9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
A few weeks went by in which I was prepaying for one-on-ones and flirting surreptitiously with my personal trainer. When I ran out of actual alien romance titles to talk about, I made up my own, Bend Over and its sequel Touch Your Toes , a political commentary on the tax code and polyamorous relationships. Beau recommended a series that were fictional retellings of getting into the Olympics, Hard and Wet .
In addition to my workouts, Ole Reliable was getting put to so much use, I bought it a companion piece, Georgia , a pink monstrosity that sucked and shook at such a level it was obscene.
Wrung dry from working myself out all morning, I ended up walking to the Saturday farmer’s market in search of fruit for my oatmeal. I was now regularly eating an easy, high-protein oatmeal recipe Beau shared with me. It tasted amazing with fresh peaches, apples, blackberries, or whatever else a farmer’s market offered. As I skipped between the stalls, overpaying for some peaches and still quaking a bit from Georgia’s erotic pulses that accompanied thoughts of a cockatiel-like hairdo between my legs, I goddamn ran into Chris.
When I moved into a condo and Chris and new wifey took over our old home, I was bound to run into them outside of a lawyer. The slice of suburbia we had settled in was Chris’s hometown after all. He probably expected me to go back to the Midwest with my tail between my legs, but I had a job and life out here too. It just wasn’t that stellar of life or job. But they were mine.
At least Chris’s forehead gained more real estate since I last saw him. His light brown hair receded farther back. Some of that stress weight he put on during the divorce had worn off as well, so he appeared as gangly as he did the day I married him. Of course when we were married, he wasn’t wearing the Gorda Vista middle-aged man uniform: button-up, puffy vest in navy or black, hiking jeans, and top siders.
“Sir,” he said because he couldn’t bother to say, “Hello.”
“Hey Chris. Have you tried the white peaches around the corner?” Spreading some of Beau’s enthusiasm was what an unexpected conversation with an ex needed.
“I’ll tell Claire we should check it out.” Claire was the woman he left me for. Not the fairest statement about him because our marriage was withering on the vine, and he knew Claire before me, being high school sweethearts and all. When we went to the twenty-year high school reunion, they had one of those amazing heart-to-heart conversations that reminded them of all those things they missed about each other. And—I loved this for them—they had the bravery to explode two marriages over it. Neither cheated in an intentional, physical sense. They took a high road of brutal honesty. It was just hard being on the receiving end of brutal.
Chris’s gaze seemed to bounce around the people at the farmer’s market. That meant Claire was about, and we were destined to have a meeting of the wives. Maybe I could weasel out of here quickly enough. “Well, this was delightfully awkward, but I got—” I pivoted right into Claire. Claire, in all her Sarah-Plain-and-Tall glory, the human embodiment of the brAT diet of bananas, white rice, unsweetened applesauce, or white toast. And Claire was very, very pregnant. Not a normie woman wearing an empire waist outfit, mistakenly seen as pregnant. Waddle and heartburn pregnant.
“Hey Sir.” Claire rubbed the top of her belly, right where it protruded from the bottom of her ribcage.
“Wow, Claire. You’re—”
“Pregnant. About six-months along.” She glowed.
The ground dropped from under me. I was in free fall, grasping the injections and mountains of negative tests that littered my past life with Chris. Prickles of the heavy sadness arose from those memories. I took a deep breath, feeling my eyes sting a bit.
“Congratulations. That’s so great!” I put a hand on Chris’s arm. “I know how much you wanted this.”
He nodded.
Claire smiled; her gray eyes narrowed. “You look really good, Sir. Happy, even.” She trailed off a bit at that last part. The last few years were miserable, but the worst part was knowing we were miserable because of stasis. I hadn’t had the words or bravery to leave my marriage. Marriage meant I had a sure place to stay and at least one set of eyes on my stupid cartoons. And the abject terror of filling out divorce papers and realizing I didn’t have a place to call home anymore, that the eyes who looked at my stupid cartoons were full of indifference? Yeah, I probably didn’t look happy then.
But I was happy now because… because…
“Welp, as I said, I gotta go.” I swung my bag of peaches and pushed myself into a full sprint. I wasn’t going to my condo but toward the gym.
I burst through the doors, scanned my membership card, and rushed through every room of the studio. If I was going to work out, I’d be one of those weirdos someone would upload on social media, wearing ripped jeans, a sweatshirt with a dead possum on it titled, Self-Care: Play Dead.
The cycle bootcamp class let out. The last to file out was Beau. He was toweling himself off. Sweat darkened his green tank top and weighed down his silly hairdo, and of course, it was so damn beautiful like that. His eyebrows raised when he recognized me .
“Tell me if this is out of line, but this Thursday evening there’s a book signing and author Q & A at Crooked and Booked, and I wanted to see if you’d go with me.” This was a situation where words came before thoughts, and now that they all left my mouth, I ground my teeth because his answer was definitely going to be “I’ll refund this prepaid week.”
“Okay. When?”
“Right, that’s what I thought.” No, you dumbass, he just said okay . “Wait what?”
“When on Thursday?” He draped his towel over his neck and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Oh. Seven? Should I pick you up or…”
“I don’t live too far from downtown. I can walk and meet you.”
“I don’t live too far from downtown either.” Beau and I could have easily crossed paths before the gym. Maybe we had, and I hadn’t noticed because he was the age and level of attractiveness that I blotted out before. Solar eclipse man, too bright, so I looked away immediately.
“Meet there?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Get drinks afterward or is that—”
“Yes. Yes, we can get drinks afterward.” I embarrassingly had far too much enthusiasm, wafting eau de desperate.
“It’s a date.”
Hearts flew from my head. I had a date with Beau Bishop.