Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
PERCY
It might be wishful thinking, but after almost two weeks of training with Butch, I think the sleeves on my polo shirt are just a little bit tighter.
I glance at my office door to make sure there aren’t any students lurking, disrespecting my posted office hours.
Once I’m sure I’m alone, I pull my sleeve up a little and curl my arm to flex my bicep.
Holy shit, it’s true, there’s some actual definition there and definitely a little bit of a strain on my sleeves.
Obviously, they’re nothing like Butch’s muscles, which are bigger than my head, but it’s something.
I’m tempted to take a picture and text it to him.
Except I don’t have his phone number. Which is probably a good thing, because sending him a picture of my pathetically small bicep would be weird as hell.
Juno’s whistle startles me. I drop my arm, tugging my sleeve down a little as heat rushes to my face, and look up to see them standing in the doorway, grinning.
“Tickets to the gun show,” they hoot.
I roll my eyes but then straighten up a little in my seat. “I managed to run one point two miles on the treadmill yesterday before I wanted to die. I mean, it was a slooooooow jog, but still.”
“If slow and steady is good enough for the tortoise, it should be good enough for all of us.” Juno gives me an encouraging nod while I use my feet to roll my chair backward towards the mini fridge that’s squeezed in between the two desks we managed to cram in here.
Lucky for me, my office-mate TAs for more midday classes, which means we don’t often have to share the small space at the same time.
As it is, it always gets a little too humid when Juno and I are both talking and breathing in here during our lunch. It’s basically a closet being passed off as an office, but it’s not like we have any standing to complain about it.
Juno carefully moves my papers into a neat stack on one side of my desk while I pull out the sandwiches from the mini fridge.
“All jokes aside, I really am proud of you for sticking with this.”
“All jokes aside?” I raise my eyebrows and pass them their sandwich. “No innuendos about my personal trainer? No witty remarks about the protein shake I shamelessly guzzled down this morning?” I shake my head in mock disappointment and tsk. “I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Oh, no, no. I only meant that one singular statement would be free of jokes. I would now like to say that you should guzzle down Butch’s protein shake.”
“Funny,” I say blandly, unwrapping my sandwich and taking a bite.
My stomach squirms a little, the same way it has done every time I’ve considered asking for Juno’s take on something for the past week.
It’s probably completely irrelevant now anyway, and not worth whatever extra teasing it will earn me, but it keeps bugging me, and part of me thinks if I say it out loud, I’ll hear how ridiculous it sounds and be able to laugh it off.
“What?” They eye me curiously, biting into their own sandwich and chewing slowly.
I sigh and put my food down. “Something kind of weird happened, and I’m sure I’m reading into it…” I hedge. “But I think Butch invited me camping.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Juno squeals, slamming their sandwich down so forcefully that bits of lunch meat and crumbs sprinkle my desk like confetti.
“Duuuuude, camping is code for boning. When are you going? How exactly did he ask you? When did he ask you and why the hell didn’t you text me immediately? ”
“Whoa.” I hold my hands up to slow them down. “I don’t think it’s like that. He said him and the guys were going. I’m assuming he means the other gymbos.”
“Gymbos?” Juno snorts. “I love that. I’m stealing it.”
“Focus,” I groan. “It was a little over a week ago, and he hasn’t brought it up since, so maybe he didn’t even mean it.
It sounded like a personal training thing.
He talked about rock climbing and said something about fitness being a lifestyle.
I don’t know, it sounded like he was trying to sell me on one of those alpha male weekend seminars or something.
” I was right—as I say it out loud, it sounds more and more silly.
He was probably trying to get me to pay for some kind of membership add-on.
How many times is he going to manage to honey pot me with that damn smile of his?
“Maybe ask him to clarify?” They shrug, clearly losing enthusiasm for this reverse Trojan horse of gossip. It looked exciting from the outside, but with a closer look, it’s a whole lot of nothing.
“Yeah, okay,” I scoff. “Hey, Butch, are you trying to get me to pay for an outdoor fitness retreat or do you want to do me?”
“You never know unless you ask,” they insist, picking their sandwich back up while I brush the crumbs off of my desk.
“Hard pass,” I mumble around another bite of my lunch.
“Well, either way, I think you should go. Fresh air, rock climbing, getting cold enough to crawl into his tent and ask to cuddle…” Juno gives me a wicked smile. “Sounds like a perfect weekend to me.”
“Sounds like a fantasy.” I chuckle.
“Exactly.” They grin, clearly missing my point.
BUTCH
Usually, by the time Fender and I get home from Sweat at the end of the day all I want to do is watch ESPN in my underwear. But I was too keyed up to sit around tonight. I stop at a crosswalk to wait for the signal, jogging in place so I don’t lose my momentum.
The song playing in my earbuds switches over to Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust. It’s always been one of my favorites to jog to, with just the right beat to hit a perfect stride, but now a memory of Percy at the gym yesterday jumps to the forefront of my mind.
When this song came on, he started doing a hilarious exaggerated strut on his treadmill and singing along with it.
I joined in and Fender ended up filming the whole thing and posting it on the gym’s Instagram.
Over the past week and a half, he’s been slowly gaining confidence, but that was the first moment I really felt like he might be coming out of his shell.
And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.
The walk signal flashes, and I jog across the intersection and around the corner, not paying much attention to where I’m headed, just running until I wear myself out.
After Percy’s training session yesterday, the guys decided this weekend looks perfect for camping—no rain in the forecast, mild temps even overnight—and he didn’t come in this morning because his university schedule is too busy on Thursdays to fit in a workout.
I’ve been wondering all day if it would be wrong to text him about it or if asking him tomorrow morning would be too short notice.
I got his number from his sign-up paperwork, so it feels like it might be a creep move to use it to text him, but I hate the thought of missing out on having him come along just because I waited too long.
A bus pulls to a stop half a block up, and my insides jolt when I see a flash of familiar curly brown hair.
I’m a little winded from my run already, but that doesn’t stop me from picking up my pace, a smile spreading across my face as I pop my earbuds out and call his name loud enough for him to hear it over the street noise.
“Rocky.” I cup my hands around my mouth and call out.
He hitches his messenger bag higher on his shoulder and starts walking in my direction without noticing me.
“Rocky,” I call again, putting myself directly in his path.
His steps falter and he looks up, his eyes going wide with surprise before a grin twists his full, pouty lips.
“Butch, hey.” He fiddles with the strap on his bag and shuffles his feet as I come to a stop in front of him.
“Hey,” I echo. He’s dressed in a nice pair of slacks and a polo shirt.
I’ve gotten so used to seeing him in his gym clothes that it’s strange to see him all academic, but it totally works on him.
If all professors looked like him, I might have been tempted to go to college.
Of course, school was never my strong suit, so I would have had to stop by during his office hours to ask for extra tutoring, a little one-on-one cramming, maybe an oral exam to make up for my terrible grades.
Percy clears his throat, yanking me out of my professor-student fantasy.
“Do you live around here?” he asks.
“Uh…” I glance around, squinting at the bus map to figure out where the hell I actually ended up. “Oh, yeah, kind of. I’m about four blocks North, on Hamilton. There’s a killer Thai place over there.”
“Cool.” He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, and his eyes wander to my clothes, sweat drenched and clinging to my muscles, then back to my face. “So, you’re out for a jog?”
“Yeah. You want to join me?” Before I bumped into him, I was starting to think about looping back and finding my way home, but I think I just got a second wind.
He looks down at his clothes, then back at me with a laugh.
“You live near here, right?” I look around at the numerous apartment buildings surrounding us. “We can pop over to your place so you can change first.”
He hesitates for a second and then nods. “Sure, okay.”
I swallow down the urge to whoop so I don’t scare him into changing his mind.
“That’s me,” he says, pointing at the building two doors down.
He rummages in the front pocket of his bag, artfully dodging other people on the sidewalk without even looking up as I follow him to his building.
“I don’t think I have to warn you that I’m only going to make it around the block before there’s a real possibility you’ll have to carry me home, right? ”
I bark out a laugh. “At least you’re small, if it comes to that.”
His face pinks and he leads me up the stairs. As soon as we’re inside, he slips his bag off and hangs it on a hook just inside the door, then toes off his loafers.
“If you need to get a glass of water or anything, help yourself.” He points towards the kitchen, which shares the main space with the living room, similar to the layout of my own apartment. “I’ll be right back.”
Percy hurries down the short hallway and closes a door behind him.
I take him up on his offer of water, looking around his living room while I wait.
The layout might be similar to my apartment, but there’s no question about who lives here.
Fender and I are simple guys with bare walls, dirty gym socks on the floor, and fitness magazines stacked on the coffee table.
Percy’s apartment is tidy and smells like cinnamon.
There are bookshelves lining one whole wall and every shelf is filled with books.
There are textbooks on the coffee table and several different science magazines.
If I needed the reminder that Percy is way out of my league, this is it.
That doesn’t stop the squirming in my stomach though, or the words forming on the tip of my tongue while I wait for him.
I was wrestling with the idea of texting him and then there he was.
I’m not a woo-woo kind of guy, but that feels like it means something.
After a few minutes, his door creaks open again, and he steps back into the living room.
He must have gone shopping for some new gym clothes, because his obscene booty shorts have been replaced by a pair of full-length green joggers.
He also has a new pair of sneakers and is wearing a plain white T-shirt that fits him just snug enough that I can see the peaks of his stiff nipples through it.
“Ready?” I ask gruffly.
“As I’ll ever be,” he says with a laugh, grabbing his keys and shoving them into his pocket before opening the door and waving me out.
“Oh, by the way, remember that camping thing I mentioned? Well, it’s on for this weekend.” That sounds casual, right? “If you’re up for it, we usually rent a van that’s big enough to fit all of us and head up on Friday afternoon once we close up shop.”
“Oh.”
He’s ahead of me on the stairs, so I can’t see his face, and the tone of that “oh” doesn’t give me much to go on.
“No pressure,” I hurry to assure him. “It’s low-key. I just figured, you got along with everyone at the pizza place that night, and it would be a shame to let your routine lapse just because I’m taking off for a couple of days…”
“So, um, is it like a training thing or more of a…” We reach the bottom step, and I finally catch the nervous look on his face as he turns towards me and leans into the door to push it open. “Like… social thing?”
I scratch the back of my neck. What answer is he looking for? Does he want me to be inviting him socially or is he hoping I’m keeping things professional?
“Both?” I say uncertainly. “But more social, I guess? If that’s cool. Like I said, no pressure.”
“Uh…” He tugs on his shirt and sticks his hands in his pockets, then pulls them back out. “I guess that would be fine.”
The feeling that whooshes through me makes my knees quake, and I smile at him.
“Alright, kick-ass.” I lightly punch his shoulder and hop from foot to foot. “If it’s cool with you, I can get your phone number from your paperwork and text you all the details in the morning?”
“Sure, that sounds good.” He nods, then looks up and down the street with the same wary determination he always wears at the gym. “Now, are we doing this, or what?”