Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(53)
Author: Mimi Strong

I rubbed his biceps, which seemed bigger now. “Look at you, all pumped up.”

“Grrrr.” He posed, flexing everything, including the sinewy muscles on the sides of his neck. “I haven’t worked out in over a week.” His face grew red as he kept flexing and posing. “Hey, let’s go to the gym after we have some lunch.”

I laughed and pushed past him into the kitchen, where coffee awaited, next to powdered chocolate for my mocha.

“I’m serious,” he said. “Come and work out with me. You’ll burn off that hangover and feel awesome in no time.”

“Not gonna happen. I like to walk, because it gets me where I’m going. I like to carry around boxes of books, because it’s my job. I don’t do Stairmaster, and I don’t do torture devices.”

“My gym is great, though.”

I finished preparing my mocha and took it over to the sofa, since somebody’s skanky ex-girlfriend took the chairs, and I felt a little too woozy for the kitchen stools. I could feel Keith’s gaze on me as I took a seat, so I sat carefully without any groans, though the tops of my thighs were sore from booty-shaking the night before.

Keith continued, “They’ve got complimentary towels.”

I reached for a magazine from the lower level of the coffee table, finding only Men’s Fitness and one lone copy of Vogue, with Keith’s ex-girlfriend’s name on it.

“Tabitha’s last name is Fartz?”

“Oh, that was kind of an inside joke. That’s not really her last name.”

I sipped my mocha, flipping through the magazine. “I have a difficult time hating someone with such an awesome fake last name.”

Keith walked into the bedroom and called out from inside the room, “Your loss if you won’t go to the gym with me. I have to go, though. After a week, it’s not even optional. I’ve worked too hard to get this body how I like it, to let it all slip away.”

With a grin, I called back, “I feel exactly the same way!”

He poked his head out of the bedroom. “Do you? Really?”

I kept flipping through the magazine full of skinny models until finally I tossed it away in disgust. “This is why I could never be in a real relationship with you.”

He hung his head in a show of contrition. “Honestly, the gym is boring. I thought having you come along would be fun.”

“You were trying to cajole me into going with you? You weren’t fat-shaming me?”

“I want to spend every minute with you before you leave town.” He held his hands up. “Busted! I’m clingy. Just call me Mr. Clingy or one of those other colorful names you enjoy so much.”

I snatched up a copy of Men’s Fitness and started flipping through. “Cheese-fucker.”

“You can read a magazine at the juice bar. They make the most unbelievable smoothies.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “I can’t work out in jeans!”

“You do have shorts and runners, though. You shouldn’t have unpacked your bag and spread everything out on one side of the room if you didn’t want me to know you packed workout clothes.”

I got up and stomped into the bedroom. “Keith Raven, you are the f**king worst, but I did make a New Year’s resolution to go to the gym at least once this year, so I guess today’s your lucky day.”

“How do you feel about a session with a personal trainer?”

“How do you feel about a flying double-punch to the ass**le?”

“So, just a standard workout, then.”

We arrived at the gym (despite my suggestions we find a drive-through donut place instead), and Keith was an absolute sweetheart. First, he introduced me to the girl at the front counter as his “peachy love interest,” which made me smile. Then, he took me to the stretching mats, where we took off our shoes and did some stretches. We did that one where you sit facing each other with your legs stretched out, then hold arms and help the other person lean forward. He kept making really sexy eye contact with me the whole time.

“People are staring at us,” I whispered. “They all think you’re my personal trainer and I’m some pervy rich girl who’s paying to grope your hot body.”

His eyebrows bounced suggestively. “For an extra fifty, you can touch my inner thighs.”

I laughed. And then I looked down and thought about how much I wanted to touch his inner thighs, now that we were in public and I couldn’t. I wore a pair of black shorts—black because I don’t like showing off my crack-sweat on my annual gym workout, and clothing companies have yet to invent a color other than black that doesn’t show crack-sweat.

The three absolute worst colors of gym shorts to wear, in reverse order from bad to worst, are:

#3. Salmon pink, or whatever shade matches your particular skin tone. Paired with a longer T-shirt, people do double-takes, thinking you forgot to put on shorts and are parading around your bare ass.

#2. Gray. Why the default color of athletic wear is gray astounds me. That flecked pattern does nothing to disguise damp regions.

#1. White. Perfectly fine for shirts, but a recipe for horror when worn on the lower half of the body—not just because of the magnifying effect of a light color, but because moisture increases transparency, and everyone’s going to see your underwear, or, if you chose not to wear underwear, your lady shrubbery. I owe my least favorite day of tenth grade to a pair of white gym shorts, not to mention the three weeks of Oscar Dwyer calling me Triangle Bush.

“You’re doing great,” Keith said. “I’m already having more fun at a workout than ever before.”

I winked at him. “Save a little energy for later.”

His cheeks reddened. Noticing this caused my entire body to flush pink to match.

The gym was clean, but the air was moist from the adjoining steam room, and had the tangy scent of sweat. Spreading my legs even wider for the next stretch, I pondered how sexy a workout could be, given the right partner.

I felt the tingle at the back of my skull that someone was looking my way. I turned around, and a guy doing bicep curls quickly looked away, a smile on his face. He was cute. Actually, there were a few cute guys around. And no women, except for the girl we’d seen at the check-in desk.

“Where are all the girls?” I hissed at Keith. “Is this a g*y gym?”

Keith stretched his neck and shoulders. “There’s a ladies-only floor above here, if you wanna go up there.”