Dare You To Love (Camren - Norminah - Vercy)

Chapter 14: A Beautiful Mystery

Camila's POV

When I reached Lauren's house early Tuesday morning, she was already waiting for me outside her house.

"Good morning," I said with a yawn, rubbing my eyes sleepily.

"You're 10 minutes late. We gotta sprint it now. Keep up!" Lauren said, before taking off down the sidewalk.

By the time I'd realized what was going on, Lauren was already turning the corner of the next block. I whined and stomped my feet in a mini tantrum before jogging after her. I trailed her by so much that Lauren actually jogged back to me after she was done with running her mile.

"Come on! You're almost there! Finish strong!" Lauren said, jogging beside me, barely winded.

"Fuck off, asshole!" I said, gasping for air as I stumbled along. We reached her house and I fell dramatically against the fence, clutching the stitch on my side.

"9 minutes 15. Average. You coulda easily shaved a minute off if you didn't stop to walk in the middle," Lauren said, taking a sip from her water bottle.

"I'm trying to learn how to ride a motorcycle, not training for the fucking Olympics," I panted, snatching her water bottle from her for a drink of water. But as soon as I'd taken a long sip, I spluttered out the bitter drink, which most definitely wasn't water.

"That's what you get for snatching," Lauren smirked, taking her bottle back.

"What the fuck is that!?"

"Workout supplement."

"Why does it taste like death?"

"Cuz I'm obviously trying to kill you," Lauren said, rolling her eyes.

"Why am I not surprised," I said, trying to stifle another yawn.

"You're not a morning person, are you?"

"I do fine in the mornings when I'm not trying to outperform the roosters at the crack of dawn."

"All right, chicken, let's go inside and lift some weights."

"Can you tell me what the point of all this is?" I asked, following Lauren into her detached garage, which was remodeled into a gym that had everything from free weights and machines to punching bags.

"To see if you can handle a bike," Lauren said, lying down on her bench press that had the weights already preloaded on the bar.

"Last time I checked, the whole point of having a motorcycle was so that you didn't have to run places."

"Look, do you wanna learn how to ride or keep running your smart mouth?" Lauren asked, starting her benching reps.

"To ride, but it would help if you explained how this stuff correlates to motorcycles nicely," I said, standing at the spotter position.

For the first time, I noticed that Lauren was in a black sports bra and athletic leggings. Her tats were out and the muscles of her toned abs and biceps were flexing as she bench pressed. I unconsciously nibbled on my bottom lip as I watched her abs, the skin of which was also tattooed, but minimally, contract rhythmically.

"This is me being nice," Lauren said, putting the bar back after 20 reps.

The gentle clang of the bar on the holder snapped me back to reality and I said, "Well, you need to be nicer and explain how everything relates. I understand the bike is heavy and that's why we gotta lift weights, but what's all this running about? I don't understand how getting shin splints at 6 am is gonna help me become a good rider."