Nothing More Beautiful (4 page)

The woman didn’t mind our conversation. She
was probably used to worse than women talking about meeting
men.

“All right, fine,” I said. “You win, but I
think you should pay my extra five.” She ignored me and signed up
for the monthly twenty. I circled the same plan and filled in the
rest of the information. “Is the sign-up fee really only ten?”

“Actually,” the woman started. “Any time the
owner is at the gym, the sign-up fee is waived, and he’s working
out right now.”

If I’d been a cartoon character, I’m sure my
jaw would have hit the floor. “I like that policy. Is he in here
often?”

“He comes in every few days,” she answered.
“He likes to rotate between the three branches.”

I thought about asking her to point out Mr.
Generous, but on a second assessment it sounded too forward. After
ten minutes of paperwork and a quick run-through of the three
different levels and equipment, Danielle and I made for the second
story and the cardio equipment.

We chose the taller ellipticals in the back
next to the stair steppers. Treadmills formed the line in front of
us, and the stationary bikes were in the row ahead of them.
Free-weights lined the wall in front of all the cardio equipment.
The level was virtually empty. No one else was using the
ellipticals, and only three people ran on the treadmills, as more
cycled than anything else. Two men were lifting weights in front of
the giant floor-to-ceiling mirror that made up the wall.

“I bet that guy has a huge cock,” Danielle
said ten minutes into our workout. She jerked her head toward the
beefier of the two guys pumping iron. They were hard to make out
from across the room, but it was clear that one was a lot slimmer
while the second was an unattractive hulk of muscle. The descriptor
“heavenly” fit came to mind as I gazed at the lean but incredibly
toned guy.

She frequently made comments like that, even
though she was gay. She did it just to get me to blush or react in
some way. She also loved to talk about tits, clits, and pussies,
which I liked to call “v-spots.”

“Shh!” I shrieked. “Why do you always have
to try and embarrass me?”

“Embarrass you? I’m trying to help you break
through your prudish barrier,” she said.

“I’m not a prude,” I defended, almost
slipping off the elliptical.

“Saturday night you told me the only
position you’ve had sex in is missionary.”

“Danielle!”

“That makes you a prude,” she continued
without skipping a beat. “I mean, I’m still grappling with the sad
reality that you’ve never had an orgasm.”

“Would you keep your voice down?” I urged
her. “If you’re going to talk like that, there’s no sense in
letting the whole room know.”

“See, that’s what I mean.” She eyed me.
“It’s 2014, Maci. People don’t care. You can talk about sex without
being persecuted.”

“Not everyone has to be as open on the topic
as you are, Danielle.”

“Just say it,” she said. “I won’t stop
bugging you until you do.”

“I’m sorry—I didn’t realize we were still in
middle school.” I started to slow down, distracted. “I’m not going
to say it just because you want me to.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “Anyway, I think
they’re gay, so it really doesn’t matter.”

I squinted at the pair, trying to make their
features out. At 25, my long-distance sight was failing me,
starting to slip into a blurry mess, and every few months it seemed
perceivably worse. “What makes you think they’re gay?”

“Uh, hello, I know things you don’t,” she
answered. “And even if they weren’t—which they
are
—it still
wouldn’t matter because you wouldn’t do anything about it.”

I halted the elliptical. “What the hell does
that mean?”

“It means you’re way too shy around men.”
She kept going like everything was cool. “You went out with Ryan
for two weeks before you kissed. And before he came along, it had
been, what, eight months since you went on a date?”

“I’m not shy,” I said, “I’m just not as
confident—”

“And that’s the strange part,” she cut me
off. “You’re so certain and resolute when it comes to business and
the bakery. You’re like some unstoppable machine, but then when it
comes to men, you’re a completely different person.”

“What is with you lately? You just keep
attacking me.” I climbed down from the cardio machine, staring at
Danielle. My temper flared.

“I just don’t want you to get stuck in the
same rut you always do after a breakup,” she said, looking down to
meet my eyes. “I want you to find someone like I have.”

“And saying
c-o-c-k
”—I whispered the
letters—“will help me do that?”

“What? No, that’s a completely different
subject. I think asking one of them out would.” She glanced across
the room and I followed her eyes, landing on the fit guy. “That’s
one way to see if they’re gay.”

“That’s ridiculous, Danielle.”

“Think what kind of story that would be
though,” she said. “Asking your future husband out to win a
bet.”

“To prove he’s not gay,” I said, wiping the
sweat out of my eyes. That was a big reason why I hated gyms: I
sweated ten times more indoors than outside. Plus, I felt so
trapped and restricted on the machines. “Romantic.”

“Just do it as a confidence booster, to show
yourself it’s not so scary to ask someone out.”

The idea sounded good in my head. I could
use more confidence around men—there was no kidding myself
there—but asking a complete stranger out was something else. I had
no intro, no way to transition from unfamiliar to familiar. I
needed something to settle my nerves before I met someone new. I
was staring over at the two men while Danielle waited for a reply.
“If you do this today, I won’t bug you about anything date- or
sex-related for a week.”

It didn’t sound worth it. “Just a week?”

“Isn’t that better than a few hours?” she
said, nudging me forward between the ellipticals.

“All right. All right. I’ll do it.” Her face
lit up as I spun around. I took a step toward the two men and my
heart rate instantly escalated, my throat dry and swelling. Talking
to potential dates never came easy for me. At work it was easy to
talk to customers. It was routine.

The sweat I had built up from the workout
now seemed to be clinging to every inch of my body. I stuck out my
chest as I walked, but by the time I was within a few feet of the
fit guy, my shoulders had hunched, and I had grown smaller. The
excessively buff friend had disappeared, probably to the
bathroom.

The odds were now a little better that I
might string a sentence together, but not by much. About two feet
stood between us as he set a pair of 35-pound dumbbells on the
floor. He was sitting on the bench, inclined, breathing hard—as
hard as I was sweating.

“Excuse me?” I said, realizing as the words
stumbled out that it was the driver from the car accident, but by
the time my brain told me to retreat, the sole of my foot rolled
over something and my balance faltered. My legs buckled, launching
me right into his lap, and I stared straight into his warm brown
eyes, petrified.

O
ur eyes were glued to each
other’s. My heart was running wild, pumping in my ear, and my
thoughts were so scattered, I couldn’t form a coherent sentence to
save my life. And underneath it all, as he held me in his sweaty
arms, which had swelled to the size of my head from exertion, I had
the supreme urge to kiss him. It was as though there were a
magnetic force pulling me to his lips. A spark permeated through my
body, alive with electricity from his touch. His face had a soft
innocence to it, hiding some inner darkness that his piercing eyes
gave away. His forehead soaked the tips of his thick curly brown
hair—hair that made me want to glide my fingers through it. But it
was those eyes that stirred me, attracted me, compelled me. They
were sweet and alluring, yet at the same time, cold and
distant.

My vision had been blurry at best after the
car accident, and I couldn’t make out any of his features in the
distance, now it was different. Now he was holding me inches from
his face and my eyes took in all of his glory. He was so striking,
so appealing to the eye; there was no way I could look anywhere but
directly into his gaze.

“Hi,” he said, somewhat brusque, breathing
hard.

My face was already flushed, but now I could
feel the heat radiating from my cheeks and neck, my body afire.
“Hi,” I squeaked.

He didn’t move to release me or set me back
on my feet, his left hand hugging my breast. “Are you all right?”
Care attended his tone, his concern genuine.

Before I actually took the time to heed any
pain signals from my body, I nodded, my head whipping up and down.
“I—I was just wondering if—if you were done with the bench,” I
said, inventing some reason for my presence. I shifted and he
brought me to my feet, holding me still for a moment so that I
didn’t fall over before I regained my balance. He stood up and
displayed his magnificence from head to toe, and I slipped into a
dumbstruck stare, reveling in his gorgeous body. His well-defined
chest screamed at me to run my hands across the muscles.

He surveyed the front of the room and the
row of empty benches, then smiled, his stunning white teeth
capturing my attention. “I—”

“I guess not,” I interrupted, snapping out
of my paralysis and backing up. I had to escape before he realized
who I was, if he did at all. My eyes downcast, I noticed a cat’s
eye marble on the floor, the culprit behind my clumsy tumble. I
bent down and scooped it up. “Marble,” I laughed. “Sorry to bother
you.” I turned and bolted back to Danielle as fast as I could
without running. I could have won a speed-walking race. “We have to
go!” I whispered, but it bordered on a shout.

“What happened?” she asked, slowing the
elliptical until she could hop off. “It looked like you fell.”

“I’ll tell you at the bakery,” I said,
collecting my sweatshirt and water bottle. I didn’t wait for her,
hurrying down the stairs, passing the bulky man, whom I then
registered as the passenger from the accident. The beard that
draped from his chin dripped with sweat. The disgusting image made
me grimace as I charged on.

I shot out of the front entrance and hit the
sidewalk, considering whether to walk the three blocks to the
security of my office or wait for Danielle. I rounded the corner to
the car. Danielle was sprinting to catch up. “What the hell, Maci?
What’s going on?”

“I just want to get to the bakery,” I said,
short on breath.
What happened?
I wasn’t exactly sure
myself. I didn’t have the words to relate the unnerving
experience.

“Maci?”

“It was them,” I burst out, ducking into the
car.

Danielle pulled out and drove north toward
Salmon Street. “It was who?”

“Them—the guys from the accident.”

“From Sunday?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Them. It was the driver. I
almost asked out the driver.” I had almost done more than that. I
had almost kissed him. The urge had barely been controllable.

“You’re kidding,” she laughed.

“It’s not funny,” I clipped.

She turned down 34
^th
. “It kinda
is.” After I shot her an annoyed look, she asked, “What’s the big
deal? So you almost asked out the guy who we hit. Some people might
call that fate.”

“It was embarrassing, Danielle. I felt like
a fool.”

“Did he recognize you?” she asked, turning
onto Hawthorne and then into the alley between the Herb Shoppe and
the Road to Tibet gift shop. The parking area behind the bakery was
small, but it meant I didn’t have to contend for street parking,
which was one of my biggest pet peeves about the city.

“I don’t think so,” I said, heading for the
back door into Friends Bakery and Brunch House, the bakery I
co-owned. Bridgett was sitting at her desk in our shared office
when I rushed in.

Danielle was at my heels. “Then what’s the
problem?” She turned to Bridgett. “Hi, Bridgett.”

“Hey.” Bridgett swiveled her chair to face
us. She was a cute, short, plump woman, with dirty blond hair.
Twenty-eight, recently divorced, and the most austere person in the
world, she made for a great business partner. But she was much more
personable when she was drunk, and lately she liked to hit the bar
scene after hours, searching for her next bed-warmer since her
husband left. “Problem?”

“I just freaked out, that’s all,” I said,
sinking into my chair. I was unable to formulate the right sentence
to describe what had happened, and on the other hand, I wasn’t sure
I wanted to describe it at all. No man had ever affected me like
that.

“What happened?” Bridgett asked, curiosity
drawing her into the conversation.

“Maci almost asked out the guy we hit on
Sunday,” Danielle explained. “But she’s blowing it up into a huge
thing when it isn’t.”

Bridgett rocked in her chair. “Ah.”

“I’m not blowing it up,” I contended. “I was
embarrassed and had to get out of there. I mean, I fell into the
guy’s lap for Christ’s sake.”

“You fell into his lap?” Bridgett remained
calm, on the edge of disinterest.

“Fell on this.” I produced the marble from
my sweatshirt pocket.

“A marble,” Danielle observed. “You tripped
on a marble?”

“What’s a marble doing at a gym?” Bridgett
asked coolly.

“How the hell should I know?” I placed it on
my desk and stared at it for a second. “All I know is that I give
up on dating for a while.”

“You didn’t even start!” Danielle
exclaimed.

“I don’t have time,” I expressed with a
sigh. “We just opened the bakery two months ago and are struggling
to keep our heads above water. Things need to settle, you
know?”