Rating/Warning(s)/Note(s): M, Gymward, some goofy, sweaty fun

Prompt: Glisten

As most women are known to do my New Year’s resolution was to lose weight. Well actually, I didn’t want to lose the weight as much as tone up what I had. So I joined my neighborhood gym, Eclipse Fitness, and have made it there everyday so far. I was quite proud of myself. I went every night after work, it was a great way to relieve the stress of my day and get any aggression that had built up out.

I was by no means a gym bunny, I didn’t walk around in spandex shorts and a sports bra. Instead I opted for the comfort of my yoga pants and whatever t-shirt I had lying around. My brown hair was always pulled back in a ponytail which by the end of my workout looked like I had never used a brush. I wasn’t there to score to hook-up or whatever the term is these days. I was there to help myself. To treat my body like the temple it was. To get more energy, and be more productive at work. To…oh my gym god he has an amazing ass.

Ok, so maybe I’m a bit of a fake. I can admit. I just did in fact. But if you could see what I’m seeing, you’d understand. I began my resolution heartily on the first. The first week was exhausting and painful but I stuck to it. Then I saw him. I was just starting the treadmill had my workout play list blasting on my iPod and I glanced up. At first I thought I was hallucinating. Surely there couldn’t be a more beautiful specimen of a man? He was sitting on a bench, working with the free weights. Magnificent was the only word I could use to describe the picture that was before me. I couldn’t tell his height from the position he was in, but his body looked long and lean with muscles in all the right places. He had reddish-brown hair that was all over the place. Covering his muscular legs was a pair of black basketball shorts. And on top he wore nothing. Nada. Zilch. Bare. From where I stood he had a six-pack. The sexiest fucking six pack I had ever had the pleasure of drooling over. This man was in top physical form. The muscles in his arms flexed with every rep he did and his brow furrowed with every pull up. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

I watched as a single sweat drop traveled from his forehead, to his cheekbone, down his long neck, past his collarbone, then in the center of his chest before I lost view. I was dumbfounded. He laughed at something the guy next to him had said and his smile lit up the room. You know in the movies when the good guy smile and one of his teeth sparkle? That’s what it was like. I faintly heard the laugh but it set something off in me. That’s when my obsession began.

I couldn’t get the image of his half-naked body practically sparkling in sweat out of my head. Now when I went to the gym, I looked for him. Thankfully he was usually there the same time I was. I continued my stalking for weeks, getting to see him in different settings. Sometimes he would use the machines, sometimes he would be spotting someone. But nothing beat the free weights. He caught me once. I was just about to finish on the elliptical and I was gawking at him like the teenaged girl I was ten years ago when he looked up and caught my eye. He gave me a smile, one I had yet to see from him, it was a little cocky and self-indulgent and it was all hot. Embarrassed, I hurriedly looked away and made to get off the machine but of course got my foot caught in the pedal. After I managed to disentangle myself I fled to the shower room.

After that episode, I willed myself to not look at him. I even tried to change the times I went but it was no use. I was addicted. And there was only one place I could get my fix. So I did what any self-respecting would do. I enlisted the help of my best friend Alice. I got her to join with me and since she was much more out-going than I was, I was counting on her to at least get me an introduction. I was desperate at this point.

So here we are, at the gym, working out. I point him out to her and she gives me a big smile and nods her head. I take this as acceptance. She deems him worthy of the crazy that has infested me these last few weeks.

“Hey Bell, remember when I wanted to set you up with my cousin?”

Honestly? This is what she wanted to talk about? Where was her patented Alice strategy?

“Uh yeah, I guess.”

“You guess? You told me no, absolutely, positively, unequivocally no.”

“I don’t think I said that. But this is what you want to talk about? Don’t you have any plans? Big ideas? Maybe I walk past him and pretend to sprain my ankle? Come on, there has to be something.”

She just looked at me and shook her head.

“You know Bella, I always thought you two would make a great couple.”

I was only half listening. I was too busy watching his glistening body flex and relax, flex and relax. He looked up and caught me looking. Again. Ugh! Why couldn’t I be smoother? Smile at him and flip my hair? Bat my lashes and giggle? Damn my feminist mother! Then the weirdest thing happened. I looked back at him and he was smiling at me! What are the chances? I tried to get my breathing under control and even tried to tune back into Alice going on and on about her cousin.

Now I love Alice, she’s like a sister to me. She has impeccable taste. I just wasn’t comfortable with her trying to set me up with someone in her family. Especially her cousin whom she obviously loves and adores. It would be horrible to go out with this gut, have a horrible time and then have to give her details. Because she would want details. All of them and some even in pictures.

“Bella re you even listening to me?”

No Alice, I’m not. “Of course I am Alice.”

“Just checking. You seemed kind of spacey.”

“He caught me looking again.”

“Oh well, I hate to break this to you but he’s walking this way.”

“What?! I have to get out of here!”

Before I had a chance to actually leave, I saw him coming towards us with a huge smile. That was directed at Alice. Not at me. What. The. Fuck?

“Sorry Bella,” she said as she got off the machine and ran into his arms.

No seriously, what the fuck? Was I having a stroke? If she had something going on with this guy why didn’t she tell me when I pointed him out? I felt so lost, she was my best friend, and she would never do this to me. She disentangled her skanky self (I know, but I was upset!) and pulled him towards me.

“Bella, I’d like you to meet my cousin…”