Page 67 of Resistance Training
“What you resist persists.” I can’t stop thinking about this. Is that the whole “let’s just get it out of our systems” logic that has worked for exactly no one never times in the entire history of humans? Or will I finally be free of her if we fuck while fighting? Or fight while fucking?
Nope.
Not going to think about it today.
7:30 a.m.—Fuck. She sent a photo of her breakfast. She made a happy face out of two sunny-side-up eggs, three strips of turkey bacon, and half an avocado. With cottage cheese forhair. It made me laugh, so I gave it a Ha Ha response. I should have just given it a thumbs-up.
But I can’t fucking believe how happy I was to get a text from her. This is bad. I am so grateful to Larry for convincing me to go cruising with him today or I would be driving straight back to her house right now.
CHAPTER 19
VIVIAN
Fitness Journal—Sunday, March 9
Today’s Intention:1. Do not text or call him unless he texts or calls first to tell me what an amazing time he had between my legs last night. Or if he needs help with the feral kitten. 2. Drink more water, because apparently brain cells dehydrate due to moisture loss through the lower lady parts. 3. Shit. I have to text him my breakfast. And I can’t not make a happy face out of my breakfast because I’m fun and adorable and if he can’t handle how fun and adorable I am, well that is literally his problem, because I can’t not be fun and adorable.
FUEL:Two eggs, three pieces of turkey bacon, half an avocado, half a cup of low fat cottage cheese, and the unbridled pleasure of receiving a Ha Ha reaction from my personal clitoral trainer. I won breakfast!
FIRE:I still don’t completely understand what this is all about, but I’ll just say that I feel hot and I look hot and I am hot and therefore I am the fire.
FORTRESS:My butt looks amazing and I can literally feel the torn muscle fibers repairing themselves into even hotter butt muscles. My amazing butt is my fortress. It allows me to sit comfortably—when it isn’t super sore, that is—and it allows me to walk with the jaunty juiciness of my youth. I have no idea what this F is F-ing about and I’m not going to text my F-ing trainer to ask him. Even though I really want him to massage my jaunty fortress again.
FRACTURES:His hands and mouth and tongue have ruined me for all other hands and mouths and tongues. I am torn between wanting to melt his armor, wanting to strangle him for being such a stubborn assmonkey, and wanting to cautiously, quietly, patiently wait for him to realize that I’m here. I’m here for him but I don’t want to scare him off because I don’t want to lose him again. But I also don’t want to lose myself to yet another guy who isn’t capable of loving me the way I want to be loved. I don’t really even know if this Mitch person is capable in the way that Bradley was. And even though I may have been the trigger for his transformation, I need to make sure I don’t stick around out of guilt if we can’t have the kind of relationship I want for us.
I don’t want anyone else’s hands or mouth or tongue on me, but I won’t let Mitch break my heart the way Bradley did. Only Brad and I can heal it.
Jesus, this is weird.
CHAPTER 20
BRAD
Larry’s response to my tagline idea for the senior fitness brand is less than wildly enthusiastic. Partly because he’s checking the fuel level, here in the helm of his yacht, partly because he keeps checking out Cindy’s backside as she strolls around on the main dock. She’s alternately checking her phone and scanning the marina. It’s a beautiful day. Partly cloudy, light winds. That could change later in the day, but it hardly matters. This isn’t a sailboat.
TheNautical Smile—which is seriously one of the cheesiest boat names I’ve ever known—is a forty-five-foot motor yacht, and it’s moored in slip three, a premium slip at the nicest marina around Portland. With direct access to the Willamette River, it’s perfect for lazy Sunday cruises along the protected waters of the Multnomah Channel, even in March.
I’ve been out on this boat with Larry before. He lets me operate it. Since I had plenty of experience handling my dad’s motorboat and our family sailboat back at Mercer Island, he even added me to his insurance policy as an approved operator. I fucking love this vessel, and it inspires me to succeed in a way that’s very different from my initial motivations for gettinginto the fitness business. I can tell that was Larry’s intention. To inspire me to make “own-a-yacht kind of money.”
But I don’t seem to be inspiring him with my business plan this morning. “Apps can’t spot you,” I repeat. “Because fitness apps are so popular now, but it’s imperative for seniors to have human trainers nearby, spotting them and ensuring their form is?—”
“Yeah, I got it,” he says as he tests the navigation lights. “I like it, bruh. You didn’t actually think I invited you out here so we could talk business on a Sunday, did you? On my boat?”
I slowly lower my backpack to the seating area behind me so he can’t tell my laptop is in there. “Well, we talk business all the time, so I figured?—”
“Gwen told me you haven’t taken a weekend off in months.”
“I didn’t go into the gym at all yesterday. And I brought a book to read, so…”
“Atta boy. You feel comfortable with her system?” he asks, gesturing at the instrument panel.
“Uh. Yeah. You want me to start her up?”
He checks his watch. “I’m gonna go ahead and start her up now. I already checked the oil and fuel levels before you got here. Turned on the fuel valves, checked the battery. You got to know this system pretty well last time—it’s all the same.”
“Yeah. You want me to take the helm?” Larry did not mention I would be piloting the boat today, but if we aren’t going to be talking business, then this is exactly what I need to do if I want to keep my mind off Vivian.
“For sure. Why don’t we do a walkaround, check the exterior while she’s warming up?”
