Page 28 of Santa Has a Six-Pack
There’s that question again.
The honest answer would make me sound like an awful person, so I’m grateful when Penny and Eugene return and save me from responding.
What comes out of my mouth instead is, “Fuuuuuck meeeeee.”
Because Penny looks… amazing. She’s wearing this hot-as-hell two-piece red Lycra situation. And a scowl on her face.
“Excuse me?” she says.
“Sorry.” I stumble over a weight plate I forgot was on the ground. “That wasn’t an actual request for you to fuck me. It was a rhetorical ‘fuuuuuuck meeee’ moment. Is rhetorical the right word to use in this instance? What I mean is I was just struck by how fucking phenomenal you look right now.”
“Oh,” she says.
Am I imagining it? Or was that a smile? It’s there for a second and gone just as fast.
Like an absolute idiot who can’t be stopped, I continue, “Not that I’d be opposed to you fucking me, because geezuz, you are?—”
“Wow!” Eugene shouts at the same moment Keira laughs and says, “Hey now! We’re gonna need to get HR in here with that kind of talk!”
“My apologies.”
I do a bizarre little bow in Penny’s direction. Who do I think I am? Her dirty-talking butler? No. No, I am not a dirty-talking butler. At the moment, I am her personal trainer. So I’d better shut my dirty mouth and start acting like it.
“Truly. I am sorry. You are my boss, and what I said just now was inappropriate.” I scrub a hand over my head. “I take it back. You don’t look phenomenal.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope!” Goddamn, what am I doing now? Insulting her? “You, um, you look… functional. Here at Bossfit Brooklyn, we’re all about functional fitness.” Great, now I sound like a damn infomercial.
“Why don’t you get started with the workout!?” Eugene shouts, trying to save me from myself, which is clearly an impossible job.
“Great idea!” I say. “Shall we get started?”
“Yeah.” Penny smirks. “Let’s get started.”
She joins me in the space I’ve set up for the workout.
I hand her an eight-pound medicine ball. “Here you go.”
“You keep calling me your boss,” she says.
“Well, aren’t you?”
“I suppose. For the next few weeks anyway.”
“Well then, boss.” I wink at her. “Let’s see you sweat.”
Chapter 9
Penny
Hell.
I might actually be in hell.
Christmas music is blaring.
My thighs are throbbing.
