I was greeting everyone when Freddie and Wolfie entered with their husbands, and three more gigantic men. It was hard not to notice them, given their size, but they all seemed to cause an extra stir among the riders already on their bikes. They walked toward a cluster at the back, the girls showing them how to adjust their saddles before getting on.
I looked at the three newcomers, two of whom seemed roughly the same size, and even in their darkened corner of the room, I could make out their expansive shoulders and giant chests, straining against the softness of their formfitting tanks cut across thick delts. Sculpted biceps and triceps flexed as they adjusted their bike heights and tightened the screws, and both were wearing knee length skins underneath their looser shorts, hugging massive, powerful thighs and heavily defined quads.
I forced myself to blink before I was caught staring.
While all these newcomers were undeniably Grade A male specimens, the one tucked away on the far left was causing nervous knots to sit low in my belly and goosebumps to shoot down my spine. He was wearing a cap pulled down low his face, and I watched as he gave a quiet chuckle to the blonde guy next to him, his pouty lips curling up into a smile showing off straight, white teeth.
Since the girls had turned up yesterday, something was happening I couldn’t explain, like a memory that I couldn’t quite find whispering across my brain.
I turned away to look the rest of the class over, realizing the room had completely filled in the time I’d been ogling the boys, and tried to convince myself it was merely professional appreciation of finely tuned physiques.
Lies.
I took a deep breath and regained my focus, pushing down on the pedals, moving my legs.
“Welcome all. Welcome to Emerson’s Eleven O’clock Show! It’s good to see you back, and it’s good to see new faces. Now, you know I always make you work hard for it, but today it’s going to be extra tough because I heard that one of you fine gentlemen out there said spinning was just for girls.”
A collective groan went up from the guys in class while the women’s faces all dropped in horror, looking round for the one who’d dared to say that. I watched the corner group turn to the blonde one in the middle, outing him as the culprit.
“So let’s get going, turn up the resistance high. We’re going to be climbing and sprinting today.”
I watched everyone reach down and turn their dials, making their bikes heavier as though they were on steep hills.
It wasn’t long before they’d started to sweat, and we were still in the warm-up.
“Come on, Coach, stop teasing us!” The blonde one called from the corner.
Arrogant fucker.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I see we have a smartass in our midst. Okay, we’ll turn it up a notch. Everyone reach down and increase your speed to fifty. This is going to get sticky.”
“Fuck’s sake Cleverly, shut the fuck up!” cried a man from somewhere on the other side of the room.
Maybe he had been here before if people knew him.
“Hey, man, don’t hate the player!” the blonde one, Cleverly, shouted back, clearly enjoying riling everyone up.
A few at the front were puffing away and I kept them all at pace, slowing them down for short breaks before bringing them back up onto harder climbs. I looked around to see if anyone seemed close to throwing up, only to be greeted by red faces and big puddles of sweat forming under each bike.
It was hard work, but they loved it.
Like a moth to a flame, my eyes were drawn to the group in the corner. It had started as a way to keep an eye on Wolfie and Freddie, being pregnant, but as the class went on, I barely glanced at them before they landed on the guy in the corner, his cap still low.
My skin prickled with a sixth sense that he was watching me, but every time I looked over, his head was down, his jaw clenched in concentration. I could see from my monitor he was working hard, although from here, it appeared as though he was barely sweating. I was becoming hypnotized by the way his muscles relaxed and contracted as he gripped onto the bike every time I asked them to speed up or increase the resistance, and I found myself doing it just so I could watch, one flowing into the other like an infinity loop.
The music changed to a slow, trance beat, and I glanced at the clock without thinking, realizing we were at time. I could honestly say I didn’t remember a minute of it. For the first time ever, I’d taken a class on autopilot, driven to distraction by the mystery guy in the corner.
“Okay, everyone turn it down. Let’s flush those legs out. Well done, gang, you survived.”
I heard a couple of whoops and high fives, as everyone started to jump off their bikes before stretching and leaving to head to their Saturdays for a well-earned brunch.
As the class emptied, I unclipped from my bike, turning to gather my things before the cleaning crew came in.
“Good class, Coach. I concede; spinning isn’t just for girls.”
I turned to find the man called Cleverly standing in front of me, lifting his shirt to wipe away the sweat which dripped off him, tight abs filling my view.
Up close, there was something eerily familiar about him. The nervous knots were seeping back in.
