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“I wanted to show Dean that I don’t have to wait around for him. There are plenty of daisies in the field to pollinate.”
“I’m not so sure that metaphor works, but I’ll give it to you,” Sheridan says.
Tony leads the class, assisted by Dean. He avoids eye contact the entire workout, which is unsettling. By the time it’s over, I’m upset. I want to talk to him. I want to see where we stand now. But before I can make my way to him, he leaves.
Slumping my shoulders, I realize it’s for the best. Never have I been so uncertain about anything, and with Dean I was all over the place.
After our workout, we head to the Clean Bean, our local Brew Shop.
“Cat, can you please settle down? You make me antsy,” Sheridan complains.
“Sorry, I’m always like this after a workout.” Not to mention when I’m full of angst over the unknown.
“I don’t know how you can still have any kind of energy after that. All I want to do is go back to bed. Thank you,” Sheridan says to the barista, taking her concoction.
“Aw, come on! I know you like it. Doesn’t it make you feel alive!” I say, hopping through the words.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Liz says over her iPhone, her fingers flying over the screen as she talks to us. “I didn’t even break a sweat.”
“That’s because you were on that thing every time I looked over.” It was true. She’d been partnered up with Sher, who had to do most of the exercises on her own while Liz ran back and forth between the floor and the cubbies where we keep our stuff to check on her messages.
“Cat, I have three deadlines coming up, and none of my people have given me anything worth crap, so I have to get on it. Not to mention the internship for Reese. I can’t let anything slip because it can still go to someone else. She has to be the one to get it!” Liz informs me, looking frazzled.
“I know. I know. Thank you two for being there to support me,” I tell her, backing down.
The young coffee man throws us a smile and looks to the girl behind us, letting us know it’s time to move on. “Welcome to the Clean Bean, where everything is…” he trails off as I follow Liz and Sher to the high table.
Sher takes a sip of the green thing she ordered, too healthy even for me, and though I know she’s trying her best to remain lady like, she can’t hide the belch or the grimace on her face. “Could we at least go somewhere decent for breakfast?”
“And throw away all of our hard work? Never! Besides, you know I can’t let down now, I have to keep myself in tip top shape,” I remind them, downing the contents of my high protein shake. “Maybe next time order yours without grass in it. Might taste better.”
“Right.” Sher takes a sip/bite out of her drink.
“If it’s that gross why do you keep ordering it?” Liz asks.
“It’s the ground coffee beans the thrown in. They’re addictive.” She sighs around a crunchy bite. “I am so tired. I need a break. A real one, not a trip to see my dad. I mean an actual vacation.” She rubs her red eyes. Suddenly I feel so awful that she came out to workout with me after a long week at work.
“Why don’t you?” Liz asks, her eyes still glued to that little screen. “You’ve been saving for Ireland forever. Unless you’ve spent it on something I don’t know about, you must have enough by now.”
“Yeah, I do. But I don’t want to go by myself and neither of you want to go with me,” she whines.
“Correction,” I lift a finger at her. “I want to go, but my broke ass can’t. Every last penny I have is going towards the down payment for MY boot camp.” I like the way that sounds. My boot camp. Because there is no way in hell I’d give it up. “What about Stephen?”
“Yeah. That would be lots of fun. Go to Ireland with my ex-husband and his new husband.”
“Just a thought,” I say.
“When will you know who’s going to Key West?” Sher asks.
“Monday. Then just two more weeks of events, including the final challenge, and we will all know who the real man is!” I say, making a real show of adjusting myself, then chugging down my bottle of water in one swoop to prove my point.
Liz finally sets down her phone just in time to roll her eyes. “Sher, I was thinking, why don’t you use Well Traveled and have the vacation of your life? They never disappoint.”
I cackle and lean back into the chair. “Yeah, then not only are you guaranteed a fuck, but you’ll have an awesome trip, too!”
Both Sher and Liz shoosh me.
“We’re in public!” Liz scolds.
