“You’re not a serial killer, are you?” I asked by way of goodbye.
“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you, would I?” She winked and unlocked her door. “Goodnight, Sutton.”
“Goodnight,” I said, but she was already starting her car. She gave me a little wave before she pulled out. I sagged against my door and stayed there for a few moments. Holy shit.
“I KISSED HER,” I ANNOUNCED, when I walked into the kitchen to find Zee taking the enchiladas out of the oven. Zee stared at me and stood up with the pan. Their oven mitts had FUCK and YOU written on them.
“You can’t walk in and say something like that when I’m holding a hot pan. I almost dropped this, and then we wouldn’t have dinner.” They set it down on the stove and took off their oven mitts. “Now that our food is safe, you need to tell me every single detail.”
They put their hands on my shoulders and pushed me toward the living room and onto the couch.
“The food can wait,” they said. “I have to hear about the kissing. No, wait. Hold on.” I was getting whiplash from this. I sat with the kitties and waited for Zee to come back. I was still in a state of shock about the fact that the kissing had happened at all. Part of my brain wasn’t sure if it had.
Zee came back with two glasses of wine. The only bottle in the fridge had been one that I knew Zee had been saving.
“Really? You broke out the fancy wine for this?” I asked, taking the glass from their hand.
“Yes, now go.” They pulled their feet up and put all their attention on me.
“I feel like I’m on the stage or something,” I said. Zee waved their hand.
“Just get to the good stuff.”
So, I told them (nearly) everything. When I heard the story out loud, it sounded unreal, even to me, and I’d just been through it.
They sat there and sipped their wine and were on the edge of their seat the whole time. My heart pounded a little bit in the retelling and my hands tingled.
“Well, well, well,” Zee said, when I finished with leaning against my car in the parking lot.
“Did that actually happen?” I said, leaning back on the couch. Cappy climbed up onto my chest and licked my chin. “Now I’m getting kitty kisses. So many kisses for one day.”
“I’m not going to lie, I’m a little jealous. I haven’t had a good make out session in forever. I need to find someone to make out with. I’m going to sign up for that dating app again. If you know of anyone who would want to make out with me, send him my way.” I said that I would.
“Maybe there will be someone at the new gym downstairs. Would you go out with a CrossFit guy?” They pretended to think that over.
“Lots of muscles? Yeah, I think I could work with that.” They grinned and rubbed their hands together.
“Okay, ew,” I said, getting up. “Also, I’m starving. Can we eat now?” Zee dished out the enchiladas and I sipped my wine. This was a wine night. All I could think about was kissing Tuesday again. When would that happen? Tomorrow? I hoped so.
I couldn’t get her out of my mind. My mind wouldn’t stop replaying every single detail. Then my imagination picked up where reality had left off. What if we had gone further? What if she’d taken off her shorts and her sports bra? What if she’d removed my clothes? I opened my eyes and found both kitties staring at me.
“Okay, you need to learn about privacy,” I said. I wanted to kick them out because it was creepy to be having sexy thoughts while being watched by two kittens. My lust had ignited, though, and I couldn’t stop now if I wanted. Apologizing profusely, I picked them up and put them outside the door.
“Two minutes. Just give me two minutes.” They stared up at me in betrayal. I spared a moment to feel like a horrible kitty mom and then closed the door and grabbed my vibrator from the drawer next to my bed. I was already so turned on that it really did only take about three minutes before I came, and came hard. I lay there for a second, but then the crying kittens jolted me back to reality. I got up slowly, since I was a little boneless from the orgasm. It had been a while since I’d had one that fast and that hard.
Floating a little, I went to let the kittens in. Both of them gave me glares of betrayal, but then hopped up on the bed and lay down.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I put my vibrator away. “But you don’t get it.”
Only a few minutes later I was horny again and wanted to come, but I also couldn’t banish the kittens a second time, so I just lay there and tried to think of un-horny things. It wasn’t going very well. Every time I tried, my brain just went back to Tuesday. A naked Tuesday, lifting weights. Sweat-drenched and muscles popping. I didn’t think I would be into that kind of person, but apparently, I was. Very into.
I couldn’t get her out of my head and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. A very bad thing.
Nine
The parking lot was packed the next morning with people coming to the gym opening. Tuesday had classes going all day, and balloons tied to the door handle and a big GRAND OPENING banner across the new sign for CrossFit 721. I still didn’t know what the name meant, and I made a mental note to ask her about it.
I kicked myself for not getting her a little grand-opening gift, but I had plenty of time before my first class, so I walked down the street and got a gift card to the lunch place where we’d eaten together the first time, and then grabbed a card. They didn’t have a “congrats on opening your CrossFit gym” card, but I picked one with a generic Congratulations! message and signed it with my name. I hoped she didn’t read too much into the card. It was pretty innocuous, I thought.
When I got back, there was a class just getting out, so I had to wade through a bunch of sweaty people who had dazed looks in their eyes. I’d seen that look after a particularly intense yoga session. I finally made my way into the gym and found Tuesday moving boxes around and talking to Kiera and two other people. I thought about coming back later, but no doubt she was going to be surrounded by people all day. She happened to turn and met my eyes.
“Hey,” I said, holding out the card. “I got you a little something. It’s busy in here already. How are things going?” The other three people stepped back and Tuesday stepped forward to greet me. I wanted to kiss her, but I didn’t know if I should. Probably not.
“Hey,” she said, her voice rough and soft at the same time. “Thanks for coming by. It’s been busy. I’m guessing that’s because of the free classes, but I’m hoping we can convert some of the new people to regular memberships.” I handed the card to her. “Thank you,” she said, and I knew she meant it.
“You’re welcome,” I said, and waited for her to open it. Instead, she turned it over in her hands.
“I’m going to save it and open it later. It’ll give me something to look forward to when I’m completely dead later from coaching. You should come by when you’re done.” She came closer and spoke in a low voice, so only I could hear her. “And you can kiss me, if you want. I don’t think it’s a good idea right now though.” As much as I ached to kiss the crap out of her, I knew that she was right. If we kissed in front of all these people, we were going to have to give answers to questions we didn’t even have the answers to ourselves.
“This is so weird,” I admitted.
“I know. But I’m going to think about kissing you all day.” I’d thought about kissing her all night so that was only fair.
“Come up for a kombucha on the house later, if you can,” I said, and then waved to her before heading up the stairs to the studio. I cringed at the sound of the music bumping from below. CrossFit was loud. At least the way Tuesday did CrossFit. I guess I was going to have to get used to that.
I lit some incense and grabbed a green juice for myself. I needed it to get through today.
THE ENTIRE DAY WAS chaos. The door downstairs was constantly opening and closing, people were wandering up to the studio from downstairs, the music was loud and relentless, and there were constant bangs and clangs from the weights
. I endured it all with a smile on my face and did my best to teach with the serenity my students had come to expect.
“That is loud,” Ellen said, when she came to teach her class.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, as she came over to take off her shoes.
“Is it going to be like this all the time? There are so many buff people downstairs, it’s like an ad for steroids.” I laughed and sat down next to her.
“Tell me about it. They keep coming up here and asking about yoga, but I can tell they think it’s pointless and useless. I’m tempted to give them coupons or something to come and take a class, just to see them get their asses kicked.” Ellen cackled.
“I would pay good money to see that. All those bros trying to keep their balance and failing. Timber!” That gave me a mental image of a bunch of CrossFit dudes in tree pose all falling one after the other and taking each other out. I couldn’t help but smile.
“That would be worth selling tickets for.” The phone rang so I had to get it and Ellen started getting ready for her class. I did a bunch of work while she taught and got a few little messages from Tuesday. This time it wasn’t just funny pictures and turtle videos. There were cute flirty things now. Flutters broke out in my body, and it was hard to concentrate on work when I was thinking about her.
“You’re in a good mood today,” Ellen said, after she’d said goodbye to her last student. “Any new developments I should know about?” I didn’t think I was going to be able to hide everything happening with Tuesday, but at least I could ask the people in my life to be nice and not ask me about it. Maybe.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I don’t know. I can’t say.” My cheeks were hot and I would have bet everything that they were red as hell.
“Interesting,” Ellen said with a grin. “I am waiting on the edge of my seat here. Can you give me any details?” I shook my head. Any kind of details would point right downstairs and toward Tuesday.
“I’ll tell you when I know what the hell I’m doing. If I ever do.” Time would tell.
“Mmm, I can’t wait. Let me know if you need someone to talk it out with. I’m always here.” She patted my shoulder and then grabbed her bag.
“See you later,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Bye,” I said, drawing the word out. She chuckled as she got into the elevator. If there was anyone who could help me with questions of romance, it was Ellen.
Somehow I made it through the rest of the day and evening. I was absolutely starving by the time I was ready to leave, and I sent a message to Zee that I was going to order dinner and then pick it up on my way home. They wrote back with what they wanted and said they were glad that they didn’t have to cook for once.
I glanced through the door into the gym and found that it was empty, except for Tuesday. She was on one of the boxes, eating something from a paper plate. Our eyes met and she smiled a little before getting up and walking over to let me in. She must have locked the door.
“How’s it going?” I asked, and saw that she had cake on her plate. My mouth instantly started to water. I considered ripping the plate out of her hands, but that probably wouldn’t end well for me or the cake.
“Good. Exhausted. Uh, you want some cake? You’re looking at it like you want make out with it instead of me.” I glanced up and realized I had been staring at the cake.
“I’m starving,” I said as an explanation.
“Come on.” Tuesday brought me to the back where there was a sheet cake on a bench. It had the logo of the gym on it, and was about 1/3 of the way eaten.
“You would think people would have eaten more, but no. They left me with all the sugar and processed flour.” Tuesday shrugged and cut me a piece before stabbing it with a plastic fork and handing it me.
“I can help you with all of that,” I said. “And so can my roommate. They’ll eat anything, in large quantities.” Zee could put away that whole damn cake in one sitting. Actually, if I didn’t bring some home for them, they would probably murder me in my sleep.
“Please, take some. I definitely can’t finish it all.” I sat down and attacked the cake. It was just the right amount of pure sugar, and I almost moaned when it hit my tongue.
“Kiera and a few of my friends got me the cake. I told them not to, but they did it anyway.” Tuesday poked at the cake and then set the plate down.
“That’s nice of them. Was it a good day?” I shoveled more cake into my mouth. I was going to be high on sugar in a few minutes, but I seriously didn’t care.
“Yeah, I think so.” Tuesday sighed and sat back on the bench. “Time will tell. I had a few people sign up for memberships, so that’s good. I just don’t know if that energy will last, or if I’m going to make a go of this.” I nodded, completely sympathizing.
“You’ll always have that doubt. I’m almost two years in and I still wonder if I’m ever going to feel like I’ve succeeded. My next goal is to open a second studio, but I’m nowhere near close to ready to do that.” I’d need to get my membership up first, and definitely hire some more teachers, and maybe even a manager. I wasn’t ready for that yet.
“You’ll do it. In a few years you’re going to have a yoga empire.” I thought she was joking, but I couldn’t really tell.
“I don’t want to have an empire. Two or three studios would be enough for me. That might be more than enough, actually. I have no idea if I’d be able to manage multiple locations.” I shuddered at the thought of all that work and the stress of paying rent on two places.
“So what you’re telling me is the doubt and terror never goes away?” I scraped the last bit of frosting from the plate and eyed the cake. I could go for at least one more piece, if not two more.
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you,” I said. “Sorry, I probably should have sugarcoated that better since you’re just starting. But you’re a franchise, so I’m guessing it’s a little different, because you have corporate support behind you.” I would never have that.
Tuesday shrugged. “Do you want some more cake?”
“Is it okay if I said yes?” She laughed and grabbed my late, serving me up another slab of the grocery store cake.
“It’s always okay to say yes to cake,” she said.
“Words to live by. You should put that on the wall. Right above your logo. CrossFit and cake. You’d have the only one in Boston.” Tuesday stared at me as I devoured more cake. The sugar was just starting to hit me and I was going to be flying in a few minutes. I should probably cut myself off soon or else I was going to get drunk on cake.
“I’ll add that to my business plan, but I don’t think it would go over well with corporate.” Probably not. I finished my second plate of cake and set everything aside.
“Now I’m ready for something sweeter,” I said, licking the last of the frosting from my lips.
Tuesday looked puzzled for a second and then groaned.
“That was one of the worst lines I’ve ever heard.”
I leaned closer to her and smiled.
“But is it working?”
She took a shaky breath.
“Maybe a little.” I reached for her at the same time as she reached for me and we came together with a crash. It wasn’t sweet and soft like we’d started last time. No, this was hard and a little bit vicious. Before I knew it, my back was on the floor and Tuesday’s body was stretched out on top of mine. Her skin was hot and tight, and I could feel every single muscle. She was heavy, but I didn’t care. She could press all the air out of my lungs and I wouldn’t care at all.
Her teeth nipped at my lips and tongue and I bit her back. She seemed to like that, judging from the sounds she made. I could barely breathe and I think she noticed because she levered herself up with her arms.
Tuesday looked down at me. Her ponytail hung down on one side and brushed my arm, causing goosebumps.
“I’m blaming this on the cake,” she said, her chest heaving. I was breathing pretty hard as well, and not just because she’d been crushing
my lungs. Our hips were still pressed together and I couldn’t concentrate on much but the fact that that was happening.
“Cake?” I said. There wasn’t enough blood going to my brain. It was busy going to other areas.
“Mmm, maybe just a little bit on the cake,” she said, brushing some of my hair out of my face. I kept it up when I taught, but I’d let it down earlier when I’d been in my office.
I couldn’t fathom why we were talking about cake when we could be making out again.
“Come back,” I whined, reaching to pull on the back of her neck to bring her mouth back to mine. She laughed softly.
“Demanding,” she said, but it was as a term of endearment. At least I hoped so.
“Uh huh,” I said before our lips met again. With one hand, she stroked the side of my face and then her fingers went to the side of my neck. She didn’t know this yet, but neck kisses were a sure way to get me to completely lose my mind and probably take all my clothes off.
Tuesday stroked my neck while her mouth went back to work. She kissed with an intensity that let me know she wasn’t thinking about anything else but this moment right now. It was almost overwhelming, and I still couldn’t really breathe, but why did that matter?
Things ratcheted up a notch when her hips started to move. Then I was completely lost and I didn’t have a coherent thought again. I couldn’t think; I could only feel.
I wanted her. Bad. I wanted her to rip my clothes from my body and ravish me on this floor that was probably covered in a least fifty people’s sweat. I didn’t even care.
Of their own accord, my hands went to her hips, squeezing them and rocking my hips up to meet hers. Even through layers of clothing, the sensations were so intense that I didn’t know if I could handle much more, and yet that was the word that came out of my mouth when she paused to change angles.
“More.”
I expected her to come back to my mouth, but she kissed my nose as she gasped in a breath.
Anyone but You Page 11
