Quit Bein' Ugly (The Southern Gentleman #3) - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,2

Gun Barrel Police Department as well and was as cute as could be.

Sadly, I couldn’t focus on him because all my eyes saw was Croft.

“How’re the legs feeling today?” I asked him, tapping his foam roller with my tennis-shoed foot.

He grimaced.

“Awful,” he grumbled. “The decision to go up on my weight seemed good at the time. Now? Not so much. I thought this getting into shape thing was going to be great. That I’d feel better. But all it’s done was show me how to live sore.”

I laughed.

“That’s true,” I agreed. “One would think that by working out that we would be less sore than we are. But seriously, I’ve been doing CrossFit for years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever not been sore.”

I turned slightly and showed him my thigh, which had a bruise along the top right where my shorts rose. I even had to lift my shorts up a bit to show him the angry bruise.

“This is from hang cleans yesterday,” I said.

There was a curse that caused me to look over at Croft to see him narrowing his eyes in our direction.

I was just about to move away from Schultz when Karen touched his arm and brought his attention to her own scrawny-ass legs.

I could fucking bench press her.

The heifer.

I turned back to Schultz to see him bringing up his own shorts to show off his bruises from yesterday.

We were laughing by the time I moved them to the rowers.

All the while, I kept my eyes away from Karen and Croft.

Because if I didn’t, things were going to go south. Really fucking fast.

By the time the workout was over, I knew that I was wrong.

Things hadn’t been nearly as ‘bad’ as I’d thought before.

Now? They were truly bad.

Every other word out of Karen’s mouth was how hot or sexy he was, and Croft laughed it off to the point where I realized that he must not fucking care that I was there listening to it all.

In the end, after the workout was finished, I decided that the next workout that Flint taught, I was going to go lift in the fucking corner.

Fuck my date.

Fuck Croft.

And really fuck Karen.

Because I hated her, and I hoped that she strained her ass muscles today and couldn’t walk for the next couple of days.

And the bitch was right.

She didn’t sweat.

Though, I hadn’t seen her put much of an effort into the workout. She’d spent more time hanging on Croft and stroking his ego than she had working out.

Hell, she’d never even put up her hair.

Croft was so focused on Karen and helping her ‘stretch out’ after that ‘hard workout’ that he never even noticed me slipping out the side door and heading to my favorite place in the gym.

The kids’ room where all the little kids worked out. And where I worked out when the kids’ gym sessions weren’t taking place.

When I arrived into the room, it was to find Schultz standing there with his nieces.

“How’d you do?” Schultz asked his seven-year-old niece, Petra.

Petra held up her arm and flexed it, making Schultz gasp in feigned surprise. “Oh, wow! That’s one hell of a gun you got there! You better put it away before you get arrested.”

Schultz’s niece, Ashlie, bounded up to his side and showed him her muscles, too.

At almost six-years-old, she was the cutest little thing that I’d ever seen.

“Look at mine, Wuncle Will!”

Schultz’s first name was actually Wilhelm.

“I’m hungry. Where are we eating?” Peter asked as he launched himself at Schultz.

Schultz sighed. “Chick-fil-A, I guess. Since that’s all that Lie-Lie will eat.”

Chick-fil-A actually sounded pretty darn good right now.

I’d started to seriously lower my intake of food as I tried in vain to get rid of my stubborn belly fat. However, all that the dieting seemed to do was make me pissy enough that I ate like a horse by the time three days of eating well had passed.

Honestly, it was probably a good thing that I’d decided that Croft and I weren’t going to happen.

He was likely used to the way that Karen ate. I wasn’t a dainty eater. Even when I ate ‘healthy’ I still ate. I couldn’t survive on no food.

Karen probably ate a small, leafy green salad with vinaigrette dressing and said she was ‘full.’ The lying twat waffle.

“Thanks for everything, Carmichael. Have a good day!” Schultz called as he shuffled his kids out the door.

I waved and then walked to the back of the room to start loading everything up that