by Cassie Cole
I frowned at Paul.
“What? A straight dude can’t have an opinion on how a guy looks? He was dreamy. If I was a single woman, I’d totally make out with him.”
“Shut up,” I said with a laugh.
I went into the back room and spent the rest of the day doing some work. Our sales that day were pretty good. They had been all week, actually. Things were starting to pick up again after the post-holiday lull.
I swung by the grocery store after work. Now that I’d been going to the gym for a month, I was feeling motivated enough to start improving other areas of my life. My diet was fine—especially since I was having low-sugar smoothies for lunch almost every day—but I still wanted to start meal-planning better. If I could spend a few hours prepping on the weekends, I could have pre-made meals ready for the entire week. Then I wouldn’t be tempted to get fast food or eat out.
Once I had my supplies, I unloaded everything in my apartment kitchen and got to work. I had two recipes I wanted to try out this week. The first was veggie fried rice. I chopped up carrots, baby zucchini, and broccoli and sautéed them in a pan with olive oil and garlic. Then I added two fried eggs to the mix for protein. I prepared brown rice separately and dumped it into the pan with the veggies. Finally, I poured soy sauce inside and stirred it all up until it was a pleasant golden-brown color.
The second meal I made was chicken pasta. That was much easier: I sliced raw chicken breasts into cubes and cooked them in a fresh pan. While those sizzled, I boiled penne pasta in a pot and drained it. Then I dumped the chicken chunks into the pot, and mixed in a jar of vodka sauce.
By the time I was done, I had twelve pre-made meals in Tupperware containers. Plus dinner for tonight.
Putting away the containers of food reminded me of the sweet picnic Brody had planned. Guys were usually lazy when it came to dates. Dinner, and a movie. Or casual drinks in the evening. Going on a hike was easily the most creative first date I had ever been on.
I ate fried rice for dinner, then pulled out a book to read on the couch. Yet my eyes scanned the same sentences over and over, never taking it in. I was unable to focus. My mind kept continuing to Brody…
…And Finn.
After going on maybe three dates in the past five years, I had suddenly become involved with two guys in the past week. From famine to feast. It was almost funny, in a cruel sort of way.
I put down my book and started thinking about them.
The thing that had been lingering in my head all afternoon was that Brody was temporary. He was only here through the fall. What would happen if we started getting serious? Trying a long-distance relationship was a stupid idea, so either he could stay in Denver or I could move to California. Obviously the latter was out of the question because of my store…
But a voice whispered in my head: What if your store is out of business by then?
Then there was Finn. He and I had a more immediate problem: we weren’t allowed to date. Not while we were both at Rocky Mountain Fitness. But knowing our love wasn’t allowed made it even sexier. Forbidden, even. Soon I was imagining having a secret relationship with him. Flirting and touching each other while working out. Stealing kisses in his office. Maybe even fucking in the massage room again. I tingled with excitement at the thought.
I groaned to myself. It wasn’t late enough to go to bed, and I was too antsy to sit and read. I was itching to do something.
I changed clothes and decided I wasn’t going to sit at home tonight.
19
Max
I was the most Type-A person imaginable.
Granted, all athletes tended to be. Triathletes especially. It took a special kind of personality to excel at not just one exercise, but three. Swimming, biking, running. Not to mention resistance training to increase bone and muscle density, and daily yoga to maintain flexibility. Only the most driven people could do it.
But I was even more competitive than that. It probably came from being the youngest of five kids. I had to push myself just to keep up with the others. When Mark began swimming, I wanted to swim too. When Meghan joined the track team, I insisted on running alongside her when she practiced in the neighborhood, even though I could only keep up for about a mile. That kind of relationship with my siblings made me the man I was today. No matter how fast I got, I was always looking forward to the next person to catch.
In high school, my competitiveness manifested itself in sports. I lettered in football, basketball, and baseball. Anything with teams, points, and an opponent. I got a full ride to play baseball, but I wasn’t good enough to go pro. I might have floundered in the minor leagues for a few years, but I didn’t want to just survive. I wanted to thrive.
So I did the next best thing for competitive Type-A personalities: I became a stock market trader for an investment fund. Now that was a world full of testosterone-fueled maniacs who worked twenty hours a day in front of their computer screens. Although we all worked for the same company, we competed against each other. Everyone wanted to have the most earnings, or at least be in the top three. Anything below that was failure.
I loved it… For a while. I was good with numbers, and it was addicting being so good at something. Seeing the numbers go up and up. But like so many traders before me, I got burned out. There was no time for anything else. And eventually, the thrill of watching the numbers increase began to wear off.
Now I watched my numbers go up and up in a different way.
I steadied my breathing while pumping my legs on the spin machine. Sweat ran down my face and dripped into my mouth, but I couldn’t spare any focus to wipe it away. The huge screen in front of me showed a mountain road, jaw-droppingly steep as it switched back and forth up the slope. Just two miles remained until the top.
I loved cycling in here late at night, by myself. It was quiet. I could choose whatever long ride I wanted and focus on my legs, and my breathing, without distraction. After a long day of leading classes, I needed this time alone to get my real workout in.
Riding on actual roads, on my Trek Speed Concept bike, was still preferable to spinning on a machine. That was the great thing about Colorado: in addition to altitude training, the mountains were always just a few miles to the west.
But until the snow melted, this would have to suffice.
The resistance on my spin machine was programmed into the video, so it grew progressively more difficult the higher we climbed. I was racing against my digital self. Superimposed on the video screen was a white outline of myself, ten yards ahead. A ghost that indicated my personal best time on this route, which I had set just two days ago.
I needed that competition to drive me. There was always someone to chase. Without it, it would be too easy to succumb to fatigue at the top of the mountain. I couldn’t let that happen, not when I was so close.
My legs burned as I climbed, pushing myself. I’d been consuming calories steadily for the last two hours. Two sports drinks and three energy-rich gel packs. The latter had the consistency of toothpaste, but there was no quicker way to get fast-burning calories into the human body. Except for hooking up to an IV drip.
If I had planned my fuel properly, I should have enough strength to reach the top of the mountain before I bonked. Bonking was when an athlete ran out of electrolytes or glycogen in their muscles, causing them to fall apart. When marathoners fell to their knees within sight of the finish line, unable to stand because their legs were jelly? That was bonking.
It had happened to me on this ride last time. I was determined to avoid it tonight.
We turned around the final switchback, and then it was a straight incline to the top of the mountain. Up ahead, my ghost-self was slowing down. “Come on,” I said through gritted teeth. “Almost there…”
With the last bit of strength in my legs, I passed my previous self and reached the top of the mountain before him. The screen flashed with a green border, and a new time appeared in the top-corner.
“New personal record!” sa
id a computerized voice.
“Ah hah!” I shouted, pumping my arms. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
My legs felt like rubber, but that was okay. The remaining ten miles of the ride was downhill, where I could spin easily and recover. The hard part was over.
“That was quite the snarl.”
I whipped my head to the left. Katherine was leaning against the door, arms crossed and a smug grin on her face.
I wiped the sweat from my face with a towel. “How long have you been watching?”
“Long enough.”
She sauntered into the room and climbed onto the bike next to me. She was wearing tight cycling shorts which showed off the curve in her hip. The sight of her stirred something inside me. Excitement, mixed with something more primal.
“Our swim this morning wasn’t enough exercise for you?” I asked.
“That was twelve hours ago. My legs are itching to do something.”
“It’s late.”
“I was restless,” she replied while beginning to spin. “And what’s the point of going to a twenty-four-hour gym if you don’t take advantage of it?”
“True.”
“What are you doing here so late?” she asked.
I gestured at the screen. “Late at night is the best time to get my own workout in. And I like the quiet.”
Katherine slowed down. “If I’m intruding…”
“No! Not at all.”
She resumed spinning. “If I start to annoy you, feel free to bluntly tell me so.”
I took a long pull from my water bottle. “Well, now that you mention it, you were chatting an awful lot during the movie last night.”
She reacted exactly as I hoped; with shock. “You were the one chatting with me!” she shot back.
“I was just whispering to myself. You didn’t need to respond.”
She finally realized I was teasing her. “Oh, shut up.”
“That’s the idea,” I said with a smirk.
She let out an annoyed noise. I laughed even harder.
“I guess I’m not surprised you’re in here so late. Training for an Ironman must be a lot of work.”
“It’s like having a part-time job,” I agreed. “I train about twenty hours a week. Closer to thirty at my peak training. Thirty dedicated hours, not counting all the easy classes I lead here at RMF.”
Katherine shook her head. “I don’t know how you can do both.”
Still spinning, I sat upright on the bike to stretch my back. “Well, I don’t. I only work at RMF in the winter. Once the weather is nice enough to train outside, I take a sabbatical until October.”
Katherine turned to face me. “Really?”
“Yep. I supplement my income with a few sports sponsorships. But otherwise, training is my full-time job in the summer.”
For some reason, she seemed curious by this. She frowned at the screen and pedaled in silence.
“Lots of other triathletes around here do the same thing,” I explained. “Work like crazy in the off-season to build up your savings account, then coast through training season. Denver is sort of a triathlon Mecca. The combination of altitude training and nearby mountains is ideal.”
“So you’ll only be working here for another month or two? Then you won’t be an RMF employee?”
“Sorry to break your heart, but that’s right. If you’d like, I can recommend some other swim and spin instructors here. They aren’t as good as me, but—”
“Do you want to get a drink?”
Her question caught me so off-guard that I stopped pedaling. Only when my machine beeped angrily at me did I continue moving my legs.
“After you’re done spinning,” she added with a smile. “Not right this second.”
I flirted with most of my clients. Not only was it my personality, but it was the best way to build a rapport. I flirt, my client flirts back, and then we crush our workout. It was harmless.
Since I had first seen her in my class last month, it had felt different with Katherine. More real. She flirted back in a way that suggested she wanted to get sweaty in a more interesting way. She was gorgeous. I was certainly attracted to her, more than any of my other clients. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t fantasized about her once or twice already.
But…
There were complications from fooling around with a gym member. It was against the employee guidelines. That wasn’t a huge roadblock for me, but I was still afraid to fuck up the dynamic Katherine and I had. On a financial level, I also didn’t want to make things weird with a platinum member. I got paid extra for personal lessons with clients, but platinum hours paid double. If Katherine and I got a drink together, and one thing led to another… I didn’t want those juicy platinum hours to dry up.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to pass,” I said.
She winced. She hadn’t been expecting to be rejected. “Oh. Yeah, no problem.”
I still had a few miles to go in my ride, but they were all cool-down and I didn’t feel like sticking around. I slowed to a stop and hopped off the bike.
“I booked you for a second swim lesson next Saturday,” I said. “If that time doesn’t work for you, just let me know and I can move it around.”
“That works for me.”
“Great.” I smiled. “See you then.”
As I left the spin room, I wondered if I would regret this later.
20
Katherine
As soon as Max was gone from the room, I leaned back on the bike and groaned loudly.
“Idiot,” I muttered. “I’m such an idiot.”
What was I thinking, asking him out for a drink? I already had two guys I was sort of involved with, to one degree or another. But Finn and Brody both had problems that kept me from getting into any serious relationship. And although Max technically had the same problem as Finn, his employment at RMF was ending in a month or two. Then there would be nothing stopping us from seeing each other.
He had been flirting with me, and he looked so sexy all covered in sweat and breathless from his ride. The proposition had leaped from my mouth.
Now I realized how stupid I was. Max didn’t want to get a drink with me. He was just a flirty spin instructor. He probably flirted with all the girls. Once again, I had totally misconstrued someone’s intentions. Darryl was right: I did have a habit of crushing on guys I worked with.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I spun for fifteen minutes, then glanced up at the points screen:
25-29 AGE GROUP
BRODY F:_____5,901
KATHERINE D: 5,417
JONNY K:_____4,693
JAMES P:______4,188
It was nice earning points while Brody wasn’t here. I was slowly catching up to him. But as satisfying as that was, my heart wasn’t in it tonight. Not after screwing things up with Max. I just wanted to go home and curl up under a blanket and pretend like none of this had happened.
I didn’t want to walk home sweaty, so I went into the locker room to take a shower first. The scalding steam felt good on my body, like I was washing away all the stupid decisions I had made. What had gotten into me lately? It was as if my entire personality had changed since I started going to RMF. I was acting more impulsive. I was taking chances.
I was taking the phrase, new year, new me, to a crazy extreme.
As I let the hot water run over my body, I realized that it probably had to do with my store. For the past five years, I had devoted all of my time and mental energy to the success of Vinyl High Records. I didn’t have time for anything else. No workout routines, or relationships, or healthy eating.
Ever since I learned Pacifica Vinyl was opening up down the street, my life had been flipped on its head. The store no longer mattered, because it would soon be out of business. I required new hobbies to divert my attention and focus. Getting back into fitness was the big one, but suddenly so was my love life. I wasn’t afraid to ask Max out for drinks because I desperately needed a distr
action from my soon-to-be failure of a business. I was like a drowning woman grabbing for whatever life preserver was nearby.
I turned off the water and laughed to myself. Between my talk with Finn, then my date with Brody, and then finally asking Max out, it had been one hell of a day.
I changed clothes, waved goodbye to the woman at the front desk, and walked outside into the cold.
Then I stopped dead in my tracks.
Max was leaning against a lamppost on the sidewalk. He was wearing a black leather jacket, and his hands were jammed in the pockets. A knitted red-and-white beanie covered his head, except for tufts of golden hair that stuck out by the ears. He smiled at me like I was the thing he’d been waiting for all night.
“I changed my mind about that drink,” he said in a smooth voice. “But under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
His green eyes sparkled. “We get it at your place.”
21
Katherine
By the time we reached my apartment, we were making out.
Without taking my lips from Max’s, I managed to jam my keys into the lock and open the door. We stumbled inside. I closed and locked the door behind us, and flicked on the light.
“It smells like garlic in here,” Max said.
I wrapped my arms around him again. “I was meal-planning earlier.”
A feral grin touched his beautiful face. “My kind of girl.”
“Pasta with chicken.”
He groaned. “Oh, baby. Don’t stop. I’m close.”
Our lips connected and we continued kissing, tongues swirling and dancing together. We didn’t make it to the bedroom. Max shoved me down onto my couch, then covered me with his body. I spread my legs so he could sink down into me, a warm pressure against my crotch that filled my entire body with warmth.
We made out on the couch, grinding together like two teenagers who were afraid to make the next move.