Page 1 of Bodybuilders for the BBW

Chapter1

Katie

New year, new me, I thought as I stared into my rear vision mirror.

Well, I was definitely wearing new clothes. The leggings my sister, Mandie, had pestered me to buy were on my legs. Apparently they were ‘perfect’ because they stayed opaque no matter how far down you squatted. I even had on the cute sports bra that came with them, though I’d pulled an oversized t-shirt on over it. Mandie would have a fit when she saw it because?—

Rap, rap, rap.

I looked up and there she was, my damn sister, standing beside my car door. Those keen blue eyes took me in, then narrowed when she caught sight of the t-shirt. I’m guessing it wasn’t because she’d taken a particular dislike to Aerosmith.

“Katie, we talked about this!” she said as I climbed out of the car.

“No, you talked. A lot, if I remember correctly. Told is probably a better way of describing that conversation.”

“This is about reclaiming your confidence!” Mandie said, following me over to her car. “New year, new you!”

“And not all of us had your level of confidence to reclaim.”

I stopped and stared at my sister. My beautiful, kind, funny, amazing sister. She worked full time as a fitness influencer, something that had Mum and Dad losing their shit, until they saw how lucrative the job could be for the right person. It was a hell of a lot of work. Sometimes it felt like Mandie was like a shark, always on the hunt for content, but…

Fat and Skinny, that’s what the kids used to call us at school, reciting these shitty nursery rhymes, but while she’d been a bean pole that developed curves when she became a teenager, I was just… me. I didn’t hate my body or love it. I was kind of… agnostic about it. It was the machine that got me around in the world, and right now, it felt like I needed a tune up.

“Have you got the sports bra you bought under that truly hideous t-shirt?” Mandie asked. “Well, that’s baby steps.”

“Baby steps,” I agreed with a sharp nod. “So let’s take some baby steps towards this gym before…”

I looked up and stared at the glossy facade of the gym, trying very hard not to be intimidated. I came here sometimes to use the treadmills but always scrupulously avoided the gym equipment. Men in very thin tank tops grunted and did manly things there. I shook my head. The reflective film on the windows, the black and white logo with a fist raising a barbell on it, did not scream inviting at all.

“Before you change your mind?” Mandie hooked her arm in mine and hauled me closer. “No chance. I’ve told Rhys and Andrew all about you.”

Bloody hell, you’d never know that I was the older sister and Mandie was the younger. She was so damn bossy!

“So there’s no point in telling you I wish you hadn’t?” I hefted my brand new gym bag over my shoulder, complete with towel, change of clothes, and shower gel. “I need you to remember that this is your office.” I pointed to the gym door. “You spend half your life here filming yourself exercising and the world thinks that if they just follow your routines, they’ll look just like you.”

When I paused, she frowned, but when she sucked in a breath to reply, I forged on.

“I spend my days mopping up dog wee.” I worked as a receptionist at a vet surgery, a job I loved, but the only physical labour I did there was haul the mop bucket around. “Or walking the dogs at the shelter. They don’t judge me when my butt jiggles when we’re going around the block.”

Mandie’s face fell, and suddenly I was the one feeling bad.

“No one’s going to judge you,” she insisted, and that was the nature of our relationship.

My sister was the most loyal, fun, amazing person I knew. I had ‘friends’ at school who tried to pull Mandie down because they were jealous of the way she looked and the attention it got her, but I would not stand for that. People wanted to see her as a bitch because she was beautiful, but nothing could’ve been further from the truth.

But there was a degree of privilege that came from looking like her.

Doors opened, people automatically fawned at her feet, and so she was protected from some of the ugliness of the world.

“Oh no, people will judge,” I replied.

“We talked about this.” Mandie stared down at me. “Other people’s opinions are none of our business.”

“Right.” I nodded.

New Year’s Eve, when we were all drinking hard and commiserating over my terrible break up, I’d agreed wholeheartedly with everything my sister had said. I was ready to kick drunk me in the butt for agreeing to all of this. Hadn’t I gone through enough lately? That’s when I remembered my resolution.

Doing the same thing and expecting different results was the definition of insanity. I was done with dating guys who weren’t really interested, or were, but couldn’t deal with the attention that came from walking down the street with me. Or worse, the guys who were using me like a bus stop, waiting for the woman they really wanted to come along so they could ride off without me. I was done dating, period, and so I wanted to focus on me now.

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