He huffed out a laugh. “You want some irony? I spent the entire drive here mentally rehearsing how to tell you this exact thing, how I couldn’t allow what happened on Mount Bonnell to let me lose focus of my goal.” He shook his head. “My trip back home put a lot of things into perspective for me, Taylor. I have so much riding on this. Not just me, but people I care about. I can’t allow anything to distract me.”

She folded her arms, grasping her elbows in her hands. “So? What does this mean?”

“That I’m back to taking cold showers that don’t work worth a damn,” Jamar said.

“They totally don’t,” Taylor agreed. She paused for a moment, then continued. “You mentioned possibly keeping me on as your trainer even after our agreed upon two months. Were you serious?”

“I would be a fool not to,” he said. “I had high expectations when I hired you, but did I think I would be able to crush an agility drill this early into our training? Hell no. That’s all you. The fitness regimen you created is as effective as anything the trainers I worked with both in college and the pros ever put together. If I get back into the League, I’ll need to maintain this level of conditioning, which means I’ll need you long-term.”

Taylor tried not to completely lose her shit, but her chances of spontaneously combusting from excitement were pretty high.

Calm down!

She needed to adopt Jamar’s more realistic approach to this whole thing. It wasn’t a guarantee that he would make it back into the League, so she shouldn’t get ahead of herself here.

Yet, Taylor felt the anxiety over having to take that college entrance exam melting away in real time. If he hired her as his full-time, long-term fitness coach, she would no longer need to put herself through the agony of getting her degree, not if she negotiated a rate similar to what he was paying her. Hell, she would even continue with the free meal prep. He could never fully understand what this promise of job security meant for her.

At the same time, Taylor had to acknowledge the ache of what might have been. Having an end date to their professional relationship had left a door open to them possibly exploring something real. If Jamar decided to keep her on the payroll, it would essentially close that door.

You can’t have it both ways, Taylor Renee.

Life was a hodgepodge of tough choices pitted against even tougher choices, and no one ever said you were guaranteed to like either.

“When I agreed to work with you, I never thought of these eight weeks as a job audition, but I guess that’s what they are,” Taylor said.