It was refreshing, and as he learned how to study, he found it wasn't that hard from studying for football. He actually enjoyed the whole process. Which of course led to the two of them joking about him getting 'nerdy,' but the way Linda said it made him eager to be even nerdier.
"You're cute when you get all intellectual," she'd told him last night, her eyes sparkling with mischief as they video-chatted. "Smart is sexy, Brutus."
Apparently Linda Castellanos thought nerds were hot. Or maybe she was just joking with him, but either way, the encouragement kept him going even if reading about the transition period from the Ancient Greeks dominating the Mediterranean to the Ancient Romans dominating the world was pretty damn boring in his opinion.
Get to the dominating, dammit!
In his headphones, his phone rang, and he paused his laps. His heart leaped when Linda's name flashed across the screen. Noon already? Her lunch break.
Grinning, he tapped the call pickup button, his pace quickening instinctively. "Well now, this'll get me going for the rest of my walk. How was your morning?"
Linda's warm chuckle had him leaning into the harness strapped around his chest, and his pace picked up a notch. "Just fine, sexy man. Actually it was rather boring, doing maintenance for the most part. Not even interesting maintenance, but checking ropes and web gear for abrasions. So please give me a reason to not go hang myself with some of that web gear. How's your workout going?"
"Good." Brutus reached the end of the hundred yards and turning around.
He didn't have a clock on it, but he thought that Linda's voice had put a little pep in his step, and that last lap was faster than the previous one.
"This morning's not really interesting, steady state cardio by dragging a sled around the yard. Another twenty minutes, and I'll be ready to grab lunch. What'd you have, by the way?"
"You'd laugh, which is why I called. The DFAC was serving spicy enchiladas," Linda said.
And she was right, Brutus did laugh. He loved her honesty about her disdain of spicy foods, especially spicy Latin foods.
"So I bounced out, grabbed a barbecue sandwich off post."
"Sounds delish."
"Trust me, it was," Linda said. "Hey, let me ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"Every time I call you during the day, and sometimes even at night, you're working out," Linda said. "Why are you such a fiend for it? I don't hear about other athletes working out as almost a full time job in their off seasons."
Brutus laughed, which made him a little winded, but he was glad for it. Instead of stopping, he slowed down a little and kept walking.
"It's something I learned long ago, back when I was a kid. Who's the greatest wide receiver in football history?"
Linda's answer was immediate, and he knew she would be. She'd shared with him her knowledge of football over the past month.
"Jerry Rice, of course. I mean, the man's stats are almost untouchable."
"And one of the things that made Rice a beast for so long was that the man was legendary for the hard work he put in during the off season," Brutus explained. "Even into his late thirties, he'd do two a day workouts that were so hardcore, so strenuous, that he'd make other players ten years or more younger than him puke up their guts before the end of the day."
Brutus reached the end of his lap and turned around. "I'm not going to do five mile hill runs, not with my ankle. You've seen that, and you've seen how distance running is to me. But I do plan on following in his path to be the best by outworking everyone. So right now I'm dragging the sled, assault bike later, and anything else I can do to be ready for training camp."
"What about overtraining?" Linda asked. "Aren't you going beating yourself up on it?"
"My trainer has me rotating through different exercises to shift the strain. I do it because there's going to be at least three or four rookies in camp who'll think they're good enough to take my spot. Same as every year. It won't happen easily, and I'm going to make them work for it."
Linda hummed warmly. "I like the results so far."
Brutus had to agree. While their respective schedules meant that they had to spend the work week apart, Brutus had become a regular visitor to Fort Pickett, to the point that last Friday, the gate guard had worked up the nerve to ask him for an autograph.
So in their free time, they spent as much of it together as they could. Whether it was Friday nights, Saturdays, or even Sunday mornings, they were practically inseparable. Even their daily chats felt like a treasured moment of each day.
The cherry on top of the sundae was last weekend. It had been glorious, three whole days at his house due to a federal holiday. They'd hung out, learned more about each other, made love repeatedly, and more. It was the best three day weekend in his memory.
"So does that mean we're still on for Saturday morning?" Brutus asked. "I know it's only one day, but I'll need Sunday to study something besides European history."
