Addicted (The Addicted Series, #1)(91)

I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly. "Told you it was magical."

"Four times," Kim muttered to herself, shaking her head as she went back to sipping her drink through a straw. "You know; you should get some sort of reward for that. Four times . . . now, do you mean four times total, or four times . . . you know?"

I took a sip and smiled. "Four times of mind blowing you know. He had two himself."

"What were the other two?"

"Once with his tongue, once with his right hand. The right hand was in the shower."

Kim contained herself that time, and we went back to sipping her drink. "So how is it you can walk today?"

"Very slowly, although I'll have some time to recover. He's going back to LA until Tuesday, closing out his stuff there. He asked if he could move in with me."

"And what'd you say?"

"What do you think I said? Of course I said yes," I replied. "Of course, we still need to figure out how we're going to tell John and Mom, but we'll get past that, I'm sure."

"You sure about that? Krystal, you know I have no qualms about it, hell I'm glad for you two, but I'm not Sandra or John. I mean, your mom is cool and all, but is she that cool?"

"I think so. No, I take that back, I know so. And if not . . . well, we'll make it on our own."

Kim looked over at me, and I shrugged. "Okay, with our trust funds too. Those can't be taken away from us, at least mine can't. And he's taking the test this weekend, he's going to get into personal training."

"That's a tough gig, you know. Lots of sales," Kim replied. "But, if anyone's got the look, he does. God that man looks like he could pick up a small car if he wanted to. Can he control it?"

"Oh yeah," I said with a grin. "Lots of control."

We finished our drinks, and Kim reached over and took my hand. "Krystal, I'm happy for you, I really am. Just be careful. I'm not saying careful of him, I'd have never told him the truth if I thought he would turn around and hurt you. But a lot of the world isn't ready for a situation like yours, and you might run into problems. I guess what I'm saying is, if you need help or support, you know you can call on me."

"I know," I said, squeezing her fingers. "So tell me about what's up with you."





* * *



Julian



"Alright, your time starts now."

I could feel the shakes in my hand as I looked down at the test. Randy, the manager at Metroflex, had pulled some strings to get me into the session, and I'd been cramming ever since getting on the plane Thursday morning. In between stopping by the LA County Courthouse, where one of the clerks knew my name, to going by my lawyer's office to sign the paperwork to allow him to get the ball rolling on closing out what I couldn't stick around for, I hadn't had as much study time as I wanted. Now, with a mechanical pencil in my hand, a cheap pocket calculator next to me, and a twenty-five page, three hundred question test booklet in front of me, panic was beginning to set in.

You can do it, Julian, I heard Krystal whisper in my mind. Now just buckle down, and start right with question one. You keep plugging away at it.

I knew the words were just a little bit of self-delusion, but it got me moving. I opened up the book, and read the first question. Which blood pressure is considered a risk factor for cardiovascular disease?

I grinned and bubbled in my answer. For the next four hours, I worked steadily, letting my mind not get too caught up on the things I flat out didn't know.

While I had years on years of practical experience, there were certain things that were brand new to me. Randy had explained it to me in person on Friday afternoon while he ran me through a review session. "These certification groups, they know that because of the way state laws are, there's no actual way they can force everyone to be certified by them. Hell, most places don't even require you to have a cert at all if you're willing to carry your own insurance on it. So this test you're gonna take, it's just to stick some letters after your name to help get you in the door with places. But to make sure their cert isn't seen like some sort of joke, they put in a ton of words that they make up themselves. NSCA, ACE, ACSM, NASM, whatever, they all test the same stuff on the practical side of things. You're just going to have to try and remember as much of the jargon as you can. You'll do fine if you just use your brain, amigo."

I'll admit some of it was harder than I thought it would be. I mean, I really had to guess on some of the science questions. I honestly didn't know just how protein is synthesized in the body or what energy systems are used within the muscle to create contractile force. But at the same time, I look at it this way. There are a lot of doctors who could tell you everything about the individual muscles or could give me lectures on the chemistry inside the body, but who couldn't train someone at all. Both specialists, but in different fields.

I didn't let it get me down, and finished most of the questions within the first two hours. The remaining two hours I spent trying my best to figure out the questions that I had an inkling on, and then the last two minutes I just bubbled in guesses on the last ten questions I had no clue on. It was one of those types of tests, where a blank was counted the same as a wrong answer. When the test giver called time, I looked around at the other forty people in the room, and felt confident. I could tell some of the other test takers were college students, people who made studying and test taking their jobs, and they looked worried. I wasn't, I knew my stuff.