I pocketed my phone and tore open the protein bar. She wasn’t wrong. Six weeks of dates, sleepovers, shared meals, sex that left me wrecked in ways I’d never been wrecked before. Ellis’ toothbrush lived in my bathroom. His phone charger had colonized my nightstand. Last Tuesday I’d opened my fridge and found oat milk, which I’d never bought in my life.
We were doing all the boyfriend things without ever saying the word.
And I hadn’t said it because saying it meant something. Boyfriend was a container. A boundary. A shape you poured yourself into and hoped you fit. Every time I’d gotten close to the word with anyone else, my throat had closed around it like an allergic reaction.
But Ellis wasn’t anyone else.
He was already at Foundation Fitness when I got there. Leg day, apparently. He had the squat rack loaded with two plates and was grinding through his last rep, face tight with effort, that vein in his neck standing out.
I dropped my gym bag by the bench press. The controlled exhale as he racked the bar. The way he gripped his knees, breathing hard, hair plasteredto his forehead with sweat.
Six weeks ago, I’d clocked this man from across the gym and told myself he was nobody.
“Staring again.” Ellis grabbed his water bottle without looking up.
“Admiring. We’ve been over this.”
“Same thing.”
“Not even close.” I loaded my own bar. Two twenty-fives on each side to warm up. “How were the legs?”
“Dead. Everything’s dead. My quads filed for divorce.” He dropped onto the bench next to my rack, stretching his calves. “How was your day?”
“Just normal, frustrating work stuff. Bride wants to change her color scheme three weeks out. I told her taupe is not a personality.”
He laughed. The gym-loud one, not the quiet, careful one he used in restaurants. A few heads turned. He didn’t notice, or didn’t care, and something about that got me.
I started my set. The bar sat cold and familiar in my hands. Ellis spotted me without being asked, standing behind the bench with his hands under the bar, close enough that I could smell his deodorant and the salt of his sweat.
“I was thinking,” he started.
“Dangerous.”
“Shut up.” A grin. “I was thinking we could try that ramen place in Fort Greene this weekend. The one with the sixty-minute wait.”
“I hate waiting.”
“I know. But I read they have a bar area. We’d wait at the bar.”
“You want to take me on a bar date that turns into a ramen date.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No.” I pressed the bar up, arms locked, his face upside-down above me. “Saturday?”
“Saturday.”
I finished my set and sat up, toweling off my face. The gym washalf-empty for a weekday evening. Regulars doing their thing, nobody paying attention to us. The overhead speakers pumped something with too much bass and not enough melody.
“Can I ask you something?” The words came out before I had a plan for what followed.
Ellis sat back down. “Always.”
“What do you tell people about me?”
His water bottle paused halfway to his mouth. “What do you mean?”
“When someone asks if you’re seeing anyone.” I peeled at the label on my water bottle, not looking at him. “What word do you use?”
