Her Athletic Boyfriend

Chapter 1

Lucas Carter didn’t just love fitness—he needed it.

The rigid routine, the punishing workouts, the meticulously weighed meals—they were the scaffolding that held his life together. At 22, he was Ridgefield University’s star middle-distance runner, a two-time conference champion, and utterly incapable of sitting still.

Then came the pop.

It happened in the final stretch of the 800-meter prelims—a sharp, sickening twist in his left knee that sent him sprawling across the track. The crowd gasped. His coach sprinted toward him.

But the first face he saw was hers.

Jenna Cole—his girlfriend of eight months, Ridgefield’s cross-country captain, and the only person who could out-stubborn him—was already vaulting over the railing before he’d even stopped skidding.

“Don’t move,” she ordered, dropping to her knees beside him. Her fingers pressed into his quad, clinical and sure. “Does this hurt?”

“Fuck—yes!”

She didn’t flinch. Just nodded and shot a glare at the approaching trainer. “Meniscus. Maybe ACL. Get a brace.”

Lucas hated how right she usually was.

-

“Six weeks, minimum.” The orthopedic specialist tapped the MRI images. “No running. No lower-body weight training. Period.”

Lucas’s stomach dropped. Six weeks was an eternity. Six weeks was his entire season. Six weeks was—

“He’ll follow the rehab plan,” Jenna said smoothly, her hand resting on his shoulder. Her grip tightened just enough to warn him: Don’t argue.

He clenched his jaw and nodded.
-

(Two Weeks Later)

Lucas was losing his mind.

His apartment—usually a temple of order—was littered with resistance bands, foam rollers, and the faint, ever-present scent of Biofreeze. He’d done every upper-body workout known to man, but without his usual cardio, the energy coiled inside him like a spring.

And the food.

God, the food was torture.

He stood in front of the fridge, glaring at the Tupperware of dry chicken breast and steamed broccoli. His stomach growled, but the thought of forcing down another bland meal made his teeth ache.

“You look like you’re contemplating murder,” Jenna said from the couch, not looking up from her biomechanics textbook.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re pacing like a caged tiger.” She finally glanced up, her sharp brown eyes scanning him. “When’s the last time you ate something that didn’t taste like cardboard?”

Lucas ignored her and grabbed a protein shake.

Jenna sighed and stood. “That’s it. We’re going out.”

-

The diner was a dive—the kind of place with sticky vinyl booths and a smell like decades of fried grease. Lucas scowled at the menu.

“I can’t eat this.”

“You can,” Jenna corrected, stealing a fry from his untouched plate. “You just won’t let yourself.”

He pushed the food away. “It’s not part of my—”

“Your plan?” She leaned forward, her voice dropping. “Newsflash, Carter—your plan’s on hold. You’re not running. You’re not burning 3,000 calories a day. And you’re miserable.”

Lucas opened his mouth to argue, but his stomach betrayed him with another loud growl. Jenna smirked and slid the burger toward him.

“One bite.”

He hesitated. Then, with a muttered curse, he picked it up.

The first taste was obscene—juicy, salty, real. He barely stifled a groan.

Jenna’s eyes darkened. “There he is.”

-

That night, for the first time in years, Lucas dreamed about food.

Piles of pancakes dripping with syrup. Like the ones his mom used to make him as a kid. Cheesy, grease-slicked pizza, the ones he'd eat when he was a stoner as a teenager. Jenna’s voice in his ear: “Just one more bite.”

He woke up sweating, his heart pounding.

Across the bed, Jenna slept soundly, one arm thrown over his waist.

Lucas stared at the ceiling and tried to ignore the weird hunger gnawing at him—one that had nothing to do with food, but he couldn't quite place it either.