of your résumé and sent them to you,” she said. “You should be able to tell which one is for what application by the way I named them.”
I had no doubt she’d made it idiot-proof. Not because she thought I was an idiot but because she was efficient that way. “Thanks.” I stood and stretched out the kinks from dozing on the couch. Again, I rubbed my shoulder before letting my hand drop. It didn’t really help, and I didn’t like to call attention to it. I looked down at Layla, noticing there was a tightness to her expression and circles under her eyes. Maybe it was a bad angle, but I didn’t think so. I felt like a shitty friend for not noticing sooner. “Are you okay?”
“Why do you ask?” She looked up at me. Definitely not the angle. She looked like hell, though I would never have said that to her. One, I valued my life. And two, because even looking bad, Layla still looked pretty damn amazing. Her long dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and for a moment, I wondered how it would look if I pulled it down, whether it would fall in waves from being wrapped up like that.
I shrugged in response to her question. “I don’t know. You seem stressed.”
She sighed. “It’s nothing. Just family stuff.”
Her vague answer clearly connoted that she didn’t want to talk about it, so I nodded in understanding. Families could be complicated. I was going home that weekend and meeting with my high school football coach to finalize the plans for the football boot camp I was putting on with Connor. Coach Smith had been like a father to me, which was more than I could say about my own. I hoped I would be able to get through the visit without a blow-up with my father, but the odds weren’t in my favor.
Just thinking about it made my muscles twitch, making me anxious to get moving. Going to the gym was better than lying on any therapist’s couch, or so I assumed. I didn’t have firsthand knowledge.
“You should come lift with me,” I suggested, thinking Layla could use my brand of therapy.
She blinked. “What?”
“You should lift weights with me. It helps with stress.”
“I do yoga,” she said, as if that explained everything.
I waited a beat. “It doesn’t seem like yoga is getting it done.”
She opened her mouth to retort then put her face in her hands. “You actually have to do the yoga for it to work,” she admitted through her fingers.
“Then come with me,” I said again. “You already have stretchy pants on, so you don’t even have to change.”
“Stretchy pants?”
I gestured to the pants, which were hugging her lower half in all the right places. “Isn’t that what they’re called?”
She laughed, and although she was laughing at me, I was pleased to hear the genuine sound. “They’re yoga pants.”
“Okay, whatever. They’ll work for lifting.” It wasn’t like me to pressure someone, especially an inexperienced lifter, into working out, but I felt bad that she’d spent an hour on my shit when she was already stressed. Helping her with that stress was the least I could do.
Too bad we weren’t friends with benefits. Then I could really help her relieve stress. I would have been lying if I said that was the first time the idea had crossed my mind. Layla was fucking hot. Sex complicated things, though, and that was the last thing I wanted.
“Maybe another time,” she said. “I’ve got a lot on my plate today.”
I really felt like a tool, but she easily could have told me “no” when I’d asked for her help. I knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t be able to work while she was distracted. Getting her mind of her family problems would help.
“Come on.” I grabbed her hands and pulled her to a standing position. “You’ll get your stuff done faster if you burn off some stress.” I could be a stubborn son of a bitch when I wanted to be. Resistance was futile.
“I really do not want to work out in a gym full of football players,” she protested. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’ll look like an idiot.”
She made a good point, but for reasons other than what she had said. I didn’t think for one second that she would look like an idiot, but she didn’t need all my teammates gawking at her either.
“We’ll