Flyover City! A Novel (with Superheroes)

19. Workout Life

Diet Log for today:

Breakfast: 1 slice dry, whole wheat toast with scrambled egg whites.

Lunch: The Joel Wyatt Power Salad of Destiny, one can of albacore tuna (dry)

Snack: Ants on a Log (Celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins)

Dinner: Smothered burrito, nachos

Dessert: Three donuts I swiped from outside the manager's meeting this morning

(Because I earned it, that's why.)

Today, my ass was completely, totally, unequivocally kicked. And then handed to me. What's more is, I actually sort of liked it.

I took a half day today so I could meet Kyle at the gym for a quick, full body workout. After I changed into my sweats, I was left to wait for about 30 minutes after our agreed-upon time. I didn't want to start without him, since I was anticipating the eventual whooping I received, so I just sort of hovered around the weights, looking over those old workout charts that have been hanging up since aerobics were all the rage, which was probably looked only slightly less sketchy than if I waited in the locker room by the showers.

Finally, Kyle strolled into the workout area,all  decked out in his courier gear. It occurred to me for the first time that the getup is virtually interchangeable with the standard superhero uniform; all light weight, tight fitting spandex and mystery gear strapped strategically along his body.

"All right, man. Shall we?" He said, tousling his hair from its helmet-flattened state to its natural droopy-poof.

"Hey, you're the pro. Lead on..."

He proceeded to drop his torso down to his knees, effortlessly grabbing onto the soles of his shoes. For like, a whole minute. When he whipped back to his full height, I turned to head over to the weights.

"Where you going? Aren't you going to stretch?"

"Oh. Yeah, no, definitely." I layed down on the exercise mats and began tugging my limbs away from their sockets, while Kyle worked his way through a series of downward-facing animals and sun-salutations. I don't usually like to stay at the gym for more than an hour, but having promised myself that I'd follow his lead, I attempted to match his deceptively simple movements; for the next 10 minutes we were in the corner, balancing on the smalls of our backs, breathing out like we were about to deliver babies

Kyle walked over to the squats rack, where a couple of guys in those MC Hammer workout pants were standing, congratulating each other between sets.

"Hey, you guys mind if we work-in here?"

One of the guys huffed out a non-committal grunt, clearly worried that this wispy little thing was going to move their weights without setting them back up afterwards. I haven't really decided yet if Kyle is completely un-self conscious, or if he's so hyper aware of only his body that he has no idea what else is going on around him; but he leaped up and grabbed onto a bar at the top of the rack, executing a set of gravity-defying pull ups.

He landed, thanking the two weight lifters, then looked at me, "Oh, did you want a go?"

"Ah, no, I'm good." I didn't see any reason to completely humiliate myself with my standard three-and-a-half chin ups. Besides, my muscles were still quivering from the stretches.

We headed over to the weight rack, and he started in with some curls. I glanced around to make sure no one's listening in, and asked him, "So, that yoga stuff, did you learn all that while you were training?"