So far, he hasn't judged my music taste which is always great. All of my friends do, so he's already winning in my book. It's not awkward him being in my small little car with me, and I really thought it would be since I don't know him. I really did just say yes to a stranger, and now we're alone in my car where he could attack and/or kill me.

"No offense or anything but I'm just driving here, are we actually going anywhere?" I ask, quickly glancing over at him.

"Yeah, you're going the right way." He tells me.

"Hey, man, I need to know where I'm going." I say with a chuckle.

"Fine, we're going to a gym." He says casually and I scowl.

"A gym? You think that me, Francesca- I'm going to a gym?" I ask with a laugh and he nods. "You're mistaken."

"You seem to have a lot of anger or something. When you were working, your shoulders were always stiff and tense, you just look very... frustrated. To ease that, we either have sex or work out, I think you're going to comply more with the latter and I don't condone the first point unless it's totally consensual." He says and I stare at him for a second before focusing on the road.

"I've never been to the gym in my life." I say and he laughs so I look at him again.

"You're serious?" He asks and I nod with wide eyes. "Oh, well you certainly look like you've gone to the gym. Are you sure?"

"Am I sure that I've not been to the gym? Ethan I've never been surer in my life." I say with a dry chuckle and he joins me with his own laughter. "And to the sex thing, I would rather work out than have sex with you and that's saying something."

A total, complete lie. I would obviously rather have sex with him than workout. Of course I would. I think every single person on this earth would rather do him than workout, but I'm not going to say that.

"Ouch that hurts, it really does." He says and I smile over at him as I roll my eyes.

"You do realize I'm wearing jeans, right? I can't work out in this." I say, taking a left when he points to a building.

"I think there's something we can do, don't worry." He says and I sigh, shaking my head.

~~

Stepping through the heavy steal 'private only' door, he switches on the lights and as soon as they come on, I have to blink twice at my surroundings. When he said a gym, I magically thought of a few treadmills and bikes, but no, there's trampolines, boxing rings and things you wouldn't typically imagine to be in a gym. As I said I've never physically been to the gym before but I watch YouTubers go and enjoy the pain so I don't have to, so I kind of know.

The building itself is not very modern but it's massive. It's overwhelming and quite intimidating. It gives me a feeling of power, strangely enough.

"This is where I work." He says answering my question before I can even ask him.

"This is where you work?" I ask, peering around the place.

"Yeah, you're now talking to the junior manager and personal trainer. Hello." He smiles at me.

"It's amazing." I say before looking at him.

"Yeah, it's something alright. So, do you wanna get changed first because I don't think you'll do much moving around in those." He points at my blue jeans, and I scowl.

"I literally just said that in the car, dickhead." I mutter and he chuckles gesturing me to follow him so I do.

I don't know this guy and we're in a gym completely alone together. I should be scared or a little unnerved but I'm not. That's stupid of me, I know, but he doesn't give me any bad vibes. All he's done is make me laugh so far... and blush slightly.

"I don't think you'll appreciate wearing someone clothes that they've left here in the lost and found, so here is a shirt and some shorts. These are actually for the staff, so, this is our little secret, okay?" He asks and I giggle, taking the clothes from him.

"What size are they?" I ask, hoping they're not too big.

"Small?" He guesses and I groan, looking at the tags. Huh, they're actually a size small. "Are they okay for you, damsel?"

"When are you going to drop that name?" I ask, crossing my arms across my chest.

"Never." He says sweetly and I sigh, knitting my eyebrows together. "What's wrong?"

"Well I need to get changed, are you going to leave?" I ask with only a little bit of attitude.

"I wouldn't mind the show actually." He says and I scoff, of course.

"You're a pig." I tell him, but secretly I don't mind it. What is wrong with me?

"Fine, I'll leave. Here's the key, lock up and bring it out with you when you're ready." He says and I smile, taking it from between his fingers.

Once he's left, I turn the lock and sigh, looking around the room. It's a standard office with a laptop and everything, but with some sporty accessories scattering the room. There's a bag full of basketballs in the corner, some cones and more random stuff.

Before getting changed, I scan literally every surface and corner for a hidden camera, but thankfully I don't find one. Sorry that I'm paranoid. I may like the guy but I'm not that trusting, okay?

I wonder though, what would have happened if I did find a camera? I'd kick his ass, that's what.

The shorts are black and fit perfectly so I'm definitely keeping them. The shirt is grey and even though the sizing says small, it fits way too big on me so with the hair tie on my wrist, I tie it up at the back.

I can't believe I'm here at a gym of all places with Ethan. How did that happen? He didn't force me to come with him but here I am, and I'm not even sure why.

I stuff my clothes as best as possible into my small purse that I'm leaving on the desk in here, before I leave, locking the door behind me. Swinging the keys on my index finger, I make my way over to Ethan, wherever he is.

"Ethan!" I yell, humming slightly as I walk past the treadmills.

"I'm over here!" He yells back and I stop in my tracks, turning around. Yeah, I just walked in the opposite direction.

"Where?" I ask loud enough.

"The trampolines." He answers, his voice sounding somewhat muffled.

As I walk over to him, I mess with my already messy, messy bun, making it look somewhat okay. Messy buns look way better than neat ones, and no one can change my mind on that because it's just facts.

Once I walk past one of the trampolines, I have a feeling that Ethan lied about his whereabouts because I can't hear him no long, but when I walk past the next one, I see him uncovering the trampoline with a blue sheet.

"Hi." I say with a smile, feeling somewhat shy.

"You look good." He grins, sitting down on the bouncy trampoline

"Thank you, I see that you've changed also." I say, noticing that he's no longer wearing grey joggers and a hoodie, and he's now wearing an orange 'junior manager' shirt with black shorts.

"Yeah, I'm opening up in around an hour. So, what do you want to do?" He asks, and I cross my arms.

"Aren't you supposed to know?" I ask and he shrugs. "Well, I'm tempted to jump on here for the rest of my life because it looks fun."

"By all means but help me up and let me take this off first." He says gesturing to the sheet and I chuckle, grabbing his hand and he jumps to his feet.

"So, you're opening up in an hour?" I ask, frowning slightly. I know I shouldn't feel anything negative about that, but I actually hoped to have more time together. Is that so bad?

"Yeah, but don't worry about them, it's only usual members and they will hardly bother us. As you can probably tell, we're not exactly popular or whatever. It's really only used for a boxing gym." He says, and I hum, nodding as I grab the other end of the sheet, meeting him in the middle. We share a look but I don't hold it, smiling at him before jumping in the middle of the trampoline, landing on my ass with a fit of laughter. "You're a child. How old are you again?"

"Twenty." I answer, lying my head back, most likely making my hair look like I've got electrocuted.

"Seriously?" He asks and I nod, sitting up with a smile on my face. "You're in your second year though, right?"

"Yeah, well- actually take a seat, you're intimidating me." I say and he chuckles, throwing himself on the trampoline, landing on his ass with a couple of bounces.

"So, I intimidate you?" He asks.

"Yeah when you're standing before me." I chuckle, moving my hair out of my face.

"Understandable. Anyway, continue." He says and I proceed with a sigh.

"Here's the story. Basically my parents got pregnant with me when they were sixteen , so the saying 'go travel the world before you have kids' did not apply to them, and they brought me along with them. We were always traveling in a van and camping around, so we didn't have an actual house until we moved to New Haven. And because of that I missed out on kindergarten, so as soon as we moved, they enrolled me or whatever. I felt kind of stupid growing up because I was the eldest, and I was always picked on for being dumb or whatever when I'm not, I'm actually really smart. The stupid thing is though, I'm not even close to twenty-one, my birthday was only three weeks ago, so it's not like there's a difference in someone whose birthday is this month but kids being kids picked on you for the stupidest things." I ramble and he smiles, looking interested. "I won't lie though, I'm glad I was in the year below because I think being the youngest in the year would be incredibly hard especially with the course work, we get."

"I agree, but I'm kind of the same. I was one of the eldest in the year; I'm twenty-one in a couple of months. At school everyone's birthdays were near Christmas or just after, so I felt weird being older than people." He says and I nod, sighing. "So, you travelled when you were a child. Where did you go?"

"Where didn't I go?" I ask rhetorically thinking back on the photo albums. "As I said my parents were young, but they were both seventeen, my dad nearly eighteen when I was born. Neither of their parents accepted the choice that was to have me, so they had nowhere to go. My dad saved up, he bought a van and that was my home for my early childhood. We were always on the road, we never stayed somewhere more than a week. Obviously, I was very young so firsthand I don't remember much of anything, but my mom loved taking photos. I basically have my whole life documented in photo albums."

"That sounds great, I bet it was amazing." He mumbles and I nod, giving him a smile. "Your parents seem like nice people."

"My mom, yeah she... she's one of the most amazing people I've ever met. My dad was, but he changed with age. I personally think it's my own fault – and before you say, don't blame yourself, I really do think this is the truth." I say and he frowns, gesturing for me to go on. "He was like my best friend growing up, but now he's a stranger. Obviously, it's not my fault my mom got pregnant with me, but if it wasn't because of that, he wouldn't have been stuck with us. I know he had the choice to leave but he did love her, and he wouldn't. I think over time he just realized that he was in fact stuck in this."

"Did they ever marry?" He asks and I shake my head.

"No but it was to spite their parents." I say with a dry chuckle, finding it quite pathetic really.

"Have you ever met them?" He asks.

"Nope, I don't know their names either. It was one of those topics that were never spoken of, but I do know that it's the reason they didn't marry. They were engaged since they were eighteen though." I say and he smiles at me, a really wide smile. "What's with the smile?"

"Nothing, it's just nice hearing someone speak about their parents." He says and I frown at him.

"What about yours?" I ask and he groans, rubbing his hands over his face.

"I don't have any. I was born and raised in the care system." He says and my heart hurts for the guy in front of me. I know I shouldn't pity him but I can't help it.

"You never-" I start and he stands up, so I stop myself.

"For another day?" He asks, and I can tell he doesn't want to speak about it, so I don't want to press.

"Yeah, of course. For another day." I agree, lifting my hand and he takes it, helping me up.

"Thank you." He whispers and I smile weakly.

If I can have secrets, of course he can too. That would be hypocritical of me.

"So, since you told me so much about your amazing life, I guess I'll tell you a bit about mine. This is the gym I train... and work at." He says gesturing to the massive place. Wait, he trains here? "I told you in psych class that I knew what I wanted to do in my life. I hope to be a world champion boxer. I know it's a tough dream and most people think it's an awful job, but since I was a boy, I wanted to do it. I didn't exactly have a great upbringing, and I found my passion for this ugly sport at the age of seven."

"Wow." I whisper, feeling somewhat shocked but again not at all. I don't know what I expected actually.

"And I want to get you some gloves on." He says and I laugh, like full on belly laugh. He doesn't seem to be joking though. "Come on, Francesca."

"I can't punch to save my life." I say, following him and he looks at me like I've grown two heads.

"What would you do if you were getting mugged? Just sit there and look pretty?" He asks and I smile at that.

"So, you think I'm pretty?" I retort.

"Yes, but that's beside the point. You don't know how to defend yourself." He states and I nod, chuckling at his expression. "We're changing that."

I can't believe I'm letting him do this. Okay, maybe I do need to know some self-defense or at least know how to punch someone, but I just didn't expect that is what we would be doing.

"So, you fight?" I ask, still wrapping my head around it.

"Uh, yeah. Growing up I used to attend and participate in underground illegal fights; it was all very sketchy but I needed the money. I was fourteen trying to understand everything; life, myself, just everything. I'm glad and I don't regret it because I learnt a lot, and that's where I met Scar. He owns this gym. He basically took me under his wing, showed me how to fight properly, got me a place to stay, a job... and he paid of my tuition for Princeton. I owe him a lot, not just money but my whole life to the guy." He clears his throat, and I smile knowing he got a little sentimental there for a second.

I have so many questions regarding the whole illegal fights and everything, but we have time and right now, I don't think he wants to talk about it.

"Well, he seems like a great person." I say as we come to a stop, and he nods with a smile.

"Show me your hands." He says and I frown, not understanding him. He groans and grabs hold of my hands, putting them in front of him. "Fuck, you have small hands."

"Hey!" I exclaim, whacking his shoulder.

"It's true. Do you want me to lie?" He asks.

"Kind of, yeah." I say and he chuckles, grabbing a pair of red gloves from the side. "I'm not a snob or anything but please tell these aren't used."

"They're new, you see, not many people that come here have hands the size of fucking- I don't know." He says and I whine, frowning at him. "You look cute when you pout. Right one."

"I dislike you." I grumble, pushing my right hand into the glove. And they fit... just like a glove. I'm a funny person, I swear.

Once they're both on, I hit them together on instinct and he laughs, shaking his head.

"Just follow me to the bag." He says and I purse my lips together.

This can either go two ways; awfully or well.

~~~~~

A/N

This is one of my favorite chapters so far, and I'm so excited for the next one.

I want to keep my chapter lengths somewhat similar and if I continued writing, it would go way over and what's another chapter, you know?

Life update: My sister is getting a hamster and I'm questioning my sanity. Honestly there's nothing more to update you on!

Question of the chapter:

Favorite season? Mine is summer or late spring... I love the heat and the sun..

Thank you for reading! Please comment your thoughts, vote by pressing the little star, and if you want, you can like follow me too. Xx

3061 words!

~B