“Is there any chance it’s just your coach? Maybe you got a bad one?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been meeting other people through their message boards . . . it’s common. Two people told me their coach encouraged them to do these wildly unhealthy diets, and one tried to get her to buy some weight loss protein powder he was selling. Others said their coach recommended these intense exercise regimens but didn’t give any guidance on doing them safely. I talked to one guy who reported a heart condition early on, and the coach forgot about it when recommending things. The guy had to remind him multiple times.”
I didn’t have any sort of response, just looked at her trying to piece all this together. I had no idea how, but this needed to come out. A little part of me also knew that if Claire sank the project, I didn’t have to admit to my inappropriate relationship with the CEO of FitMi and could figure out how to tell said CEO who I really was.
“Everyone I’ve talked to assumed it was just them, and it’s buried. I want to get it right.” Her voice was low, like someone might overhear us. “And I can’t wait much longer.”
I might come out on top, but that felt like a hollow victory, especially with the secrets I was keeping. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
Claire’s expression lost a touch of softness, and she emptied her glass, shoulders square. “We?”
“I’m not trying to steal your story. I just meant I’ll be supportive.”
“Oh.” She settled back on the raft. “That means a lot. Thanks.”
I finished my glass of wine and poured more for us both. If we were having a truce in the middle of a lake, it was better we both get a little soused. My phone buzzed in the plastic holder, but I ignored it.
“Do you remember when you started at Best Life?” Claire’s question surprised me.
“Sure. You were new then, too.” She, Ben, and I had all joined the Best Life team at around the same time. I’d been excited for a few minutes to have fellow newbies, until I realized I was drooling over Ben, and Claire didn’t like me. Ben didn’t stay an assistant for long, though.
Claire sipped her wine, looking out over the lake.
“What made you think of that?”
She looked toward me with a wry smile. “You know, I let Ben convince me you were a threat? He’d throw in comment after comment about how two women of color coming on at the same time, we’d always be compared to each other.”
My face warmed, because I remembered him saying something similar. I figured he was looking out for me, that it was a sign he cared. “He told me I really needed to distinguish myself as the voice of color in the room. As if we’d have the same perspective.”
“Exactly. But he got under my skin eventually, and I started to see you as the competition.”
“I did, too.” I’d put a lot of energy into outdoing Claire over the years. “Honestly, I never thought twice about it. Why would he even do that?”
“He’s an asshole.” Claire sighed, raising her glass to me. “Plus, we were so focused on each other, we never had time to be a threat to him.”
My phone buzzed again, and Wes’s name and photo flashed on the screen with an incoming text.
“You’re right. God, we’ve been acting like rivals for years.”
“Patriarchy. Am I right?” She waved a hand in the air. “I have no idea why you still like him, by the way.”
“I mean, he has his flaws, but he’s a decent guy.”
She arched an eyebrow, finishing her second glass of wine.
“I mean, he’s not a serial killer.”
Her raised eyebrow twitched. “You might need to raise your bar for ‘decent.’ Is that him blowing up your phone?” My phone buzzed one more time, and Claire glanced at the screen, her expression surprised and something else I couldn’t read.
I lunged for it, but the raft shifted, and I dropped my hands, worried about tipping into the water.
“Who is Wes?”
“Why?”
“Because he texted you a selfie and he’s fucking hot.”
I expanded the photo preview on the screen. Wes was on his balcony, the city lights spread out behind him. The red FitMi Fitness T-shirt hugged his muscled torso.
Wes: The city air smells like city air.
Wes: Wish you were here?
“Does he work for the company?” Claire made a grab for my phone, but I pushed it down into my swimsuit.
“He’s . . .” I had no idea what to say. I had no excuse to explain who he was and why he’d be wearing a FitMi shirt.
Claire narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. “Wait. Is he your coach?”
Busted. It was a moment of truth that would test the tenuous truce we seemed to be forging. I nodded, mumbling, “Yes.” I wasn’t brave or drunk enough to tell her the rest of what I’d learned.
“And he’s texting flirty selfies at 9 p.m.?”
“It’s an inside joke . . . it wasn’t flirting.”
“Sure,” she said, lying back on her pillows. “Looks a lot like flirting to me . . . unless it’s more than flirting.” Claire’s eyes cut to me slowly, a grin spreading across her face. “Are you sleeping with your coach?”
My face heated. “No! We’re friends. We work out together.”
“In person?”
I nodded.
“FitMi doesn’t offer that, do they?”
I shook my head. All of this was wrong on some level, but Wes made it seem like it was fine. I’d been on the cusp of telling him the truth in bed last weekend, but then everything happened with his mom, and he’d made it clear he didn’t want to be with me anyway. Claire was the last person I should trust, but under the stars, with the wine and sharing secrets, confessing didn’t feel as scary as I thought it might.
“And there’s nothing going on?”
“Nothing going on. I mean, once . . .”
“What?”
“Something kind of happened once, but it was a mistake. It meant nothing. Look at him.”
“You like him?”
“It doesn’t really matter. Nothing’s going to happen again.” My phone buzzed, and Claire glanced to my right boob, where the device was shoved into the ruched fabric. “Please don’t say anything, Claire. It’s not impacting what I write about the company. I’ve stopped focusing on FitMi altogether to make sure I’m not writing something biased.”
She looked doubtful. “Setting everything else aside, it’s a pretty big deal. And I know you know that . . . but I’ve read your stuff, and it doesn’t sound biased. But if you like him . . . I give you a hard time, Britta, but don’t sell yourself short. He’s texting you, for starters, and it’s not a booty call or a sext. In my experience, guys who look like that don’t want to chat unless they like you.”
“Even if that were true, he’s my coach.” And owns the company. And thinks I was a mistake. “Please don’t say anything. I am making sure nothing gets in the way of my writing.”
“I won’t say anything. I can beat you fair and square.” She shrugged. “And maybe when the story is over, you can start something with him.”
I leaned back on my raft and listened to the water lapping against the surface. I wished it were as easy as Claire suggested, because we’d already started and now we’d stopped. “I should probably put him out of my head.”
Claire motioned to the water. “Lots of fish in the lake.”
42
THE NEXT FRIDAY, Britta and I were on mile two, our shoes hitting the pavement in tandem. It was a cool morning for late July, and the angry-looking sky hung low, but being next to Britta again lightened the dark cloud I’d been under.
Her brows pinched, and she kept looking at her watch, or where her watch would have been if I hadn’t put it in my pocket. I wasn’t sure why she put it on only to hand it to me, but I liked that brief contact with her fingers every time we ran, so I never commented.
“Hey,” I said. “You haven’t told me you hate me yet today.”
“I do,” she huffed. Her face was red, but she looked strong, back straight and body relaxed. When we first met again in person after the trip to the hospital, it was as awkward as I expected, but once we started running, we fell into our old patterns. We could go back to how things were. It wasn’t going to be so hard.