She looks at herself in the mirror again. Band shirt, borrowed shorts, pink mohawk, septum ring. She looks back at me.
"Girlfriend," she says again, and this time it's not a test. It's a fact. She smiles.
I grin so wide my face hurts and she rolls her eyes but she's smiling, a real one, the kind she can't edit out in time, and we walk onto the main floor like two people who just decided something in a locker room and are trying to act normal about it.
The gym is half-full. Saturday morning crowd: a few older women on treadmills, a couple of guys at the free weights, a woman doing physical therapy exercises on a mat near the glass doors while a trainer guides her through hip rotations. The trainer is tall, wears a ponytail, athletic build, focused. There's a dog lying on a bed near the treatment area, a massive pit bull who watches the room with calm authority. He's fat and lazy and I instantly love him without knowing a thing about him.
I show Teague the basic equipment. She approaches the leg press like it personally offended her. She does ten reps with minimal weight and then sits there looking at the ceiling.
"This is pointless."
"You just started."
"I can feel my body asking me why I'm doing this."
I smirk. I'm not much better. But I'm going to try. "Your body will thank you later."
"My body is filing a formal complaint."
I laugh. She's funny when she's uncomfortable, funnier than usual, because the discomfort strips away the cool and leaves the person underneath, the one who doesn't know what to do with a leg press or a label or a girl who calls her girlfriend in a locker room.
We move through the machines together. I show her the cable machine, the rowing station, the pull-up bar. She's stronger than she thinks. Years of carrying kegs and crates and restocking top shelves have built muscle she doesn't notice because she's never looked for it. She does a set of pull-ups and I watch the koi flex on her forearm and the muscles in her back move under the borrowed t-shirt and I have to look away because we're in public and I'm not doing this here. But I can't look away for long and her muscles are moving and her stomach is exposed and I just want to put my mouth on her.
"Stop looking at me like that," she says, hanging from the bar.
"Like what?"
She rolls her eyes as she smiles at me. "Like you're thinking about things that aren't pull-ups."
"I'm always thinking about things that aren't pull-ups."
She drops from the bar. Lands light. Wipes her hands on the shorts. "You're a menace, Zoe Kimball. A gorgeous, sexy, funny menace."
I like when she calls me by my full name. It sounds like the station, like I'm one of the crew, and coming from her it's affection disguised as formality.
We finish the machines. Teague is sweating, which she seems personally offended by, and I'm warm and loose andhappy in the specific way I get when my body has done something and my brain can shut up for five minutes. We stretch on the mats near the window and I watch Teague try to touch her toes and fail and try again with the stubborn determination of someone who refuses to lose a fight with her own hamstrings.
"Teague."
"What?"
"Thank you for coming."
She sits up. Looks at me. She's flushed and her hair is damp at the temples and the borrowed shirt has a sweat mark on the back and she looks nothing like the person who poured me a Shirley Temple weeks ago and everything like the person I'm falling in love with.
"You owe me a sandwich," she says.
"I owe you a sandwich."
"With real butter."
I blow her a kiss. "Of course."
She stands up, offers me a hand, pulls me to my feet. Her grip is firm and her palm is warm and she holds on for a half-second longer than she needs to and that half-second is everything.
We shower and then change back. Teague puts on her jacket like she's putting on armor, settling back into herself, and I watch the transformation happen in reverse: gym Teague disappearing behind leather and patches and rings, the whole identity clicking back into place. She looks at me looking at her.
"What?"
