Page 13 of Gym With Benefits

"There's more? Mary, Joseph, and the donkey, keep going."

I took a deep breath, the air in the cafe smelling heavily of roasted beans and toasted paninis, trying to anchor myself before delivering the final blow. I told him about leaving the machine, about the trainer checking me out at the juice bar, and my subsequent flight into the locker room to hit the showers.

"I was in the stall," I whispered, my voice dropping to a murmur as a stray couple walked past our booth. "And my phone started ringing. It was you, by the way, so this is technically your fault.”

“I couldn’t decide on paisley or argyle, and Harrison was getting agitated,” he said, waving his own statement away witha dismissive flick of his wrist as though it were a waste of time to say out loud. “I called you in my moment of need and you weren’t there for me. But by all means, let’s talk some more about you.”

I rolled my eyes. “So the phone rang, I cut the water, wrapped a towel around myself, and stepped out to get to my locker."

"And?" David prompted, the anticipation eating away at him.

"And Dane was standing right there. In the middle of the aisle. Naked."

He went totally still. For three full seconds, I could’ve sworn he didn't breathe, his eyes wide as plates. Then, he let out a loud, bark of a laugh that made several people turn around to look at us. "No. No, he did not."

"He did! He was just standing there, balls out, unbothered by the lack of textiles. And David... he knew exactly what he was doing. He didn't even try to cover up. He just stood there and let me get an unobstructed, you know, look at him."

"And did you?" David asked, his lips curving into a sly grin. "Did you get the full archival assessment, Jess? Give me the executive summary. What are we working with here? Is he a dime store trinket or a local historic landmark?"

"David!" I hissed, my face instantly erupting into a violent heat that felt like it was melting my skin. "I was mortified! All I had was my towel, and I held onto it for dear life.”

The server arrived with David’s mocha latte, and my friend managed to contain himself until the guy was out of earshot before letting his mouth run away with him again.

“But you looked at it, right? Please tell me you looked.”

“I couldn't help it,” I groaned. “My eyes just... dropped. He’s... he’s built like a fucking god. Everything is perfectlyproportioned. It was a lot. It was a very significant amount of information to process."

David broke into abrupt applause. “That’s my girl.”

“Shut up.” I kicked him under the table. “People are looking.”

“No, you’re the looky-loo,” he said with a laugh. “My girl getting up to all kinds of shenanigans in steamy gym showers.”

“I’m not your girl,” I said, dropping back in my seat, defeated. “And there were no shenanigans.”

“Only a gigantic dick and one enormous cock. Got it.”

“I regret ever meeting you, you know that?”

David batted his lashes at me. "And what did the titan do, pray tell?"

"He smirked at me. He looked down at my towel, back up at my face, and told me I should probably 'get that' because it sounded like an emergency. Then he just strolled into his shower stall like he hadn't just altered my brain chemistry permanently."

David threw his head back, letting out a sigh of pure delight. He reached across the table, forcefully grabbing both of my wrists and squeezing them tightly. "Jess, you absolute prude. This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to you. You have been living like a nun in a dusty manuscript room for months, and you walk into a gym for forty-five minutes and get confronted by a holy trinity of masculine perfection. The choice is yours, and I say go for it."

"I am not a prude," I defended weakly, trying to pull my hands back, but his grip didn’t budge.

"You are rationalizing your way out of a beautiful, glistening opportunity to grab life by the literal balls. You’re sitting here looking like you just witnessed a crime, when in reality, theuniverse just lit up a neon sign telling you to stop being so damn insecure. You’re going back tomorrow."

"I am not going back tomorrow," I said, finally wrenching my hands free and taking a desperate gulp of my lukewarm espresso. "I'm changing gyms. I'll find a nice, quiet YMCA where everyone wears oversized t-shirts and no one has abdominal muscles."

"Coward," he declared, popping his sunglasses back over his eyes with a definitive snap of his fingers. "Absolute cowardice of the highest order. We are leaving this establishment right now because your negative energy is curdling my oat milk. Slide out of the booth, Seymore. We’re going to walk this performance anxiety off."

I let out another groan, but I did as I was told, following him as he marched toward the exit. The bell above the door chimed for the last time as we stepped out into the bright, bustling afternoon air of the D.C. sidewalk.

We set off down Eighteenth Street, the weekend crowd swirling around us in a blur of vintage denim, iced lattes, and the heavy aroma of Salvadoran pupusas wafting from a nearby kitchen. David marched ahead like a runway coach, his cream trench coat billowing behind him while I practically had to jog to keep pace in my sneakers.

"Where are we even going?" I called out, dodging a group of tier-one college kids crowding the sidewalk.