Time to Climb

Hannah

Mal had a substitute for her Wednesday and Friday classes. She was helpful and friendly, helping me with my form on the rower.

Jordan was also suspiciously absent, but he had been posting daily in the Facebook group.

I had actually tried a few of his recipes, but not for the kale smoothie. I wasn't that invested in clean eating. I don't care if it's healthy, kale was not going to be a diet staple.

Ty was quiet, so I pretty much went into the studio with Parker and we went home. He had another date lined up for this weekend, but he was keeping details close to the vest.

“So he's making you do team building, and there are stairs involved?” Parker asked about the mystery team activity Jordan had told me about.

“Yup.”

“That sucks. But I guess at least it's a bonus workout. Our team building was a tutorial at the nutritional supplement store,” Parker told me. He didn't seem too enthusiastic about it.

“Did you learn anything?”

“Just that the same protein powder was 10 percent cheaper on Amazon,” he laughed.

“Harsh.”

“I’m down two pounds, though,” he told me.

“I have no idea where I’m at,” I said cautiously.

“Don’t you own a scale?” He looked at me like I was a little crazy for not knowing what progress I’d made. I was honestly kind of scared to know.

“No.”

“Seriously?” His face was almost comical.

“There may have been an incident where the last one fell out of the window,” I explained slowly as my blush appeared. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done the last time I’d gotten angry at my scale, but it was what it was.

“Girl, I hope you didn’t maim one of the neighbors.” He snorted and shook his head at me.

“Nah. Just an innocent flowerpot,” I shrugged.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side. I might get pushed out a window,” he teased.

“I wouldn’t push you out a window. I’d just change your Instagram password.”

“Now that’s just cruel.” His offended face suddenly morphed into something different. Parker was plotting. “Speaking of Instagram…”

“What? What’s that look for?” I asked cautiously.

“That’s what you need to do,” he announced excitedly as he glanced over at me.

“Uh, pretty sure that’s already my job.” I obviously wasn’t catching on to what he was trying to tell me. At work, I was on Instagram, continually promoting our brand and getting community engagement.

“No…” He turned toward me as he parked the car near our apartment building. “You need to start documenting this.”

“Documenting what?”

“The challenge,” he scoffed.

“What?” My eyes widened as I looked over at his borderline manic smile. “No…”

“Yes! It’s perfect. What better way to stay motivated than to have people following your progress and cheering you on?”

No way. I was not putting this out there for the world to see.

“No one wants to see that. Instagram is for all the pretty things.” My voice was a little high because this was the worst idea ever. “They want the after. Not the before.”

He shook his head and reached across the console, gripping my hand. “People love a good underdog story.”

“Oh, thanks.” I feigned offense, rolling my eyes.

“Stop looking for excuses.”

“I’m not…”

Was I?

“Okay, if you’re doing this, we need a tag of some sort,” he mused.

“I haven’t agreed to anything.” I shook my head as I looked over at him with wide eyes.

“Hannah, this is what you’re good at. You know what looks good in that format. The lighting, the angles, witty hashtags.”

“Yeah, for products,” I argued. “Not people. And especially not myself.”

“Why not yourself?” he asked curiously.

“I… I didn’t know.”

Well... I did know. I didn’t like putting myself out there. Being in the spotlight had never interested me. So doing this... It was the ultimate self-exposure.

“Oh! I’ve got it,” he exclaimed.

I felt my anxiety starting to rise.

This idea exposed my weakness to the world. I was okay with what I looked like and who I was, but I didn’t want to expose myself to outside criticism. People on the internet could be nasty.

“Got what?”

He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows. “Hashtag project peanut butter cup.”

“Wait, what?”

“You know how you joked that you were 45 percent peanut butter cup, this is perfect,” he responded gleefully.

“Can I think about it?” I still wasn't convinced this was a good idea. Making a hashtag out of my real vice was clever but also made me seem like some kind of candy addict.

“You have until tomorrow,” he sighed loudly and made a face that showed he wasn't happy I wasn't jumping up and down.

“I'll even be your photographer. I've got that fancy camera from work, and this is the perfect opportunity to use it.”

“What if nobody follows me?” That might be worse than people making fun of me.

“You won’t know until you try,” he shrugged.