Chapter 2 #2
“You see that, boys?” she asks, flexing her arms and posing for us with a big smile. “Ain’t nuttin’ but a peanut!”
“Awesome, Karen,” Ross says. At the same time, I say, “Great job!”
“Ain’t nothing to it but to do it.” She preens a moment longer then high-fives us both, white dust puffing up in the air around us from her chalky hands. We move on, chuckling as Karen finishes clearing her bar and moving on with her workout.
“That’s one badass grandma I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley at night. She might kick my ass. Even with the Ronnie Coleman quotes.”
Ross chuckles but counters, “It’s people like her who’ll help us stand out when we have the meeting with Jeffrey Sanders. I feel good about this. You?”
I nod, agreeing with Ross as I call out to one of the strongmen, “What’s up, Gus?
” He’s a bouncer at a local nightclub and looks like he could rip your spine clean out of your body Mortal Kombat-style if the mood suited him, but in reality, he’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet.
Besides strongman, his hobbies include gardening and baking cookies. “How’s the family?”
“Baby’s doing great! Wanna see pictures?
” He’s already wiping his fingers on his shorts and pulling out his phone to swipe through the camera roll.
As we ooh and ahh appropriately over the chubby-cheeked baby, Gus warns us.
“The wife says she’s going to feel up to coming back soon too.
So tell AJ I’m gonna be making some arrangements with him. ”
AJ is our best and most experienced trainer, and his sessions are prized and expensive commodities.
“You don’t want to work with her?” Ross asks, his brow furrowing since Gus obviously knows what he’s doing given the monstrous amount of weight on the bar at his feet. I laugh when Gus looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. “What?”
Gus explains to Ross, “I made that mistake back when we were dating, and after giving her a few form cues, I was in the dog house for three whole days. Something about her not needing me to mansplain proper squats because she’d been hover peeing her whole life.
And before you ask, I didn’t ask . . . seemed like a woman thing.
All I know is, I’m never pulling that shit ever again!
” A haunted look crosses his face, and I swear he looks pale even though his skin is dark brown.
“No way in hell. AJ can deal with that and I will happily pay for him to do it.”
He pauses and then points a thick, blunt-tipped finger at Ross before shifting to me. “And if you tell her I said that, I’ll kill you myself.”
His face is stone-cold serious, and we throw our hands up in the ubiquitous sign of ‘no problem, man.’ Gus’s mean mug melts as though it never happened and he’s all smiles again.
“AJ will be ready for her.” I make a mental note to give AJ a heads-up on that one. Gus’s wife, Brandy, has big plans to have a baby and compete in a fitness model competition in the same calendar year. Sounds like madness to me, but if anyone can do it safely, she can.
We head back into the front of the gym to get ready for the day shift to start. “Incoming,” Ross whispers out of the side of his mouth. “Two o’clock.”
I glance up and see Missy, one of our members, coming in with a determined look on her face and eyes locked on me like I’m the spring runway release of Prada’s special collection.
The very definition of spoiled socialite, Missy’s in here five days a week.
She works out, but her main goal seems to be cockteasing men by turning every walk on the stepper or ‘squat’ into a chance to poke her ass out and show off more camel toe than the local zoo.
Or sometimes, she stretches, using the yoga straps to mimic some sort of BDSM meets Kama Sutra situation.
Today, she’s in her typical uniform, which consists of a low-cut sports bra that has her obviously enhanced tits threatening to spill out all over the place, some skintight booty shorts that would barely pass a beach volleyball test, her hair pulled up in a high wrap ponytail like a bottle-blonde Ariana Grande clone, and wearing enough makeup to qualify as a YouTube video star.
Some of the guys seem infatuated with her, but she does nothing for me. She’s a Barbie looking for a Ken with a big bank account, and though I might be single, I want more than a real-life blow-up doll.
Unfortunately, Missy seems to not care about my opinion on the matter as she comes up, running a perfectly manicured hand over my right bicep.
“Ooh, Kaede, have you been doing sets without me?” she purrs.
“I thought we agreed that we would work out together?” Her pout is practiced, and I’m sure it’s gotten her whatever she wants her entire life.
She’s also not talking about weightlifting when she says ‘work out together’.
“Hello, Missy,” I reply as evenly and politely as I can.
I chose screen-printed DryFit T-shirts for gym floor staff for a reason, blending professional with sporty.
With the way Missy’s not so subtly flirting, though, I wish I’d chosen a hazmat suit.
“Sorry, I’m not a trainer, but I’m sure one of them would be happy to work out with you. ”
It’s a clipped and professional way of pawning her off on someone else, anyone else.
I never realized how hard Ross’s job is.
If it were only me at stake, I’d tell her to fuck off.
But it’s not just me, it’s One Life and our future, and I can’t go around being unprofessional just because a member is a stage-five clinger who refuses to take a hint.
“That’s not the same and you know it.” She smiles as if something I said was funny and then takes a long drink from her water bottle. She sucks at the spout with pink over-plump lips, hollowing her cheeks like she’s sucking on a dick and she’s thirsty as fuck. And I don’t mean for water.
When that doesn’t get the desired result, she gives up on finesse and gets straight to it. “How about dinner sometime? Do you like Sabbatino’s? I can get us a table tonight.”
Sabbatino’s is fancy, as in I don’t think I could get a table there on last-minute notice. Ross probably could if he dropped his last name, but there’s zero chance Missy is getting a table there tonight or any other. There’s even less chance that I would go with her. Ever.
“Sorry,” I reply politely, “but I’m putting in all my time here.”
“It shows.” She drops her eyes from the top of my head to my crotch, and I fight the urge to cover up. Besides, my dick’s already gone into hiding to get away from her. She settles with patting the logo on my chest affectionately. “Maybe another time. See you around.”
She struts off, hips swaying like she’s about to rip off her shorts and toss them at me, but I have to shiver. Ross, who’s been ignored like last week’s leftover tuna salad this entire time, gives me a raised eyebrow. “Who the hell is that?”
“Missy. A girl who thinks that membership benefits are a little more than what’s covered in the brochure.”
Ross’s eyebrows climb. “And?”
“Definitely not my type.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Didn’t know you had a ‘type’, other than available. And that one is a Waffle House for the K-Dawg . . . open twenty-four seven, three sixty-five.”
“Gross, asshole. You kiss your wife with that mouth?”
Ross grins, not offended in the least. Before he can give me the details I don’t want on exactly where he’s kissed her, I jump back in to cut him off. “I think I need a shower,” I mutter, rubbing at my chest where Missy touched me. “Seriously feel dirty.”
Ross snorts. “Yeah, well, hit the showers and I’ll see you this afternoon to talk final details for the Sanders presentation. If we do this right, it’ll all be worth it. With Sanders, we can clone this success and go national.”
I give Ross a grin. I’m feeling the excitement in the air too. “I know, dumbass. I’m the one who put the presentation together. We’re going to nail it.”
One Life Gym is my business baby, and I’ll do anything to protect it, grow it, make it into everything it deserves to be. And it’s already paying me back, maybe not in dollars but in pride and feeling. “One-Two, Ross. One-Two.”
We fist bump, and he corrects our decades-old saying. “One-One, Kaede. You and me, man.”