Page 15 of It's Complicated

“What are you doing?” I slipped my finger under the hem of the shirt and tugged as far away from his stomach as I could.

“Sucking it in.”

I snort-laughed. “Sucking what in? Your six-pack?” Carefully, I slid the blade under the hem. The material caught on the knife, not giving at all when I pulled on it. I’d have to saw it.

“More like a two-pack.” He relaxed and stood normally. “Been slacking on the gym lately.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, concentrating on sawing the hem and not stabbing him in the stomach. “Same. I blame you.”

For the past three years, Jamie and I had stuck to a pretty rigorous workout routine. Partly because we’d spent most of our lives as elite athletes and working out multiple times a day hadn’t been uncommon for us, but also because the gym gave us another outlet for our excess energy.

We’d cut our five days a week schedule down to two, sometimes three, days because it was easier to sit at home and eat snacks than it was to get our ass to the gym when we weren’t feeling it.

“Me?” He huffed out a laugh. “You’re just as guilty as me for finding excuses to not go.”

“I’ll give you that.” I paused and shot him a quick grin. “You know me, I’m the world’s worst enabler.”

“You really are. I swear you can justify anything if you want it bad enough.”

“It’s a gift,” I said, resuming my work on the hem. “How about whoever tries to back out of gym time has to…” I couldn’t think of a good dare when I was focusing on the task at hand.

“Wear the gold shorts to show their shame.”

I paused again, a laugh bubbling out of my chest. “Deal.”

The shorts in question were a pair of gold lamé booty shorts that had been part of a Halloween costume I’d worn years ago. They covered just enough to not be indecent during a workout but were absolutely ridiculous looking. We’d both had to wear the shorts multiple times after losing bets, and I didn’t see us retiring them any time soon.

Finally, the knife snagged against the seam of the hem. I closed the blade and pressed it into Jamie’s hand. “Hold this.”

Gripping the edges of the slice I’d cut through the folded part of the hem, I pulled hard, yanking on the ends until the cut ripped through the thicker stitching of the seam.

Now the bottom hugged his waist instead of digging into it.

“Better?” I looked up at his face to see how he was doing and took the knife back.

“Yeah.” He breathed in, then let it out in a rush.

Opening the knife again, I tackled some of the strappy parts snaking across his chest. The thinner strips were easy to cut through, but the thicker ones were too much for my knife.

Giving up on trying to cut all the way through them, I focused on sawing a big enough slice into the material so I could tear the rest.

“I’m going to have quite the story to tell at work on Monday when Delilah asks what we got up to this weekend.”

I snickered. “What are you going to tell her?”

Delilah was Jamie’s closest work friend. They’d started at the bank at the same time and had gone through training together.

She loved hearing the stories of our many adventures, and she was an amazing baker and food blogger who used us as her taste testers when she tried new recipes.

“That you made me wear a shredded leotard as a dare, and we ended up having to cut me out of it in the bathroom of a bar using your grandpa’s penknife.”

“She’s going to laugh her ass off.”

“As she should.” He made a soft sound, not quite a grunt, but close enough.

“You good?” I looked up at him.

He grimaced. “Yeah. Just uncomfortable.”

---