Page 5

Chapter 5

Old Friend, Huh?

Robyn

“ G ood morning, sunshine,” Dell says. His knowing smirk would be a hell of a lot more annoying if he weren’t holding an iced coffee for me.

“Nothing is good about 7:00 a.m. workouts,” I grumble, taking the caffeinated blessing from him.

“Oh, come on,” he drawls. “You love seeing my gorgeous face in the morning.”

I swallow my first sip and deadpan, “There is absolutely nothing I love seeing before 9:00 a.m. on any day.”

I’m not a morning person. But I switched time slots with Casshole when her baby was born a couple of months ago so she could get more sleep. Apparently, her son’s prime sleeping hours are from 4:00 to 8:00 a.m. Knowing how booked Dell’s personal training schedule is, I offered to switch.

And I regret it every Monday morning.

Dell finds it amusing. Thankfully, he sweetens the pot by always having my coffee order ready.

I take a long swig of my iced heaven, letting it soak into my sleepy bones. Dell busies himself with placing an agility ladder on the ground, and my mind replays our first encounter again. It became clear to me that he had no recollection of our first meeting when I hired him as my personal trainer two years ago. My last personal trainer was moving to Germany, and she recommended I hire Dell, who was her personal trainer. I knew I would be in capable hands if he was a personal trainer to personal trainers.

Of course, the moment I saw him, I recognized him, and all those old feelings resurfaced. When I tried to bring it up, I not-so-casually asked, “You look so familiar. Have we met before?”

But he hit me with, “You might have seen my videos.”

And that’s how we discovered each other’s mutual, massive social media presence. I make content about women’s rugby, body positivity, and sound-off the occasional fuck-the-haters monologue.

Dell (a.k.a. TheGymBreaux) makes thirst traps designed to look like workout advice. In every video, he wears skin-tight gray leggings that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination and a crop top. Every damn muscle he has is thick.

Defined.

Glorious.

I’ve been attracted to an array of men in my life. Rail thin? Hot. Big boys? Hell yeah. But this man who looks like he’s carved from stone, waiting for the world to be placed on his shoulders so he can see how many reps he can squat? Oh yeah. Mama likes.

He’s known for his instructional workout videos, where he’ll set up the camera to film his ass while he lunges—his huge , delicious ass on display. And he’ll say things like, “Let’s turn that pancake into a pound cake.” Or, “We’re gonna get some gnarly pumps in today, guys.” Or he’ll sing, “ It’s peachin’ season, and all of y’all be eatin’ ” and then proceeds to have the camera zoom in to show just how deep his ass can eat Spandex before starting his tutorial.

Sadly, he doesn’t wear the borderline see-through leggings during our sessions. He’s all professional and shit—a white polo with his company’s logo stitched on and regular pants that leave everything to the imagination.

But it’s fine. It’s good. He’s been a perfect personal trainer to me, and I’m the strongest and fastest I’ve ever been because of it. And since he obviously didn’t remember me from that day at Pride four years ago, I clearly wasn’t anything special to him. I can read the fucking signs when someone doesn’t like me.

Usually.

There is one exception.

After my warm-up, Dell has me doing a circuit with the agility ladder, burpees, and alternating wave lunges with the big ropes. When I get to my third round on the ladder, he catches me slacking.

“You’re getting sloppy,” he shouts over the ever-present country music. “Stay tight. Every movement should mean something.” When I correct myself and focus on each foot placement and how my core should be engaged, he cheers. “There you go! Keep it up.”

Dell puts me through a weight-lifting circuit before telling me to hop on the stationary bike. He plays with the resistance settings as sweat trickles between my breasts and I start my ride.

“You ladies find a coach yet?” he asks, increasing the resistance.

“Not yet,” I huff. “There’s someone I think might be great at it, but… I don’t know.”

“Who?”

“It’s probably a bad idea.” When I don’t continue, Dell eyes me and increases the resistance to its most difficult setting. “Okay,” I grunt. “It’s because I’ve kinda had a thing for him for a long time.”

“Oh,” he sings, then mercifully lowers the intensity. “What? Don’t think you can handle seeing your crush all the time?”

I see you all the time .

“He’s just… we used to be so close. And now he avoids me like I’m the plague. I don’t know what I did.”

“Are you sure it was you?”

“I don’t know what else it could have been. Maybe I gave Friendzone vibes too strong back in the day, and now he can’t see me as anything else.”

“Oh, he’s an old friend?”

“Yeah.”

“He still likes you.”

“What? What do you mean, still ?”

“Did he want to hang out with you a lot? Did you guys spend time talking one-on-one often? Did you talk about deep stuff? Have you met each other’s families?”

I’m silent for a moment as I think back. “Yes.” All those tournaments and rugby parties we went to. We’d socialize with our teams, but we’d always gravitate toward each other and block out everyone else. Most of it was drunken fun, harmless to the untrained eye, but sometimes there were moments I could barely resist him. There was something so easy about him. So tender and kind on the inside. But our paths never aligned and I could never quite figure out if he wanted me in the same way.

“He still likes you,” Dell says, matter-of-factly.

“Well, how the hell am I supposed to get him to talk to me again? I feel so awkward around him now. When it comes to him, I have no game.”

“That’s rather out of character for you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Alright,” Dell smirks, turning off the bike. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll be your flirt coach.”