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‘I told you when we made the bet I hadn’t seen it. Pay up.’
‘Ah, fuck. Here, have your five bucks. I can’t spend it in London anyway.’
I tuck his money into my back pocket and sit. ‘Ahh, are you sore, Jakey? Good luck to your hedge fund clients. With the bets you place…’
He thumps me in the arm but does it with a smile on his face. When the quarter ends, the television switches to commercials and I take a chance to really focus on working down my mammoth plate of meat.
‘See, Brooks, this is exactly what I’m talking about.’ I follow the direction of Jake’s pointed beer bottle to the large screen behind the bar. ‘This woman is selling fitness and not eating barbecue wings.’
I watch as a skinny blonde on the TV dances in front of a class. The wordsSalsa Yourself Slimflash up on the screen. The shot moves to an image of the same woman wearing purple yoga pants and a neon sports bra on the cover of a book. The voice-over says, ‘Look and feel great with Izzy Coulthard’s new book,Be Green. Be Clean. Learn her top tips to salsa yourself slim, and try delicious, detoxifying recipes.’
I suck the firecracker sauce from my fingers. ‘No way. Clean eating, all that raw carrot shit, will get you skinny. No doubt about it. But if you want to really be healthy from exercise and a good diet, you’ve got to eat. You can’t eat like a rabbit and put in a good workout. You need protein to repair your muscles and give you the strength to put in a solid session for your heart and lungs. I concede, maybe I don’t encourage sugar- and salt-laced barbecue sauce in my nutrition plans, but I do push eating meat.’
Jake holds up two hands as if in surrender. ‘Hey, I’m on your side. But I’ve got to tell you, if it’s a choice, I’d prefer to wake up to her body than yours.’
‘Jesus. Can we get back to talking football instead of you thinking about being naked in bed with me?’
He doesn’t talk football. He starts talking baseball. With one ear focused on him, my eyes find the blonde dancer on the large screen again. Yeah, I’d take her body over mine too.
Three beers, a win for the Jets, and a bout of meat sweats later, I let us into my apartment. I flick on the standing lamp in the living room and draw the curtains closed across the floor-to-ceiling windows.
I gesture to the sports bag slung across Jake’s shoulder. ‘You can take Cady’s room.’
‘How is the little mite these days?’
I fill two glasses of water from the refrigerator filter and hand one to him. ‘Imagine yourself at eighteen, then give it female parts and a pretty face.’
‘Oof.’
‘Exactly. Listen, I’m going to hit the sack. I’ve got a full day at the gym tomorrow. There isn’t a TV in Cady’s room but make yourself comfortable out here as long as you like.’
* * *
I know I’m dreaming. I know that I’m not actually working out on the shoulder press in my gym, that I’m actually lying in my bed, sleeping. But it feels real enough for me to keep going. As I’m finishing up my final set of reps, the heavy fire doors to the main floor of the gym blow open, as if they weigh nothing. I raise a hand to shield my eyes as a bright light beams through the doorway, like rays refracted through a shard of glass. Through the intense light walks a blonde woman. Her hair is tied back. She wears tight purple yoga pants and a blue sports bra, displaying every fine inch of her body. I recognize her from TV.
I get off the machine. The gym is full but the blonde is focused solely on me. She glides toward me, her feet barely touching the ground. Damn, she’s pretty.
I’m about to speak, to introduce myself, maybe tell her I’ve seen the commercials for her new book, when she reaches me and places her finger across my lips.
What is happening?
I don’t care. I know I could wake up at any moment and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste this moment. She’s so hot for me.
I open my mouth quickly and take her finger between my teeth. Her eyes go wide and in her irises, I see flames. A hot, orange blaze.
She leaps up and I catch her long, toned legs around my waist. I crash my mouth against hers and we ravish each other, tongues lapping, each swallowing the other’s groans in the middle of the packed gym.
I carry her to the wall behind the hip-abductor machine and press her back to it, taking her weight with my body as she bites my bottom lip. I pull back from her to draw the zipper down the front of her bra.Nice.
‘Brooks,’ she moans.
Only, it isn’t her voice. I recognize that voice. I look up at her face. It’s no longer the woman from the commercial looking back at me. It’s…
‘Alice. God, I’ve wanted this for so long.’ I close my eyes as I press my lips to hers, gently this time.
‘Me too, Brooks.’
I pull back quickly as the voice shifts to a masculine one. I drop her onto the floor, noticing that the lover who was a woman is now Jake.
