22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
W hen it came to planning a unique yet challenging cycle class, the trainer became the trainee. Not gonna lie, I loved having a second set of one-on-ones in the studio without having to pay Beau seventy-five bucks a pop. Maybe my sex life made me more foolish, but I liked entering the gym after his last class. While others slowly left the studio to compliment him on a job well done or how his class changed their whole outlook, I waltzed in, gloating a bit because I had the real deal: the Beau who was going to make something of himself and nail this audition.
It wasn’t lost on me that one of the familiar members of the cycle divas with the ivory leggings and sports bra with similar ivory-colored hair and ivory shoes scowled as I took a cycle seat while she let the door hit her on the way out. Wasn't she the same woman who scowled at us in the parking lot a while back?
First, Beau showed me the expected playlist. He got to run an entire class for a session as his audition, so he had to run with his best foot forward. Luckily, he had me, a person with taste, for his music consultant. We debated being basic and sunny, settling for top forty standards over the span of the last thirty years. Or going niche—settling on a theme and running with it.
“What do you think of when you think of me ?” Beau asked as I scanned through an endless list of music.
“You’re the dom next door? He tells you what to do, gets you to embrace discomfort, but does it with a mischievous smile on his face?”
“Should that be my class name? The Dom Next Door?”
I was the devil on his shoulder. “Do it.”
“Music—Rihanna’s ‘S I’d tell him to be bossier .
After working up a sweat in the gym, we rinsed it off at my home. Sometimes we’d work up our own kind of sweat in the sheets, but other times, we just liked eating dessert and watching some Netflix. Really, Netflix and chill.
Bored at work, I drew a sketch of Beau as a cycle instructor combined with a leather daddy. In reality, he probably couldn’t lead a class in sunglasses, military boots, and leather shorts. In Beau fashion, the cartoon dom version of him still had his telltale pompadour.
We hit the internet to find the next best thing and make this dom find the right amount of daddy meets suburbia to match his vibe. Imagine our excitement when we discovered cycling boots existed! Actual leather and vinyl would be a bit stifling for sweating and spinning. Together we found some liquid leather-looking Spandex.
“What about the EverGreen & Fit image?” Beau asked me as he assessed whether the slick-looking, black moisture wicking muscle shirt was too dark dom for the fifty shades of green of this gym franchise .
“How about I screen print the logo in a pine green on the black? It will blend in, but it shows that, although you’re going for a darker edge, you’re not above being corporate. I could use our satin finish to give it a nice sheen, fitting the fake leather and vinyl aesthetic.”
My brainchild practically crowning, I finished Beau’s shirt first thing at work the next day. I admired the gloss of the dark green against the black.
“I might have some good news for you,” Tina sang from the back office.
I carefully folded Beau’s shirt so it was a perfect package to give to him.
Tina poked her head out of her office. “Someone expressed interest in bankrolling this place. I’d still have a managerial role, but we wouldn’t have to reduce your position or benefits. Maybe even get a better co-pay.”
“Cool.” As I smoothed one more wrinkle out of Beau’s shirt, I realized my exit plan over the last few weeks had been adjusting. If Beau landed the better gig of leading classes on the app, I started devising plans of ditching my condo and following him into the city. Unfortunate flashes of me wearing a wedding ring again and squeezing his hand with a corresponding ring entered my mind as well, but those were girlish wishes. The same ones that said if I lined my locker with my favorite hottie, which happened to be James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins, that he’d burst through my classroom door and take me on a ride on his flying guitar. Stupid wishes in reality that ended with lawyers and moving boxes. Of course, I convinced myself, I wouldn’t be following a man because Beau wasn’t my boyfriend.
It was something more than following my heart into San Francisco or living out a song. I’d be pursuing life beyond the dead-end job in Gorda Vista. I had followed my ex-husband across the country. Being conveniently close to Beau was only a forty-five-minute shift in plans. San Francisco offered opportunities I had previously avoided such as using my art to design video games or something for the animation studio nestled in the city.
I had disappeared so far into these visions of the future, I almost missed when Tina said, “Yes, I was at the rotary luncheon and spoke to this guy about investing in a printing business as a way to grow income. He had a name you don’t hear often. Perry? ”
My stomach flipped at the possibility. The small world of Gorda Vista was shrinking to something even smaller. “Perry Pietraszewski?”
“Yes! Do you know him?”
“All too well,” I murmured. There had been conversations where I let Tina know my exaggerated versions of events from the shiny, long tables of law firms. I may have referred to Perry as “The She Demon’s Finance Bro with a Respectable Grudge.” I wasn’t going to deflate her dreams by telling her Finance Bro with a Grudge was Perry.