Mated to the Cougar

by Kristen Strassel

  “I should be asking for combat pay.” The blueberries barely helped. I don’t know why anyone ate this stuff. “I’m not even sure I’m going to live through breakfast.”

  I brought the rest of the yogurt back to my desk to choke down after I made the trainer appointment.

  “And action!” Belinda wasn’t kidding. “I always wanted to say that,” she added and aimed the Go Pro at me as I hit send on my phone. I might have given her the finger, by accident.

  “It’s a great day for a new beginning at Reinvention. How can I help you?” I almost hung up on the receptionist. Instead, I rolled my eyes at Belinda, who’d insisted I make this call on speaker phone.

  “I have a gift certificate.” I didn’t even know what to say. “I guess I want to schedule...things.”

  “Great! Tell me what it says on the certificate, and I can get you started.”

  Belinda zoomed in closer, and I sighed. “It’s for the platinum package.”

  “Wonderful!” At least someone thought so. “That’s a comprehensive program that encompasses a total lifestyle transformation. We’ll work with you to create a fitness and nutrition plan that’s unique to you, and you get three visits a week with a personal trainer.”

  I don’t think I worked out three times in the last year. “That sounds pretty comprehensive.”

  The receptionist giggled. “And you’re super lucky. If you’re ready to start this week—“ Belinda nodded emphatically at that—“you can work with Ellen who moved here from Los Angeles. You’ll be in really good hands, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Sure, I’ll take Ellen.” She was probably a beast who could bring insurgents to their knees. Just who I wanted to wake up to three times a week.

  “Great, we’ll see you Wednesday at nine. Come ready to work out, and make sure you keep a food diary of everything you have between now and then.”

  Once the call ended, I put my head down on the desk. “You can stop recording now, Belinda.” My voice was muffled by my arms.

  “I’m jealous. I wish I was the one going.” Belinda sat on my desk as she watched the footage. I sounded ridiculous. “Someone to tell you exactly what to do? There’s no way you can fail.”

  “You can take my place.” I picked my head up. “They haven’t taken a blood sample from me. Yet. They’ll never know.”

  “You’re going.” Yeah, I knew she wasn’t that serious about it. “We have to talk strategy for Wednesday.”

  “Listen, I don’t want that thing in my face the whole time.” I motioned to the Go Pro. “It’s been a while since I’ve done anything like this. It’s not all going to be pretty.”

  “Okay.” Belinda had to understand, her weight had fluctuated, especially after she had kids. “What if we do it confessional style, after the workout, like our own reality show?”

  It would be real, all right. “Perfect.” I couldn’t believe I was agreeing to this.

  Chapter Three

  IT WASN’T ANY SECRET I needed to lose some weight. So while some women might have fudged their food diary, I did no such thing. Ellen needed to know what she was working with, so it wouldn’t do me any good to lie. And it would have been a shame to have all this perfectly good food go bad. Even if Kat thought it would survive a nuclear winter.

  Heading to Reinvention instead of The Park View office on Wednesday morning, I realized this plan was actually pretty genius. I was getting paid to work out. I covered mostly shifter news at The View, and it wasn’t like we had warring factions in Woodland Park. I spent a lot of time at town meetings and school functions. Sometimes I had to dig into the town archives to find something to write about. In the past, some serious shit had gone down, but no one was still alive to carry those grudges. Lions were mating with deer now, for fuck’s sake.

  Reinvention looked more like a spa than a gym. Or maybe a multi-level marketing recruitment center. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place.

  “You must be Arielle.” I recognized the receptionist from her voice. “We have some paperwork for you to fill out. Don’t fill out the weight or body fat percentage, we’ll take care of that.” She handed me a clipboard. “Ellen will be right with you.”

  They wanted to know everything. Workout and eating habits, I expected. Medical history, I could understand. But the questions about my relationship status and my hobbies? Ellen was going to be able to masquerade as my BFF. I hoped she had a sense of humor, or else this was never going to work.

  “Arielle Owens?” a deep voice that couldn’t possibly belong to anyone named Ellen called out. The volume level was totally unnecessary, I thought as I finished the last question, since I’d already checked in and I was the only one sitting—

  Holy shit.

  I looked up in open-mouthed shock at the man who leaned in the doorway. One of his bearded cheeks rose in a grin. He’d tied his long, dirty blonde hair up in some sort of knot on top of his head. His shoulders spanned much of the doorway. His T-shirt, slightly damp from whatever he’d been doing before he came out to me, clung to the chiseled muscles on his chest and abdomen. He hooked one arm up over his head, and the shirt rode up. I couldn’t take my eyes off of that strip of exposed skin...the little line of hair that ran from his belly button, disappearing into his shorts...

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, frowning.

  “They told me I was meeting someone named Ellen.” I stumbled over more than one word in that sentence. My cougar was waking up from her hibernation in a daze.

  “Oh! I’m Dylan.” He laughed, walking over and holding out his hand to me. All right, I wasn’t expecting a smoking hot trainer. This was a curveball, but I could still play it cool. At least I knew he could get my heart rate up. He squeezed my hand. “Ready to get to work?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” I followed him into his office in the back. His scent, pine and fresh snow, overwhelmed me in the small space. He was a lion, he had to be. I purred, then coughed to cover it up.

  He still had a tower of cardboard boxes in the corner of his office. I remembered the receptionist saying he recently moved here from LA. Dylan had taken the time to pin photos up on his corkboard. I squinted at them, trying to get a feeling for who this guy was, since he was going to know everything about me as soon as he read that paperwork. Pictures of him smiling with a lot of different people, some on a motorcycle, and some of him on a surfboard. Shirtless. Those were my favorite.

  “I was almost done filling out the paperwork when you came for me,” I said. “I didn’t get to the part about the prom dates, but in case you really need to know, Jimmy Carroll took me to my senior prom.”

  Dylan looked up from the paperwork and smirked. “But what color was his tux?”

  “White.” I shook my head. Poor Jimmy. I’d seen him wear that same freaking tux at a bonding ceremony a few years ago. “It was 1993.”

  “Tragic.” Dylan pushed the clipboard aside and turned to me. “The reason we ask about spouses and relationships is because we want to know how many peoples’ bad habits we have to break. I see that you live alone, so I’ll be able to lay down the rules pretty easily.” I may have sucked in a sharp breath as Dylan stood up. “Moment of truth time.”

  He motioned to the scale. “Really?” I squeaked. The absolute last thing on earth I wanted to do was have this gorgeous man weigh me. “Can’t we ballpark it? Agree that it’s bad and move on from here?”

  “Absolutely not, Arielle.” Dylan raised an eyebrow. I liked the way his eyes sparkled when he was amused. At least he appreciated my sense of humor. This could still work. “And after this, I’m going to check your body fat percentage.”

  “You can call me Ari,” I grumbled as I slid out of my sneakers and took off my earrings before I stepped on the scale. Every little bit counted. “And I thought I was going to like you.”

  “Some days you’re going to love me, and some days you’ll hate me,” he teased as he adjusted the weights on the scale. “I’m totally prepared for that.” />
  One hundred and eighty-nine pounds.

  I wasn’t prepared for that at all.

  I’d never been this heavy.

  “Well, that sucked.” I sighed as I jumped off the scale like it was on fire.

  “Ari, think of it this way.” He understood. I had to remember he worked with people like me all the time. Not everyone had a perfect body. “It’s never going to be that number again. We all start somewhere.”

  Maybe Dylan wasn’t so bad after all. But he still checked my body fat. I held up my shirt so he could use the caliper salad tong looking thing on the side of my stomach. His fingers brushed against my skin, and heat rose in places I’d forgotten existed.

  Thirty-seven percent. Something told me he wasn’t as turned on as I was.

  I sat back down while Dylan scribbled the numbers down, feeling half deflated, but half optimistic. “Now what?”

  Dylan leafed through my paperwork one more time. “So what do you like to do?”

  It was a pretty loaded question. “Like, for workouts? Or in general?”

  “Both,” he answered. “We’re going to spend a lot of time together, so I’ll find out everything eventually. But if you work with me, I’ll be able to design a program you actually like.”

  “I’ve never been to a gym before,” I confessed. That wasn’t totally true. I went to a Zumba class at the community center with Belinda once. It was like something out of a bad SNL skit and I refused to go back. “I used to rollerblade when I was younger, but it’s been years. I usually come home from work and watch TV.”

  He nodded. “And order takeout.” He must have found my food diary.

  “Hey, I know you’re new in town, but when you try the Thai place, you’ll understand my reasoning.” Dylan didn’t need to know they knew my order from the caller ID.

  “I’m sure, but there are ways to make that stuff at home that are much healthier.” Dylan raised an eyebrow. “By the way, on Friday I’m coming over to check out your cabinets.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be horrified.” Kat still hadn’t shut up about the ding dongs.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Dylan stood up. “Let’s go walk on the track. We can talk out there.”

  “When was the last time you shifted?” he asked as we started the first lap. Everyone in town knew I was a member of the pride, but it still caught me off guard when someone new asked.

  “Are you a lion?” I might as well make sure. He nodded. “It’s been...” I couldn’t even remember. Every year it got harder to shift. It took me so long to recover now. “A while.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  I hardly identified with the cougar part of myself anymore. I was still active in the community, mostly because of my job. But I felt a divide, like I was watching my pride through a window. The older I got, the more human I became.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer him, so I didn’t.

  I only came up to Dylan’s chest, so his strides were much longer than mine. I had to almost run to keep up with him. Or maybe he was doing that on purpose. My heart was already racing, and we were barely halfway around the track. “So why are you here, Ari?”

  No point in lying. “Because my sister spent a shit-ton of money on this program, and I’d feel really guilty wasting her money.”

  “But what made you call? We actually don’t charge the credit card for this program until the first appointment.” I didn’t know that. It might have changed things, but now I was really glad I was here. I looked up at him, his hazel eyes twinkled when my mouth opened, realizing I’d had an out all along. His full lips turned up in a smile before he continued. “It’s going to be a lot of work, and to be honest, I haven’t figured out your motivation yet. You’re cute and you’re funny, but you can’t do this for someone else. You have to do it of you.”

  His question caught me totally off guard. I was already out of breath and my legs were itching like crazy. This wasn’t even a real workout. I could barely walk. And the sweat. A river of it ran down my spine. “I’ve seen what the future looks like if I don’t do this. It’s not what I want.” My eyes blurred, but I wasn’t going to start crying.

  “That’s a really good answer.” Dylan stopped and squeezed my shoulder. That little touch made so many bad things disappear. “I promise I’ll help you get to wherever you want to be.”

  Chapter Four

  DYLAN KNOCKED ON MY door at nine on the dot Friday morning. I gasped when I opened the door. He’d left his hair down this morning, and it fell a few inches below his shoulders. Today, instead of workout clothes, he had on worn, slim fitting jeans that left nothing to the imagination and motorcycle boots. Those forgotten places of my body were purring again from looking at him.

  “What’s with the trash bags?” I motioned to the box of them tucked under his arm.

  “I have a feeling this is a total takedown.” Dylan winked at me as he stepped in my living room. That scent was everywhere. Something was rising inside me, and my eyes widened in shock. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d invited a man over. I did, of course, remember the last time a man had had this effect on me.

  Turning away from him quickly, I pushed that primal feeling down. I led him over to the kitchen. It was small, a galley style with barely enough room for two people. Definitely not enough room for me to shift.

  Dangerous.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. I had a feeling I was about to lose control over everything.

  “Cleaning house.”

  “Are you at least going to donate it?” I asked as he started going through my cabinets, most of the contents getting tossed in the giant green bags. “I bought all that stuff last weekend.”

  “Homeless people shouldn’t eat this crap, either.” Dylan made a show of dropping my ding dongs in the bag with two fingers, followed closely by my cheese crackers. “It’s not even real food.”

  “I think you’re overreacting.” He was pissing me off. Sure it wasn’t the healthiest stuff, I understood that, but this was so wasteful. “And it’s not like I have unlimited resources to buy all new food.”

  “It’s included in your plan.” Well, they did say comprehensive. Dylan turned to me before he opened the refrigerator.

  “Still, it’s a waste.”

  “Your body can’t even process this stuff, especially as a cougar. That’s why you’re gaining weight. I can run you ragged in a workout program, but if you come home and eat this, you’ll never see the results you want. And you’ll blame me.” All that remained in the refrigerator was the food Kat bought for brunch, salsa, and mustard. “I don’t mind being the bad guy, but I’ll be much happier if you’re happy. You won’t miss this crap.”

  At least he saved my wine. “It’s scary, that’s all.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.” He tied up the garbage bag and bumped me playfully. He kept touching me, and I didn’t know what to think of it. It was unexpected, but not in an unwelcome way. “Change is terrifying. But you said it yourself, staying the same is scarier.”

  “Like you can even understand.” I looked away from Dylan. I shouldn’t have been so upset that he threw all of my food away. He was going to replace it. But it meant so much more than that. It was putting so many of my decisions in that bag and waiting for the garbage truck to haul them away. “You’re not setting me up for success, you’re setting yourself up so you can’t fail.”

  He locked eyes with me. “If you don’t succeed, then I fail, Ari. I know you think I’m judging you. I’m not. I make mistakes, too. I know you won’t believe me, but I understand what you’re going through.”

  “Were you heavy?” I couldn’t imagine Dylan looking any less than perfect.

  He shook his head. “I was way too skinny. I weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds.” Dylan was well over six feet tall. “And I was weak. I used to get my ass beat on a daily basis until I decided to make it stop. No one was ever going to shove me in a locker again. But I had to make that decision.
No one else could do it for me.”

  I considered myself lucky I’d never been picked on as a kid. When I was younger, I had plenty of friends. But not one of them called me to wish me a happy birthday last week. It hurt much more than I was willing to admit. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “Don’t be,” Dylan said quietly. “Everyone has to work to get what they want.”

  I turned my head away again. “I’m not even sure what that is.”

  “Yes, you do.” Now he put his hands on the counters, boxing me in like he was afraid I’d run away from him. “You told me that you saw your future yesterday. You might not know what you want, but you know what you don’t want. Let me help you.” His eyes crinkled when he smiled, the positive energy ripping through the graveyard of my soul.

  “I’m going to try.”

  “Good.” It was almost like he knew I could barely breathe looking at him. “You’re stuck with me, Ari, whether you like it or not. I don’t quit.”

  DYLAN TOOK ME FOOD shopping. “You did your homework, I see.” I peeked over his arm as he pulled the cart out of the corral. I saw that he’d highlighted pizza and chicken satay. It was kind of cute how organized he was. And that he was actually trying to make things I liked.

  “You gave me plenty to work with from that diary.” He snatched the list away from me and started to navigate the produce aisle. Dylan had brought me to the permanent farmer’s market. It was so much homier than the regular supermarket. I don’t know why I didn’t come here more often.

  “I hope you can cook.” I walked backwards beside him as he picked up a head of cauliflower and put it in the basket. Something about Dylan’s energy made me feel like I’d had a cup of coffee. I hadn’t felt this playful in a while. “Because I suck at it.”

  “I’m all right.” He winked and grabbed two sweet potatoes. “I don’t mind sharing my skills.”