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In terms of time, it’s not a lot.
You better get your ass in gear, girlfriend.
The elevator slows to a stop and announces its arrival at the twentieth floor, and I move past the flawless women, out of the cart, and toward my hotel room without looking back.
This isn’t a time to dwell; it’s a time to take action.
And my first New York action? Throw on some workout gear, figure out where in the hell the hotel gym is located, and get some damn endorphins all up in my bloodstream.
You got this, Greer.
It only takes five minutes inside the hotel gym to realize why my original plan was to eat a hamburger in bed.
I do not got this.
I’m not good at working out, I’ve never been good at working out, and I’ll never be good at working out.
I don’t know what to do with the equipment, and it doesn’t know what to do with me.
Clearly, it’s been designed for people with half a foot more height and fifty percent more muscle, and even on the lowest of settings, I fumble my way through biceps curls like an uncoordinated inchworm.
I can barely reach the handles, so I have to kind of stoop to get in position, but the newly formed curve of my spine makes me have to arch and wiggle to complete the curl. If it weren’t for my kick-ass Metallica T-shirt, I might start to worry that I look foolish.
The ten-pound weight clanks as I drop it the inch and a half I managed to lift it in the first place, and I stand up to find a different machine. Surely there’s something in here I can operate without having a special license.
I find some kind of seated thing with weights on one end and a padded face rest on the other. I sit, lay my face down, and attempt to slide my legs underneath the weighted bar. But it’s completely awkward and uncomfortable, and I start questioning what in the fuck this thing is even supposed to do.
Just before I give up completely, a throat clears deeply beside me, and I look up to see a far too muscular man staring down at me in confusion. “Uh…wow…I didn’t realize you could use it that way…”
Huh?
I nearly ask him what he’s talking about, but his actions answer any and all questions I might have.
He sits down on the machine beside mine—an identical machine to mine—and it’s then I realize the face rest is not a face rest.
It’s a seat. For asses.
A seat for sweaty, workout asses.
Jesus Christ. I shudder and disentangle myself from the machine.
“You okay?” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s long-lost brother asks, but I just nod off his question and put some much-needed distance between us.
Also, I scrub my face with the hand towel I brought down from my room like it’s a fucking Brillo pad capable of removing the ball sweat that’s probably found itself a home in my pores.
Note to self: take one thousand scalding-hot showers tonight.
With a deep inhale, I try to regain some of the pride I lost back there to Mr. Muscles and peruse the room until I find a machine that’s labeled with instructional pictures to boot.
Hip. Abduction.
Do I need aliens to use this thing?
Against my better judgment, I study the pictures and peptalk myself into sitting down on the seat and swing my legs over to the inside of the knee pads.
No face-to-butt-sweat mistakes happening here, folks!
The weight is set on one hundred and fifty pounds from the person before me, and it makes me wonder if Thor is staying at this hideous hotel too.
I pull out the pin and put it on forty instead.
After a quick test push with my legs, the setting seems doable, so I take out my phone and start scrolling through it to set up some music to accompany me.
Yes. Yes. That’s exactly what I need. Some workout jams.
Of course, once I’m on it, I get distracted by Instagram, and five minutes go by before I realize I’m sitting on a machine, not a couch, and the purpose here is to do something other than lounge.
I glance up from my phone and scan the room, wondering slightly if anyone knows how long I’ve been sitting here. Mr. Muscles has moved on to a new machine, but a different guy across the room makes eye contact and smirks.
Busted.
Normal human decency dictates he should let me off the hook and go about his day, but this fit, Adonis-looking, sweat-covered, brown-haired, green-eyed—good God, he’s attractive—man apparently has no manners.
Shit.
His sleeveless white T-shirt clings to his tanned body as he strides my way, and his athletic shorts conform to a muscular set of thighs and ass.
I look everywhere but at him, fiddling with the machine as though I’m doing something productive, but he still doesn’t get the hint.
