The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp

by The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp (retail) (epub)

  ‘Ah yes, I hear meetings do tend to work well if you meet with the people involved.’

  As if to prove her point.

  ‘Hmm, thanks for that business insight, Patrick. It’s amazing you don’t get mistaken for Peter Jones more often, what with being so – what’s the word? – freakishly tall as well. It’s been great to see you, but I am going to have to run.’ After another squeeze on the shoulder, Molly grabbed her bag and made a dash for it.

  It was only when Patrick sat alone, finishing his weird herby tea, that he remembered he had meant to talk about something completely different with Miss Molly Cooper.

  * * *

  ‘You call that a press-up?’ Josie growled into Kurt’s face as it hovered just inches from the Peckham Rye common dirt. ‘I’ve seen little old ladies with better upper arm strength than you, cadet. Put your ass into it!’

  Molly stood a few meters back from Josie’s extreme army fitness class, not so much watching the bootcampers sweat out their toxins and negative body images, but casting an admiring eye over her new American friend. Not only did Josie have a lean body any woman would kill for (without going down the sinewy-armed route of the exercise-mad) and shiny, natural blonde hair, but she had the sexiest level of confidence you could hope for. Josie was happy to go it alone when she had to, or make herself a part of new group if the situation called for it. She was everything easy-going, relaxed and enthusiastic. It was just the sort of attitude Molly wanted her bootcampers to have, but it seemed the sweet-natured Californian had it from birth.

  Though Molly might not have been studying the straining and sprinting bootcampers that closely, she realised others in the park definitely were. Just under the cluster of trees a few hundred metres away, three early-thirty-something mothers had gathered by a bench, their buggies parked up and their coffee cups in hand. But they weren’t just taking in the scenic view – they were taking in the human one. With wide, appreciative grins. Molly made a mental note to bring some fliers next time, to encourage wives to sign up their husbands for a bit of redefining, if they liked what they saw here on the rugby pitch. As Molly fished around in her deep coat pocket for her phone to make a note, she spotted two teenage girls dawdling along the path to her right, also getting a healthy eyeful. No commercial opportunity for her there, but she loved the role-reversal going on under her very nose: men were happy to wink at a woman on the street they considered hot, but did women ever think of doing the same thing? It couldn’t hurt, if you were in the mood for a good flirt. Molly’s mind wandered back from social mating rituals, to the task at hand.

  Today Josie was counter-acting her sweet disposition with full-on army fatigues. She’d had the idea that an all-male group may need just that bit more encouragement to quake in fear of a female instructor, so Josie had taken Molly with her to a little army surplus store, just near Waterloo. Rachel had declined an invite, saying it just went against her principles. It would be like forcing her to wear a bum bag, she said, to which her friends simply shrugged and headed for the bus stop.

  As they had flicked through the rails of khaki green shirts, khaki green trousers, khaki green vests and the odd gunmetal grey shirt, Josie had cleared her throat and said, ‘Hey, Mols, so you know I am so, so grateful for being part of this bootcamp thing, and all the new recruits I’m working with, not to mention the commissions. But I had an idea. I know you’re responsible for talking stuff and the dating theory, and Rach does her amazing wardrobe stuff, and I put them through their paces for physical development, but what if we mixed things up a bit?’

  Molly frowned and looked up from the camouflaged socks she was holding. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ Josie’s smile went from slightly nervous to full-on excitement, ‘as part of my training to be a fitness instructor, I studied a lot of the psychological side to sport. So, the mental benefits along with the muscular ones. How certain exercises can actually be used as kinds of therapies to get to the root of problems; that sport can really bring someone out of themselves. Hey, so, like Kurt, right? He’s normally a shy guy, but with these months of working on his body and how he feels about himself, he has totally come out of his shell, you know?’

  ‘Yeeeees.’ Molly put the socks back on the shelf where she’d found them, along with camo boxers and hankies. ‘I agree that he’s definitely come a long way since we all started working with him, but a lot of that has to do with the SWOT analysis and the one-to-ones about talking to women. It didn’t happen overnight after a bootcamp physical training session – Rach and I played a big part too.’ Molly wandered to the end of the aisle, idly picking up the tag of a sleeping bag to examine. Josie followed her.

  ‘God, no, I mean – I don’t think it was just me that did that. What I was trying to say, but made such a lame job of, was that I could help out. More.’

  ‘You are helping, Jose. The fact that you are willing to put on nineteen-eighties army chic and abuse total strangers until they squat thrust into oblivion is more than a help – it’s a vital part of the organisation.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say they were total strangers …’ Josie looked just a touch crestfallen.

  ‘No, fair point. You do at least get to know their names before calling them all big wimps. I appreciate the offer, Jose, but I think we should all stick to the bits of the company we’ve been assigned. Everybody’s playing to their strengths. Managing people and presenting talks is what I do; it’s what I’ve always done.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jose frowned, ‘but wouldn’t it be fairer if the three of us got a chance to work on a bit of everything in the bootcamp?’

  Molly smoothed her hair over her shoulders. ‘Yes, but an army isn’t about fair, it’s about everyone knowing their role and sticking to it. We’d end up with some jobs done twice and others done not at all, otherwise. A top marksman doesn’t stir soup in the camp kitchen. You’re a god on that park – that’s where I need you.’

  Josie nodded and bit her lip. She turned to look at a rack of belts. ‘Sure,’ she said softly.

  But there was nothing soft about Josie now as she belted out order after order, each one more painful and exhausting than the last. She divided the men into pairs and set up a relay race. Simple? Not in Josie’s world. The relay race involved carrying your team mate up and down a hill, three times, then switching over. There were an awful lot of red, anguished races and rather hysterical piggy backs going on. But Josie wasn’t laughing in her black skinny rib vest, camouflage cargo trousers and big black Doc Marten boots. Her face was set like thunder and the only thing that broke her steely resolve was slipping a whistle in between her lips to punctuate sets of press ups.

  ‘OK, my little charm school debutantes, seeing as you’re all so dainty about carrying each other up a hill, how about this? You’re going to hold hands as you sprint around those trees and back again. The last couple to get to me will have a special treat, capishe?’ With a flash of Josie’s piercing blue eyes, the recruits grabbed a hot hand in their own and ran for their life. The three spectators on the bench suddenly sat up straighter as their entertainment came running towards them.

  With the men fleeing to the trees, Josie turned to Molly to flash a brief, private smile. ‘You want a piece of this?’ Josie swung the whistle on its lanyard, round and round in big loops, and wiggled her eyebrows invitingly.

  ‘Weeeeell, if you insist.’ Molly grabbed the whistle with her eager mitts. ‘What shall I get them to do when they come back? If they can still do anything, of course.’

  Josie put a finger to her cheek, in a gesture strangely feminine against her all-khaki outfit. ‘Oh!’ she almost jumped to attention with excitement as an idea struck her. ‘Burpies!’

  ‘Excuse you.’

  ‘No, Mols,’ Josie laughed patiently. ‘Not a burp, a burpy. It’s one of these.’ In a flash, Josie was down with both hands on the floor, shoulder-width apart. She then bunny hopped her legs in underneath her chest, pushed them out again, leapt up into a stand
ing position, swung her legs and arms out into a wide star jump, then threw herself down again in a split-second and did it all over again. Molly was breathless just watching her.

  ‘As long as I don’t have to do one, I have no problem dishing them out,’ she told Josie, just as soon as she was still again for thirty seconds.

  ‘That’s not quite the attitude I promote, but go for it.’ Josie did a mock-salute and stood back to let the returning troops face their colonel.

  Kurt and John were lagging behind, wheezing shallow breaths and looking anxious of what was to come, now that they were the slowest pair.

  ‘You just live to annoy me, don’t you Kurt?’ Josie bellowed right next to Molly’s ear, making her flinch more than a little. ‘You and your little slobby friend can drop right here, by my feet, and give me twenty crunches. MOVE IT!’

  Without so much as a whimper, the two were on their backs, struggling to close that chasm between their stomachs and their knees. ‘And when you’re done, the colonel has a little something for you. Aren’t we good to you? Well, aren’t we?’ Josie growled through gritted teeth.

  As the cadets bellowed back, ‘Yes, mama!’ Molly had to admit, Josie was an absolute master at what she did.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After the sweat-fest, Molly was straight back to the laptop in the flat, updating the Word file that she kept on each bootcamp member, detailing their progress and particular points of interest. She had three back-to-back sessions that evening; two were with Kurt’s teammates Sachin and Pavel and one was with a very new recruit who needed a full assessment. There was a lot to do, but also a steady income stream at last, so Molly was sinking her teeth into this new level of work. If she could just push the membership numbers up by another fifty or so, she would be getting close to having a lump sum to pay back Cleo, just in time for the wedding. It was all she could think about.

  John was home pretty sharpish after his day at the office, which was odd as these days he tended to either go for a run or a drink with a mate from work. Molly took his absence in the evenings not as a sign that she was a bad flatmate, but that overhearing the details of other men’s inner workings and hang-ups wasn’t quite his cup of tea. And she couldn’t blame him. Sometimes the long long list of problems these cadets seemed to share caused her to lose herself temporarily in a fug of despair. But then Molly would remind herself of the great progress she’d seen in Kurt, John and Rob, just to name a few. There was light at the end of the tunnel, if only a tea light flickering in the wind.

  Sheepishly, John scurried to his room, but Molly had been on her own since that morning, so fancied talking at him, if not with him.

  ‘Hello, stranger! What’s going on with you?’

  John was only half-across the threshold of his bedroom, so by the laws of the polite flatshare had to respond. If he’d been in and had the door closed, he could have (rather weakly) pretended not to have heard Molly. But he was caught.

  ‘Good … yes, all good stuff … just off on a—’

  ‘Date?’

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘You polished your shoes this morning. Must be a big one, then?’

  John avoided eye contact and instead twiddled a button on his suit jacket. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘Do I get to know her name?’ Molly enquired with her usual mix of cheek and nosiness. She jiggled her shoulders and grinned her most angelic grin.

  ‘No,’ John shot back, in all seriousness. ‘No. It’s a secret.’

  Molly laughed lightly, trying not to feel hurt by his rebuttal. They had got to such a good banter place in their friendship.

  ‘Um, well, a bit of mystique always keeps it … interesting. If you want to talk about anything, get any pointers—’

  ‘I won’t.’ John’s tone remained flat and poker-straight. ‘Sorry, have to dash. Meeting her at seven. Laters, Mols.’ John closed his door behind him and that was the end of that, it seemed. Molly spent a second being baffled, then carried on with her compiling of notes.

  * * *

  John had been gone for ten minutes when the buzzer went for Molly’s first one-to-one: Sachin. He hadn’t been too loud or too quiet in any of the group sessions, so his problem wasn’t glaringly obvious, but Molly was reassured that he did at least seem comfortable with new people and had no problem making idle chatter with the other bootcampers. Kurt had said he didn’t know Sachin all that well through football, but that he was great on the left. Whatever that meant.

  But Molly got more than she bargained for when she opened the door: not just Sachin, but an attractive, petite Asian girl too. She was wearing a rather nice grey skirt suit with a slight sheen to it, a look Molly knew she wouldn’t be able to pull off without light bouncing off her unsightly bits. Wow, perhaps he really doesn’t have a problem, Molly thought. Or did he get the wrong end of the stick and think he was supposed to bring dates here? Good god!

  Molly stuck out her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Molly. The Colonel,’ she added as an aside with a self-deprecating shrug of her shoulders. ‘I don’t think we’ve met? You are …?’

  ‘Sachin!’ The pint-sized woman smacked Sachin on the arm with her clutch purse. Very hard. ‘You said you would mention me!’

  Smiling sheepishly, Sachin scratched at his nose. ‘Forgot, sorry. There’s been lots on,’ he whinged slightly as the woman huffed in response to his feeble apology.

  The woman flipped her long Mahogany brown hair back in Molly’s direction. ‘I’m so sorry, he can be such a clod. I’m Meena, Sachin’s sister.’

  ‘OK …’ Molly was still hoping for more of a clue as to why she was now part of a threesome. This only usually happened in her dreams. With two Johnny Depps. It didn’t take place around her doorway.

  Meena, obviously a switched-on sort, picked up on Molly’s baffled state and dashed on with an explanation. ‘Sachin told me what he’d signed up for.’

  Oh no, here comes the backlash. She obviously thinks she could be doing a far better job with him than I am. Molly mentally ducked for the fallout.

  ‘And I work for a women’s magazine, so I instantly saw a great angle for us.’

  Molly mentally came out from under the kitchen table and started to feel the warm glow of free publicity.

  ‘Oh, really? Well, do come in. Tea? Coffee? Wine?’

  * * *

  When the three were comfortably sat around the coffee table, each with a drink and the two women with an eager thirst for mutual information, the conversation really sped up a notch.

  ‘… so I said, “You must let me meet the colonel!” Really, Molly, our readers would love this story. Men improving themselves to be better boyfriends? A place to send those troublesome sons and brothers,’ Meena nudged Sachin in the ribs and he briefly paid them a moment of attention. Since they’d been at it, he had been less use than a banana in a Caesar salad so was letting his mind drift to his Fantasy Football team instead. ‘It’s just up their street.’

  Molly stirred her tea and her stomach stirred with excitement. ‘And what’s your readership demographic like?’

  ‘Well, we have your core women’s magazine buyers, twenties to forties, who like fashion, relationship advice, profiles on women in the public eye, and new trends.’

  ‘Perfect. I mean – great!’ Molly enthused. ‘So what can I tell you? I’m all yours.’ Molly crossed her legs and leant back a little in the white armchair. It hardly ever got sat on, being a) not the nice, squashy corduroy sofa and b) a bit uncomfortable and c) not facing the telly.

  ‘Just chat away. Start at the beginning and go from there. I’ll record us, if you don’t mind and then note down anything that would give me a good hook for the piece. It will be just around a thousand words or so, but we’ll very prominently mention the name of the company, and the website of course,’ Meena finished just as Molly opened her mouth to check that very point. ‘Big brother, if you’re just going to be a big useless lump, at least put the kettle on for another cuppa, OK?
’

  Sachin reluctantly hefted himself up and ambled to the kitchen. Meena gave Molly a look as if to say, Brothers, who’d have them? Molly replied with a look that said, I am right there with you, believe me. A small twang on her heart strings reminded Molly she should email Sam again soon and see just where he was on this big globe. She hoped he was OK and having a lovely time, with the lovely Iris.

  Meena flicked on the dictaphone and placed it neatly on the coffee table in front of Molly. ‘Away we go.’

  ‘The story of how I started The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp is sort of a funny one. It all started with my brother Sam listening to Johnny Cash and drinking on his own. I knew he was a top bloke, but it seemed I was the only one who saw it. I don’t think he’ll mind me saying this, but he’d been dumped a worrying number of times in recent years, all his relationships following the same pattern …’

  * * *

  Molly happily shot the breeze with Meena for a good half-hour and only stopped because she realised that her brand-new recruit, Sebastian, would soon be arriving for his first session. She doubted having him loiter in the background while she outlined her plan to make pots of money was really the best way to start his bootcamp experience. Though he’d definitely know his place, she mused.

  Molly rubbed her hands up and down her jeans, then drummed her fingers on her thighs. ‘So, I think I’ve covered it all: the one to one sessions I run; the dating workshops; the fashion and exercise elements; my best success to date, the lovely John.’

  Meena looked down at her notes. ‘Sorry, you didn’t mention what his new girlfriend’s name was? Not to be nosey but I’m trying to prove my journalist skills are up to scratch, so need to cover all bases. I’ll really make a splash with this in the office.’ Meena’s eyes gleamed with an ambitious passion Molly knew all too well.