Page 48 of Resistance Training
It’s a sign!
It’s a sign that he will be mine.
Suddenly my heart is beating as fast as it did when Brad was leaning on my leg—which sounds very weird when you say it out loud, but it felt amazing.
He shifts around, looks up at another shelf, and I hide around the corner. I should probably just walk right by him and pretend I didn’t see him. That would be a baller move. Instead I whip out my phone and take a selfie pretending to eat the twobooks I’m holding in my other hand, my mouth open wide. I wish I’d grabbed a funnier book, likeThe Grapes of Wrath, orGreen Eggs and Ham. But I look hot in this picture, so it will have to do.
I text it to Brad and then peek around the corner. He pulls his phone out of his pocket right away and opens the text. I am inwardly cackle-laughing, so I cover my mouth. I watch as he uses his thumb to press the phone screen once, flick the app away, and then slide the phone back into his pocket.
I know even before I see the message that he merely gave it a thumbs-up response.
I could kill him right now.
But I don’t.
I decide to be direct, or at least direct-adjacent, so I text him to tell him that I’m at Powell’s Books right now and if he has the day off, we should meet up.
I watch and wait for him to look at his phone again. He does. He looks around. I hide again. My phone dings, and I read the message telling me that he has an appointment later.
That’s it. Just that he has an appointment later.Latercould mean ten or twenty-four hours or a week from now. I poke my head around the corner again, and he’s gone. He left that copy of the John Green book on a shelf and bolted.
Welp.
That’sa sign.
CHAPTER 13
BRAD
Idon’t know why I bolted, but I bolted.
I knew she was there.
I’d spent fifteen minutes following her around Powell’s, casually strolling behind her, stealthily weaving in and out of aisles.
She looked so forlorn and lost. And tight. I could tell by the way she was walking that she hadn’t stretched enough last night or this morning, as usual, and it was killing me not to reprimand her for it. And she looked hot. In her skinny jeans and long flowy cardigan over a flowy blouse, a little feminine undergarment-top thing peeking out beneath it. With layers of necklaces and bracelets. The bracelets were jingling.
It reminded me of the opening of the first episode ofYou. In my mind I was muttering,Well, hello there, You. What are you doing here all alone on a Saturday? Looking all pretty but not too pretty in an obnoxious way, with your jangling bracelets that draw attention but not too much attention. What books are you looking for? You’d better not be here hoping to meet a guy. I do not like that you’ve taken off your long sweater. I like that I can see your ass in those jeans—love it, even—feel a sense ofpride. Not of ownership. I helped grow those glutes. I see those gains. But I do not like the way that guy with the Kurt Vonnegut book is checking out your ass. Fuck you, you poser. You didn’t tell her to squat. She didn’t get on her hands and knees for you and curse at you while you made her do donkey kicks.
That ass is mine.
It’s mine.
And so I decided to stop and let her find me.
And then she found me and I decided to bolt.
It was too perfect. I was there to buy her that John Green book for her birthday—a gift for a client, no different from me giving Larry a copy of one of my favorite books. It drove me nuts that I didn’t know if she’d read it or not; I just know she’d love it. And she was there? What the fuck? What were the chances? What were the chances of menotkissing her if I wandered around a bookstore talking about books with her? It would change everything, and I’d finally found a way to create some distance from her in my mind.Mind over matterwasn’t working, so I had to maintain that distance. Emotional and physical, whenever possible. That’s just how it has to be. And now I’ll have to order the book online—not because I need to give her a birthday present, because she’s a new client and I just know she’ll like it.
I pull into the street-level garage of my condo. My two-bedroom unit came with two parking spaces. It was a brand-new building when I bought it, and I’d gotten a great price and mortgage rate from a couple of clients. At the time, I was feeling like I should invest in a space that had room for another person. I didn’t have another person in mind and I certainly hadn’t met anyone here that I’d felt even remotely serious about. I just knew that one day I’d want to be in a relationship and I wanted to create space for that woman. Literally. I just haven’t created space for one figuratively yet. Every time I pull into the garageit’s a reminder that I am totally single. Most days I’m happy about it. Today, not so much.
As I pull into my space, I notice something small and dark in the corner, by my other parking spot. When I park, I can see that it’s a black cat. A little one. Crouched low, and I can tell by its big, alert eyes and tense body that it’s ready to bolt. It’s really small, but not tiny. Black, fluffy fur and trembling. Around the size Hairy Styles was when Vivian adopted him. Turning off the engine, I open the car door slowly and don’t shut it all the way, keeping my eyes on the kitten.
There’s no one else in the small garage. There are only four units in this building. All the other tenants’ cars are parked on the other side of the garage, so there isn’t really a space that this cat can run to hide in.
“Hey, buddy,” I say quietly, but my voice echoes off the concrete and metal. I probably sound loud and menacing to the poor thing. It doesn’t look unhealthy, it just looks scared. “Hey, do you belong to someone?” I take a few steps closer. It’s so tense and its fur is so puffed up, but it’s so cute. “Is your mom around?”
I get about three feet away and hold my hand out, but it hisses and spits, pressing itself back into the corner and swatting its little paw at me. I jerk my hand back, because I was not expecting that response. “Okay. Okay. Not touching you. It’s cool. Are you hungry?” I don’t know what to feed it, though. I should maybe get it some water before I knock on my neighbors’ doors and ask if it belongs to them.
