Page 26 of Resistance Training
Brad stands there and lets us feel how warm his skin is. And I can’t help but notice that he’s flexing. “Okay, ladies. Vivian needs to get home.”
“Oh hey, I hit a deadlift PR today!” Cindy yells, her arms raised again. I have a feeling she gets excited and raises her arms in the air a lot. “Ninety-five pounds, baby!”
“Nice!” He high-fives her. “Was Larry watching?”
“Oh, was he ever!”
There’s a little more chatter about Larry and Cindy, and then the ladies walk off and we continue on toward my car.
“Well, they’re fun!” I say. “You train them too?”
“I worked with Cindy for a couple of months a couple of years ago, yeah.”
I wait for more information, but that’s all I get.
“So, none of these people from the gym know your legal name?”
“Some of them do. But they call me Mitch because I ask them to and most people aren’t sassy little turds.”
“I know. That’smything.”
“It certainly is,” he says under his breath.
“So just Mitch? Like Adele?”
“Like Mitch.”
“Like Prince.”
“Like Arnold,” he says with a Schwarzenegger accent.
“Gotcha.” We’re quiet until I reach my car, but there’s one thing I just have to know. “Have you been watchingYouon Netflix?”
He blows air out of his nose and looks down at the ground. I can tell he’s trying so hard not to smile, not to turn this into a conversation. We readYoutogether for our two-person book club when we were seventeen, before it was a show. We both liked it so much, felt so cool to be reading it, thought it was like a fucked-up new adultCatcher in the Rye, and Brad would read sections aloud to creep me out. It wasn’t necessarily my favorite book that we read for Asshole Book Club, but it was my favorite memory of Asshole Book Club. The show started the year after we graduated high school. Penn Badgley sounded so much like Brad, I actually thought it was him doing the voiceover for most of the pilot episode.
“Sure,” he says. “Everyone watches that show.”
I wait for him to mutter something Joe Goldberg-like:You have questionable taste in music and prom dates, Sparks, but You always did have good taste in books and TV shows.
Alas, he does not.
We reach my car, and I say, “Well, this is me.”
“Yes,” he says. “This is You…” Is that a nod to the voiceover or not? With that delivery I can’t tell.
I still can’t believe it’s him. I can’t believe we’re together again. I really can’t believe he’s being such a stubborn asshole.
I want to hug him again. And smack him. At the same time. But I don’t.
“Well. I’m still really happy to see you again, Bradley.” And here come the tears. Shit. “Even though you’re a stubborn turd for not reading my emails. And honestly, just cold and rude, but whatever. And I’m not just happy to see you because of how you look. I’ve missed you. I really, really missed you. Even when Iwas mad at you. I missed you so much. Even when I didn’t think about you, I’ve always been missing you.” I sniffle and wipe my eyes and nose. “And it’s not just you that I missed, it was us. Us hanging out together. How I was when I was with you. How it felt to have a best friend who gets you… But I don’t know. Maybe it was just nostalgia for being young. Maybe we would have grown apart after we graduated anyway.”
He exhales, like I just punched him in the gut or something. Although I doubt me punching him in those abs would cause him to flinch at all. “Okay,” he says. He pats me on the shoulder. So awkward. “Well, I’m happy to hear that your cat is still alive and kicking. Although I continue to believe you named him after the worst member of One Direction.”
And there we have it. One of our old jokey arguments. Or argumentative jokes. He’s still in there. My Bradley’s still in there. Beneath the stubborn, cold demeanor and the warm muscles.
“Drive safe, drink a lot of water with electrolytes tonight, and text me your meal before you eat it.”
“Yes, sir.”
