Authors: Elizabeth Hayley
Facebook?
Myspace? What an asshat.
I nodded to feign my interest, which only encouraged him to continue.
“Anyway, we never spoke to each other after we returned home.
We shared something on that mountain that could only be described as,” he paused for much too long to consider his word choice, “. . . special.”
Seriously
? You stare into space for like fifteen seconds and all you come up with is “special”?
“I’ve often thought about her on lonely nights and wondered what could have been.”
I just couldn’t resist. “I’m sure you have, Mr. Bader.”
He awoke from his perverted daydream suddenly.
“Anyway, Danielle and Steph are waiting for you in your office if you ever decide to start your day and actually get some work done.” He pointed toward the closed door. “The LaPorte account still needs to be analyzed. I need it on my desk by the end of the day.”
“Yes, Mr. Bader.”
As I turned in the direction of my office, I heard him mumble something about how he was sure a computer program or one of those “thingies” for your phone could do my job.
They're called apps, you arrogant dipshit.
I rolled my eyes as I turned to leave
.
Once Bader had you cornered, you’d be stuck with some boring ass story until you either found an excuse to leave or he told you to go. And I was going to quickly take advantage of his abrupt dismissal.
Danielle and Steph already had smirks on their faces when I walked through my office door.
“What’s goin’ on with Master Bader this morning?” Danielle asked. “We saw him talkin’ your ear off out there.” She motioned to the glass wall that faced the common office space.
“Oh, you know.
‘Mandi, you’re late,’” I mocked, mimicking his British accent. “Then some bullshit about loving some girl he met on a mountaintop a hundred years ago.” Steph handed me the files, and I flipped through them. “What do we still need to do here? I’d prefer not to work too late. I had a night from hell last night.”
“Night from hell
good
? Or night from hell
bad
?” Danielle asked. “Judging by the looks of you, it could’ve been either one.”
I looked at her curiously.
“What does ‘night from hell
good’
mean?” Only Danielle was capable of having a
good
night from hell.
“You know, like you were drinking all night, you danced with some gorgeous guy until after midnight, and you walked home from his apartment with one broken heel the next morning after a hot all-night fuckfest.”
I raised one eyebrow to let her know I still didn’t fully understand.
“Then you have to come
here
,” she added. “That’s where the ‘hell’ part comes in.”
“So, basically like a typical Tuesday night for you then?”
I laughed so she wouldn't think I was serious, but I was really
only half kidding. Danielle took the “living it up in your twenties” thing to another level (too bad she was thirty). When she sold her house a few months ago, the real estate agent had to tell her to take down the sex swing in her bedroom. So she hung a fake plant on the hook instead. “No, not night from hell
good
then. I’m missing the ‘hot all-night’ and ‘broken heel’ parts.”
“Hmm, that’s a damn shame.
Guess you’ll just have to try again. Surprisingly, I have no plans for Tuesday night yet,” she said sarcastically. “How about the three of us go out?”
“Yeah, I could actually use a girls’ night
. That’ll be fun,” I said.
Steph nodded her assent, too, though not as enthusiastically as I did.
“Okay, perfect,” Danielle said. “Let me handle all the plans.”
I was scared for what the night would involve, but I was also excited.
Danielle knew how to have a good time. And despite her crazy stories, she always knew where to draw the line.
Finally, Steph was able to get us back on track by chiming in about what we were actually supposed to be doing: work.
Without her as my assistant, I probably wouldn’t get much done half the time. I'm intelligent and work efficiently as long as someone's there to keep me focused.
With Steph’s guidance, we were able to tie up the loose ends of the LaPorte account an
d have them to Mr. Bader by 3:00, which was earlier than he'd requested.
“Ahh, what do ya know,” he said as I placed the files in front of him.
“You really
can
put a few women in a room together and have them produce more than just baked goods and meaningless gossip.”
“I know, right?”
I deliberately smacked my gum loudly and twirled a loose strand of blonde hair around my finger. “Maybe one day,
if we’re
really
lucky, they’ll let us become doctors.” I opened my eyes widely at the last part to accentuate my excitement.
Fucking misogynist.
“Good day, Mandi.
That’ll be all.”
I turned to exit so he wouldn’t see the smile I knew I wouldn’t be able to suppress
as I said my goodbye. “See you later, Mr. Bader.”
***
As I pulled into a parking spot outside of my gym, CrossFit Force two days later, I looked disdainfully up at the building. I didn’t feel like being here. I had a love/hate relationship with CrossFit. I loved what it was doing for my body. My 5’7 frame had always been thin, but I hadn’t been toned like this since high school. I looked down at my legs as I sat in the car and admired my sculpted calf muscles. That was all the push I needed as I hauled my size eight ass out of my Honda Civic.
As I walked, I put
my hair up into a ponytail and pulled the front of my Nike spandex tank up to cover the girls a little better. I was thankful that all of this working out hadn’t shrunk my D-cup breasts. They actually looked better than ever: perky, full, and firm. They provided some nice curvature to my otherwise slim physique.
I began to stretch as I watched the previous class finish up.
From the look of the sweat-drenched participants, today was going to suck hardcore. As I watched the group strain to do their final round of burpees, my eyes fell on him.
Coach Shane.
What a class A prick. “Come on, chests on the floor,” he yelled at the expiring exercisers.
This was what I hated most about this place.
Shane Fucking Reed. He was a cocky son of a bitch who had made it his goal in life to irritate the hell out of me. In the three months I’d been a member here, he has never failed to make some flippant, antagonizing remark during my workouts with him.
My mind wandered as I thought about how lucky he was that he was so gorgeous because his personality was really shitty.
He was at least six
feet tall, maybe taller, with light blond hair and dazzling blue eyes. And he was fucking ripped. Adonis himself would be jealous of Shane’s body. He was lean, but every part of his body rippled with muscle. If he could only have been born a mute, he’d be absolutely perfect.
“You here to daydream or are you going to actually try to keep up with the workout today?”
Shane’s words screeched through my fantasy like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“If you weren’t so goddamn boring, maybe I’d be more attentive,” I shot back.
“You talk a big game, Bishop.
Too bad your body can’t back all that smack up,” Shane yelled over his shoulder as he headed for the gym’s only office.
I shook my head as the previous class hobbled out the door.
“How was it?” I asked Lily, my roommate. She’s a teacher, so she was always able to make the earlier classes during the summer.
“How does it look like it was?” she replied as she held out her hands and spun around.
Her tank top was drenched in sweat. Since the gym was in an old warehouse, it didn’t have air conditioning, and the late August air was oppressive.
“Awesome,” I muttered.
Not only had I barely dragged myself here, but I hated when Shane saw me struggle. He got some sick, twisted satisfaction from it I’m sure.
“I’ll see you at home,” Lily said as
she walked toward the cubbies where we stored our keys and other personal items. She took two steps, and then turned back toward me. “By the way,” she motioned with her head toward the office, “he’s an even bigger dick than usual today.”
“Fantastic.
He probably got shot down by a flock of sex-starved virgins last night or something,” I replied.
Lily laughed loudly as Shane emerged from the office and walked toward us.
“What’s funny? Amanda’s love handles?” Shane smirked as he stopped in front of me, blocking Lily from my view.
“Interesting.
That brings up a question I’ve been pondering. Since you’re in such great shape, what does your boyfriend hold onto when he’s plowing into you from behind?” I asked deadpan.
Lily leaned to the side, her mouth hanging open.
She seemed surprised that I would say something like this.
Hmm, I thought she knew me better
.
I gazed curiously at him, as if I expected an answer.
Shane grunted out a harsh laugh. “Funny. We’ll see how much you’re laughing in an hour.” Then he walked away as though I was no longer worthy of his company.
I turned to Lily.
“Was it something I said?” I asked her as my lips began to twitch from trying to suppress a smile.
“Just remember, I warned ya.
Good luck,” she said as she shook her head and walked to retrieve her keys.
“Okay, everybody, let’s warm up.
Kate, take them through it,” Shane ordered.
Kate was also a coach, though she never actually ran any of the classes.
She usually helped monitor us as we went through the workout to make sure we were completing the movements with the correct form and weren’t fudging our counts. She was tall, maybe 5’10 and beautiful. She had the body of
a fitness model with her shiny brown hair,
flawless skin and washboard stomach. I desperately wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t. Truth was, she was incredibly personable and had a great sense of humor. And she often got stuck working with Shane. Poor girl. Though the way she looked at him sometimes made me wonder if there was something going on between them. And I can’t lie. The thought made me a tad bit envious.
Despite his being a total asshole, I would still like to ride him like a fucking cowgirl.
I mean, I can’t ignore the fact that he is totally panty-dropping sexy. I have a very healthy libido, which keeps my mind permanently in the gutter, and I’m not ashamed of it in the least. I’m ever on the prowl for prospective men who look like they could give me a good dicking.
And if it weren’t for the fact that I’d never be able to look at myself in the mirror again, Shane would be at the top of my list.
After the warm up, Shane took us through the movements and told us to gets our bars and
find a suitable weight. Today would consist of as many rounds as we could complete in twenty-five minutes. We had to complete twenty burpees, twenty-five thrusters, and thirty box jumps per round.
Fuck
. He really was in a bad mood.
I made my way back over to the bars and grabbed an
Olympic women’s. I added twenty pounds to both sides, which totaled seventy pounds to thrust.
Love handles my ass.
We practiced a few clean and jerks to wake our muscles up and make sure we could safely lift the weight we had chosen. Then, we all grabbed a box for the box jumps. After about ten minutes, I heard him again.
“Okay, everybody ready?”
We all nodded and murmured our assent. “Good. Time . . . starts . . . now!”
I hit the ground and began my burpees, trying like hell to keep my form perfect.
And as I pushed through them, I reminded myself that this was why I continued to come here. Because even though Shane was a condescending prick, he pushed me to perform better. I hated the smug look he got on his face when I struggled or he had to correct me on something, and I worked like hell to avoid it.
The burpees left me fatigued, but I grabbed my barbell and started the thrusters.
And as I came down and shot back up, hoisting the bar over my head, I felt a welling of pride.
This is seventy pounds I’m
pushing overhead. I’m
a fucking beast.
But my pleasure was short lived as Shane squatted down in front of me.
“Drop your ass, Bishop.
Lower!”
If looks could kill, he would have dropped dead on the spot.
My ass was practically skimming the floor. There was no way I could get any lower. So I ignored him and kept my pace. When I finished, I dropped the bar onto the ground and trudged over to the box. I got two jumps in before my eyes registered Shane messing with my barbell.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled breathlessly at him as I continued to jump.
“This is clearly too heavy for you. You’re barely squatting at the bottom. I’m taking twenty pounds off,” he replied nonchalantly.