I slept as soundly as I had in weeks that night, my worries eased into nothing more than fleeting thoughts. I couldn’t remember the last time my dreams were so peaceful that not only did I not remember them, but they left no impact. The worst feeling had to be stress from a dream you couldn’t even remember. That the early feeling of morning ripped it from your mind without mercy. Then again, maybe I didn’t want to know the evils my stressed mind would conjure.

When I heard the distant sound of Roman’s alarm going off and felt him stir, for once, I was stirred with him. I peered up to him in the pitch black before gazing over to his alarm clock. "Why do you get up so early?" I croaked to him with a little laugh.

He leaned over me and kissed my lips briefly. "Because I have to keep up this physical form if I’m going to look good for you," he chuckled back.

"You work out this early?" I asked. My mind immediately ran through all the food, cocktails, and beer I had over the week. While I was naturally on the lean side, I wanted to stay that way. "Mind if I come with you?"

"You want to work out with me?" he asked, to which I nodded and let out a little ’uh huh’ in response. "Okay, sounds good."

I got up and scurried over to the closet as he walked into the bathroom. I slid on a sports bra, a pair of biker shorts, tank top, and a sweater. By the time I was moving over to the bed to put on my socks and shoes, Roman was coming out of the bathroom with a smile on his face. "What is it?" I asked him.

"What’s what?" he shot back.

"What’s the smile about?"

He shrugged but the smile only grew wider. "Just looking forward to spending the morning with my lovely wife."

Once we were all ready to go, we moved downstairs to the gym together. I don’t think I had ever been in there, but I shouldn’t have been so shocked by just how wonderful it was. It was the size of a full, professional gym, with all the equipment someone could ever want. We moved over to the matted floor and began stretching together.

"What’s your routine?" I asked him as I bent over, trying to touch my toes.

"I run a mile, and then I do some weight lifting. Today is squats," he informed me. "What about you?"

"Taking the stairs down to the kitchen," I joked. It managed to earn a chuckle from him. "Can I just do what you do?"

"Of course," he smiled. "I’ll be happy to help."

Once we were nice and limber, we moved over to treadmills. "Four treadmills? Isn’t that excessive?" I asked, a bit amused as we got on ones next to each other.

"Likely," he chuckled. "I guess I just wanted a true gym set up. In case I ever had guests who wanted to work out too."

"Oh, to be a rich man," I teased.

We shared a little laugh and began the mile. It was no surprise to me that Roman completely smoked me. He finished his mile in seven minutes, whereas it took me twelve—and that was with me really pushing myself. By the time I was stepping off of the treadmill, I had to double over and hold my knees while I struggled to catch my breath.

He handed me a water bottle that I hadn’t seen him carry in or drink from himself during the duration of his run. I downed a good portion of it and took another few deep breaths before standing up straight. "I went easy on you. Didn’t want to hurt your ego since you do this every day," I joked.

He laughed, "Oh really? Is the out of breath routine just a show to make me feel better?"

"I’m glad it’s obvious," I grinned.

We moved together to a couple of squat racks that were in front of a mirror. I wasn’t sure how I felt about watching myself workout. As if he could read my mind, Roman chimed in, "It’s so you can make sure your form is correct. Standing the wrong way or holding the weight awkwardly can be pretty damaging to the body."

"Oh," I blinked. I had never weight lifted before and just assumed moving the weight around would be enough to workout. Though I supposed it made sense that you could easily hurt yourself.

Roman moved behind me and helped me hold the barbell correctly. Without any additional weight on it, he guided me through the movement. With care, he gently moved my hips and legs to make sure I squatted with the best form.

"Good job," Roman complimented as I racked the bar. "Now, what you’re going to do is take these plates, and increase in increments of twenty. Once you hit a max weight that you can comfortably do, you’ll do four sets of four reps."

"Oh, okay. Sounds easy enough," I nodded.

"Weightlifting is easy, in theory. It’s just a matter of learning the forms and learning your own limits. Pushing past those limits is the easiest way to get hurt."

Roman then pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a few times before music came on through the surround sound system he must have installed at some point. It was a fast pace, heavy bass, EDM sort of style of music. I supposed that, if there was ever a reason to listen to that kind of music outside of a rave, it would be in the gym.

It took me a little while to find the weight I was comfortable with, but it was still a bit of a challenge. I was worried that I would take too long and hold back his workout, but Roman took a while to warm up to his weight. I ogled at the amount of the forty-five-pound plates that were on his bar. My mind thought surely the bar would bend, at least a little bit, when he went to pick it up. However, it didn’t.

Set by set, we managed to push through. I was surprised by just how much weight I could handle starting out, but he let me know women tended to have pretty strong legs.

Once we were done with the squats, we moved over to a machine that looked like a weird bench with metal bars that went over your lap. He put weights on both sides of the machine and sat down to show me how it worked. It was weight calf raises. When it was my turn, I beamed at the discovery I could lift as much as he could. In response, he mumbled again about women and their strong legs.

Following that, we did twenty minutes on an elliptical machine, and then took turns holding one another’s feet as we did sit ups. Just as we were finishing up with that, an alarm chimed on his phone.

When I came up from my last set up, he pressed a kiss to my lips. "It’s time to get going."

I followed him out of the gym and to the kitchen, where Geoffrey had prepared him a slice of egg and avocado toast and a protein shake. Much to my surprise, just as we sat at the kitchen bar, Geoffrey slid a plate toward me. "How did you know I was up?" I asked him.

"Roman never plays the surround sound in the gym. I figured it meant he wasn’t wearing headphones because he had company," he replied plainly.

"How deductive," I smiled then turned my attention to Roman. "You eat this every morning?"

"It has lots of protein, healthy fats, and carbs," he stated.

"I never knew you took such good care of yourself," I stated.

He winked at me as he replied, "I don’t stay looking like this just because of genetics."

"Maybe I’ll start joining you every morning," I grinned at him. "I wanna grow old with you, but I don’t want to grow old and fat."

"I would love it if you joined me," Roman smiled. "There’s never any pressure though."

We shared our quick breakfast before going upstairs to shower. We showered together, though Roman got out before I did to hurry along his morning routine. I was preoccupied with how nice the morning routine was, and how it would be a way for us to spend a little more time together. Maybe I really would make it a daily thing. It might be good for me to have a bit of routine myself, too.

I was just stepping out when he came over to me, fully dressed, and pressed a kiss to my lips.

"I have to get going. See you this evening," he stated. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Oh, right," I muttered. I forced a smile and waved by as he left.

Right. I was going to be alone, again. What was I going to do?

An anxiety was already stirring in my stomach when I faced the impending boredom for that day.