City of Champions: Jalen Hurts

3

"This is really nice, Jalen." Bri gushed before pouting. "But I have work in an hour. I wish we could hang but I didn't do enough work last night so now I have to go."

Jalen kept replaying Briana's recycled words in his head over and over again. They were getting kind of old but he still found himself trying to understand. Her work required a lot of attention and he'd known that for awhile now.

He set the weights down, sweat dripping from his body and face.

Jalen couldn't really blame the situation on anyone or anything because they were adults. They had to provide for themselves somehow because no one else was willing to do it.

But Jalen hardly had an hour alone with his girlfriend and at that point, was there even a point?

He groaned at the thought before making the choice to leave the gym for today. There wasn't any practice so Jalen was here for no reason.

The Eagles won their fifth straight game yesterday. It was against the Patriots on Monday Night Football and while they'd won by a lot of points, Jalen still felt there were ways for him to improve.

As Jalen walked down the stairs in the gym, he realized it wasn't empty.

Reese was here.

Reese arrived at the Eagles training facility thinking no one would be there. She liked it because it was free for her to exercise there. Plus, it was better than the gym at her school despite it being over an hour away.

It was empty and while Reese didn't mind working out in front of people, she'd rather not be sweating and squatting in Nike spandex shorts and a sports bra around grown men. She didn't like the thought that she was being stared at.

Deciding to squat the bar first, she placed her max on each side and stood in front of it carefully getting it set on her shoulders.

"Okay." She took a few steps back, and drew in several deep breaths before beginning to squat the bar.

She squatted it 10 times, before putting it back and crouching on the ground. Reese knew she should have someone spotting her but she didn't ever use one and didn't think she should start. That meant she had to talk to people while she was trying to focus which she didn't want to do.

Standing back up, Reese lifted the bar back onto her shoulders but this time she zoned out while squatting.

Weight lifting and pressing were things she used to do with her Mom. Her Mom weight lifted in college and her father power-lifted as well when he was younger. Jordan has been doing both since he was a kid.

"Shit." She hissed, feeling her thighs burn as she struggled to put the bar back up.

As Reese tried to keep herself upright long enough to put the bar back, 2 strong arms came from behind her and lifted the bar from her shoulders, onto the resting post.

Reese squatted, placing a hand on the mat in front of her. "Thank you."

"You dumb?" She heard a familiar voice from behind her. "You almost killed yourself."

She looked up at Jalen, rolling her eyes. "I'm fine."

"No, you not."

"I said I'm good." Reese stood up. "I'm fine."

Jalen squinted his eyes at her. "You just squatted 100 pounds 24 times. You easily like 120."

"I got this." Reese wobbled a bit and Jalen held a hand out to steady her. "I work out all the time."

He kept on. "But you pushin' yourself-"

"Can you just..." She trailed off, looking into his eyes as she released his arm. "Stop talking?"