Juliana's POV



I rolled over, flopping onto my other side. It was day eight of living with Uncle Stefano and my body was still trying to revert back to New York time. Meaning that even though it was technically 3 am, for me it felt like 9 pm.

I had tried everything. I had tried reading, listening to music, watching the most boring movie I could think of, nothing was working.

I shouldn't.

'But it would work'.

But I never know when to stop.

'Just one hour. That's it. Nothing more.' The little voice in the back of my head coaxed.

'I'm going to regret this.' I thought as I got up and went to the map of the house that I had put in one of the desk drawers. Massimo had given me one when I admitted to him that I kept getting lost.

What does it say that this place is so big that they not only have elevators, but also have maps ready on hand? I mean sure, my house is huge, but this place is bigger than a freaking castle.

Glancing over the map I figured out that to get to the gym, for some reason, I would have to go up to the third floor, and then to the very back of that floor, which on the map didn't seem to be that far, but I knew differently. If the third floor layout was anything like all the other floors, then it would take a while to find.

I cringed when my door made a little popping sound, like that was enough to wake somebody up. The good thing about the setup of the hallway was that I wouldn't have to pass by everyone's rooms to get to the third floor.

As the rooms were set up pretty much oldest to youngest, I had Justin to the right of me and Elliot across the hall. Because unfortunately he was the younger twin. The way the hallway worked, between Elliot and Elijah's room there was a little passageway that cut straight to the stairs that would lead to the third floor.

Convenient, if you didn't want to have to walk all the way around the floor to get to the stairs.

I had changed into some workout clothes, put my hair up in a ponytail, grabbed my phone, a water bottle I had on my nightstand and the map of the house. And now I was tiptoeing past Elliot's room, pressing my lips together tightly to stop myself from laughing.

Through the nearly sound proof rooms, I could hear Elliot snoring his head off. Sounded like a freaking herd of Elephants running through his room.

Once I was on the third floor I was actually pretty surprised to see that it was literally a straight shoot from the stairs to the gym.

And boy was their gym amazing.

They had weights galore. I mean almost an entire wall just lined with them. They also had just about every machine you could possibly think of, and rows of them. They had medicine balls, the big bouncy balls that you sat on but that I never really saw any purpose to.

I broke out of my shock and went over to one of the lines of mats. I picked out a purple one and started with stretching. Then I did a few light exercises to warm up my muscles.

I decided that I would work on my legs, and went to the squat bar. The actual bar weighed about 20kg (40 pounds) and I decided to add roughly another 56 kg's (125 pounds) so that it would weigh in at about 77 kg's (170 pounds) and be exactly twice my weight.

I did 4 sets of 25, doing 100 weighted squats in total before I moved onto the leg pressing machine and did the same thing. 4 sets of 25, at twice my weight.

After that I took a slight break to down some water and then I got to my favourite part. The treadmill. This one was my favourite because it was more of a stress reliever than anything else in my opinion. I could simply put in my headphones and forget about the world.

Putting my headphones in, I made sure my playlist was on repeat, (on the not so unlikely chance that I reach the end of it) and started running.

At first it was a light pace, but as I was playing around with the setting on the machine I noticed that there was an automated base speed, which was where you could type in a speed that you wanted to be your minimum speed, and then your top speed.

Then what would happen is at intervals of every five minutes the machine would automatically speed up to a random pace anywhere between your base speed and your top speed.

It would stay there for five minutes, and then you'd go back to your base speed for another five minutes.

Rinse, repeat.

I've been here for a week, and I feel like I've started to get the gist of how things work. Either from what I've picked up myself, or from what Justin has told me.

You see, there's an unwritten schedule that everybody seems to follow.

Everyone sort of did their own thing until breakfast, which took place at 8. Then, though I'm pretty sure that this would change soon due to summer school, Justin would either go outside with someone (different depending on the day/who was off), or play by himself inside.

I hadn't seen Hunter since that night, but I knew he was home because sometimes I could see the light on in his room late at night.

On Monday, Thursday and Sunday Elliot would go to his art studio to paint. And although he would never admit it, I know he also plays with Justin on those days. On the other days of the week he would go to his office to work for about four hour intervals. On and off. I rarely saw him leave the house, and when he did it was normally with one of the other adults who was leaving for the office. I had caught him sneaking out to the shed Wednesday night, but I don't think that was a part of his routine.

On Tuesday and Saturday Elijah would normally lounge around the house, taking it easy. Those were the days I saw him playing with Justin inside. I was starting to understand that Elijah, like Elliot, really didn't like being outside that much, but he always found ways to spend time with Justin. Other days he rotated between mafia work and work at the clinic.

I hadn't been around Massimo long enough to really understand his schedule, but it seemed like he stayed in his office a lot. I have no idea what grandpa did either, and I'm not sure I wanted to know.

Uncle Stefano had a branch of casinos and I know he spends a lot of time working on and at them. And I've seen Nonna and Aunt Stephanie sewing and crocheting in the living room a lot, and I think Aunt Stephanie owns a design shop, so she goes there a few days a week to check up on it.

And me? I sort of just blend in. I've played with Justin a lot, but when the others were around it just felt awkward. I'm not sure if they mean to, but the adults have a tendency to keep a very close eye on me, like they're waiting for something.

My mind continued to whirl for a while before a sudden wave of exhaustion shot through me, and I stumbled slightly on the fast pace that the treadmill was on. I decided that enough was enough, and I reached over to manually slow the machine down so I could safely shut it off.

Once the machine was off, I couldn't get off of it for a second, instead, leaning and hunching my shoulders and I grabbed onto the arms of the treadmill and tried to catch my breath.

I took a deep, tired breath and stumbled off the treadmill, having to get my footing back.

I sort of limped over to the mat where my phone and water were, kneeling down and chugging the rest of the water I had left. I took a towel I had smartly placed down on the mat and dried the sweat from my face and neck before I checked the time.

Well so much for that 'one hour' bullshit.

It was now almost 6 am. I had been working out for three hours. Not my worst stint, but it definitely wasn't ideal. Especially with the time I started.

I sighed, standing up and touching my toes, stretching just a little bit so that maybe my muscles wouldn't stiffen up as bad as I knew they were about to.

Then I started my little impromptu walk of shame back to my room, hoping that I wouldn't run into anyone on the way.

Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky.

I had just made it out of the hallway between Elijah and Elliot's rooms when I glanced to my left, towards the other's bedrooms, only to lock eyes with the one and only, Hunter.

I looked at him.

And he looked at me.

He shifted uncomfortably.

I pressed my lips together.

"Where are you coming from?" He asked.

"The gym." I said. Yeah, because the residue sweat was still clinging to my skin and my still slightly elevated respiratory rate totally came from walking down the stairs.

"Okay." He said.

"Okay." I muttered back before I continued to my room, and he continued wherever he was going.



_________________

Sorry I've not updated in a while, sports recently started and I'm trying to get used to a few different schedules. Let me know if you liked it, and if you have any suggestions!