once we reached a set of red mats in the back.

"No." I scowled, folding my arms across my chest. "Did you skip your morning yoga?"

"You don't typically ask such stupid questions," Amusement laced his voice as he dug around inside the duffle bag. "It's a gym McKenzie. Where people work out?"

"And you're typically not such an ass." I scoffed, hands on my hips.

"Looks like we're both full of surprises today." He glanced up long enough to flash me a smile. 

"Put these on," Ethan instructed, handing me a pair of red boxing gloves. I hesitantly took them from him, staring at them as if they were a foreign object. I was about to protest, but one look at hiss face and I knew better.

I managed to get the left glove on with no issues, but when it came to the right one, I looked constipated trying to put it on without the use of my other hand. "Here," Ethan chuckled, taking my right hand and helping me adjust the strap.

"Now what?" I asked stupidly.

"Now you hit me." He deadpanned, standing in front of me.

"What?"

"Hit me."

"I'm not going to hit you, Ethan," I said breaking eye contact so that I could focus on taking the stupid gloves off.

And he said I was insane.

"Stop." He took two steps forward, closing the distance between us and readjusting the gloves on my hands.

"I'm not going to hit you. You could get seriously hurt." I scowled, balling my hands into fists inside the gloves.

"I told you to hit me." He smirked, taking in my reaction. "I didn't say you were actually going to get a successful hit in."