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Now I have to get my legs to work to actually take me inside the gym.
FML.
Chapter Eleven
SIENNA
What the hell was I thinking?
The moment I had a solid plan for the plot of my book, I called Vi and told her the news. She was so excited, and she said something along the lines of “if only you were farther along in the process, you could be in the charity anthology we’re putting out in a month.”
A month in my authory brain from two years ago sounded like ages. Plenty of time to bust out a novella or a short novel, depending on what they needed for the project. When I stuck to my guns, I could write ten thousand words in one day. A fifty-thousand-word novel would take me a work week. Send it to my amazing editor Barb, who took maybe three days to work her grammar magic, then to Vanessa, to proofread and catch any booboos in the plot, then to Casey for one last round, because I’m anal, and she somehow catches the teensiest, tiniest typos, and boom! I was a published author once again.
So I jumped on the opportunity like I hadn’t had writer’s block for the past almost ten months, hadn’t been out of the routine of sitting down to stare at a computer screen for twelve hours straight without coming up for air. Or maybe I just thought it would be like riding a bike. Muscle memory, ya know?
Twas not the case.
I was very, very wrong.
But still, it felt good. I felt a little more like myself, even though the words seemed to be coming much slower. I was made to feel even better when I hopped in my old group chat with my author besties, Vi, Tara, and Crystal. They welcomed me back with open arms, as if my last contribution to the silenced message thread wasn’t while I was writing my last book almost a year ago. And when I confided I was a little discouraged because I was no longer a word machine, they also reminded me that the first ten thousand words always seem to take forever to write, and then the rest of the book flows much easier.
Now, I only have about fifteen thousand words left to make the fifty-thousand-word goal for the anthology. I have nothing else to contribute to it than Gym Daddy. His gentle motivation and easily given praise has been everything that’s kept me going. Which is crazy, because I have yet to lay eyes on him again since we started talking. We’ve been at the gym at the same time several days now, and somehow, I haven’t been able to catch even a glimpse of him. Not even when I’ve been forced to sit in the café so I can recharge my laptop.
I will never understand why people think they must hold their private conversations on speakerphone set to the loudest volume. So loud my noise-cancelling headphones pumping white noise into my brain can’t even drown them out.
It makes my blood pressure crank up to the Boil setting.
But my laptop is fully charged as I set up shop in the café today, choosing a seat in a more secluded corner where it would be hard for inconsiderate jerks to pace right next to the chick clearly trying to get some work done while they scream back and forth with their buddy on speaker. Knowing Gym Daddy is in the same building, that we’re breathing the same freaking air, is exhilarating. I’m right by a window that looks out to the front parking lot. If I don’t catch sight of him walking past the café, I might still stand a chance of seeing him when he leaves and is walking to his vehicle.
I wonder what he drives. I know he has a motorcycle, but he also seems like maybe a truck type of guy. I don’t get a sports car vibe from him. Definitely not sedan. I haven’t asked him what he does for a living, but the neighborhood he lives in suggests he at least isn’t a bum with a prepaid phone who’s texting me using free Wifi. Plus, he has a membership here, which isn’t one of those super-cheap gyms in shopping centers that are everywhere. Time of Your Life Athletics is pretty bougee, if I’m being honest. It’s one of my splurges I just refuse to give up, no matter how low my savings account goes.
Thankfully, a fellow Club Alias member I chat with whenever I see her works here, and I confided I hadn’t been doing very well on the mental health front when I finally got my ass here a few days ago and she asked where I’d been. She was kind enough to pause my card from being charged for the next few cycles after seeing on my account I hadn’t been in for five months.
