Beads of sweat were dripping down his sculpted back. The room smelled of sweat mixed with his cologne. His hair was drenched. He had earbuds in, and I could hear the music blasting through them. Gritting his teeth, he hit the black rubber contraption harder and harder. My heart beat faster with every punch.
When I inched cautiously closer, he growled, “Get out of the way.” I flinched as his arm swung dangerously close to me.
I backed up but stayed watching him from the corner of the room. I’d seen him working out before but never like this. He was like a beast, so strong and virile. It occurred to me that with Jade gone so long, he must have been sexually frustrated. Maybe that was why he was taking it out on the punching bag. Whatever the reason, I was transfixed by the energy he was expending and found myself unable to take my eyes off him.
He suddenly stopped, took out his earbuds and moved over to the doorway where he’d set up a metal bar for pull ups. My eyes followed the movement of his body as he lifted his own weight, his rock hard abs tightening and curling with each lift.
He jumped down from the bar and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Nothing better to do than to watch me work out? Aren’t you supposed to be getting dressed for a date?”
“I am dressed.”
“That’s Jade’s dress, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s the same one she has, but this one is mine. We both bought these from the same shop on clearance the same day.”
“It looks normal on her. On you…it looks ridiculous.”
My stomach sank. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“No, but your body is different than hers. That dress looks obscene on you.”
Looking down at myself, I suddenly felt naked. “What are you talking about?”
“You want me to spell it out?”
“Yes.”
He came up behind me, grabbing my shoulders and positioning me in front of the full-length mirror on the wall. Shivers ran down my spine from the feel of his rough hands on me.
“Look. Your tits are busting out of it. Your nipples are poking out of the middle of those daisy flowers.”
My mind was in a fog because all I could see was me in the mirror with Justin’s hot, sweaty body behind me. Then, he flipped me around fast and his stare was burning into mine. He was too close for comfort, and my legs felt like they were going to collapse under me from the surge of sexual awareness. “Look at your ass in the mirror. The material can barely wrap around it. You think Dr. Doolittle is going to be able to look you in the eyes when you’re dressed like that?”
“You really think this looks that bad?”
He suddenly walked away from me and returned to the pull-up bar. My nipples were tingling. I just wanted his hands on me again.
“I think it makes you look like a whore, yes,” he said before doing a few more reps in silence. He hopped down, the weight of his body causing a large thump against the wood floor. “You really are that oblivious, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You never did have any clue what kind of effect you have on people.”
“Be specific, please.”
“When we were younger, you would sit on my lap, put your hands on me, run your fingers through my hair, hug me all of the time with your massive tits pressed against me. I spent half of my teenage years walking around with a fucking hard on that I couldn’t do anything about. The entire time you apparently had no clue.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now. And you have no idea how many times I had to defend you behind your back. Guys talking about your body, saying sexual things about you right in front of my fucking face. Do you have any clue how many fights I got into because of you?”
“You never told me.”
“No. I didn’t. Because I was trying to protect your feelings. I tried so hard to fucking protect you from shit, and that was the one thing that bit me in the ass in the end.”
“I’m sorry.”
He held his hands up. “You know what? Never mind. My bad. Let’s not do this again. I told you we were done talking. And we are.”
“Okay.”
“I’d like to continue my work out in peace if you don’t mind.”
“Alright.”
Back in my room, I could hear that he’d returned to the punching bag in full force. Still reeling from his words, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right. Maybe I was really just a clueless person. But he never exactly expressed his feelings to me back then, either. Was I supposed to be a mind reader? I felt like I needed to make that point. It was bugging me. I returned down the hall and spoke through his violent hooks to the bag.
“The other night you asked me why I never told you how I felt. Well, clearly you didn’t have the balls to tell me how you felt, either.”
Justin stopped punching but kept his arms on the bag, leaning against it. He took a few seconds to catch his breath. “I thought it was understood. How much more obvious could I have been? All the fucking songs I wrote you? Did you ever even see me with any other girls?”