She groans in annoyance.
“You’re doing it all wrong. You’re supposed to say something witty, not just boring details about your life, and there are hotter pictures you could have chosen.”
She deletes the words that took me five seconds to type.
“What’s wrong with telling them I’m a chemistry teacher?”
“You’re supposed to say it in a witty way, like ‘I teach chemistry, let’s see if we have any between us.’”
“That’s really bad. Honestly, the worst.”
“And you didn’t even include a shirtless photo. What’s the point of all that gym time if you aren’t going to flaunt the results?”
“I don’t have any shirtless photos of myself.”
Who does?
She snaps her fingers like she’s got the perfect solution. “What about when we went to the beach last summer? There was that photo of us together on Facebook. My aunts gushed over you for days, and I unfortunately mean that in the literal sense. When I told them we were just friends, one of them asked me for your number.”
“Oh, perfect. Let’s skip Tinder and just hook me up with her then.”
“She’s 68.”
“First date at Luby’s? Senior discount?”
She shoves my phone back against my chest and shakes her head. “You know what? Now that I think about it, I don’t think you should do the dating app thing. It’ll be overwhelming for someone as pretty as you.”
“You use them,” I point out.
Her expression makes it clear she thinks I’m teasing her. I want to haul her up onto the copier and prove my point. Her ass would press against the glass, the bright light would scan past. I’d laminate the copies and hang them up in my shower.
“It’s different,” she says as she sighs, almost sounding sad.
“How?”
“I’m not everyone’s type. Your face is deemed universally good-looking.”
I sidestep her compliment.
“Did Sergio ever respond to you the other day?”
She scowls up at me. “Yeah, he told me we wouldn’t work out even after I tried to clear up the mess you made. Why are you smiling like that?”
“Oh, I’m just thinking of what I’m going to eat for lunch.”
After school and on weekends, I’m usually with Sam. We spend 99% of our time together. This seems odd to my parents and our other friends (the one or two that have stuck around), but it happened gradually. Weekly dinners became biweekly dinners, and so on. At this point, we’re codependent. I can’t remember the last time I had a meal for one—oh wait, yes I can: it was that time I bought myself Jimmy John’s on the way to Sam’s apartment a few months back.
“Shit, I should have brought you something,” I said right as she opened the door and glanced down.
“No, it’s fine. I have plenty of food here to eat.”
She joined me on the couch a few minutes later carrying a plate that contained the following: one carrot, a moldy piece of cheese, and half a slice of expired lunch meat. It was turkey, from the looks of the sad pale color.
“How’s your warm sub?” she asked, reaching for the carrot.
Obviously, I tore my sandwich down the middle and gave her half. Lesson learned.
We usually have a lot of grading to do on school nights: essays and edits for her, chemistry exams and lab reports for me. Tonight, though, I’ve talked her into going to the gym with me. She hates it so much. In the car on the way there, she works her way through an entire monologue about how it’s commendable that I care so much about my physical health and wellbeing, but she thinks it’s more important to focus on the mental and emotional health benefits of a sedentary lifestyle.
“Why do you think there’s a whole genre of clothing called athleisure? I’m not alone.”
I push her into the gym and we start to head our separate ways. We’ve tried to work out together, but it’s too distracting. I’m actually here for a purpose, while Sam just wants to talk and sip on a drink from the smoothie counter. She also likes to wear tight workout tops and yoga pants, and maybe I find that a little more distracting than the conversation. She steps back and sends me an over-the-top wave. “If I don’t meet you back here in an hour it’s because I’m hiding in a corner somewhere crying! Have fun!”
A beefy gym rat hears her as he walks by and offers up a greasy smile. “Are you new? I can take you through a few machines if you want. My name’s Kevin. I work here.”
Her eyes go wide and she looks petrified.
“Oh, no thank you, Kevin,” she says firmly and quickly before turning and breaking out in a run-walk in the opposite direction.
Kevin looks to me for an explanation, but all he gets is a scowl.
Tonight, Sam’s opted for a workout class lead by a spunky pink-haired teacher. For an hour, I work out on the machines while stealing glances of her inside the studio near the back of the gym. Glass windows stretch from floor to ceiling. There are a dozen other women dancing and kicking and pushing-up alongside her, but Sam’s near the back and it’s easy to watch her through the glass as she tries desperately to keep up. She’s really not so bad. What she lacks in physical strength, she makes up for in enthusiasm, her red ponytail swinging wildly.
I finish up on a machine and drag a towel across my forehead as the teacher takes them through some cool-down stretches. Sam steps her legs out into a V and bends forward at the hips so she can reach down and touch the ground. Her butt is displayed in the tightest pair of black stretchy pants she owns. I need to stuff my towel into my mouth and bite down.
The bicep machine closest to that back studio has had a steady line for the last hour. The machine is rusted and old and yet everyone wants a turn. The guy there now isn’t even pretending to use it. There are no weights hooked up, and he’s just tugging at the limp rope while he gawks at Sam. I want to wring his neck.
Sam’s upside-down head falls between her legs as she stretches, and when she sees me looking, she grins and waves enthusiastically.
“Hi!” she mouths.
The guys hovering near the bicep machine jerk their gaze in my direction, and when Sam turns away, I wave them off. They scatter like cockroaches.
I’m in the middle of leg presses when she finds me later. I have headphones in so I don’t notice her until she’s right there, a few inches away, sweaty and breathing hard.
I reach up and cut my music, but I continue with my set. She watches, eyes studying my legs like they’re wild animals, about to pounce.
“How was the class?” I ask, dragging my gaze slowly down her flushed cheeks and neck, down the front of her tight black top. She looks up and I jerk my gaze away before she catches me.
“Really fun, actually. Did you watch?”
Was I that obvious?
“I think I might’ve seen some in passing.”
She tries to hide a little smile. “So you saw when we did the cardio dance stuff in the beginning?”
Yes.
“No, must have missed it.”
“Ugh! It was my favorite part! Anyway, I’ll definitely go back. I hate doing the machines out here, but that class didn’t even feel like a workout. I mean, obviously it was…” She pinches her sweaty tank top for proof.
I pause my leg presses and reach for my water.
“See, feel. I think I got stronger just in that one class.”
She’s holding up her flexed bicep. I don’t think it’s a good idea to touch her right now.
“Ian! Appreciate my gains!”
“I can appreciate them from here, macho man.”
She reaches out for my hand and places it on her bicep. She feels delicate and warm. My hand closes around her upper arm, not tightly, but it feels strange…intimate. I watch her smile waver and I nearly say, You asked for this, remember?
She jerks away and rubs her arm like she’s trying to expel cooties from her skin. “Swole, right?”
I humor her. “You better watch where you aim those things.”
“How much longer do you have?”
“Just one set of these.”