Pictures of You

Chapter Nineteen

We were met at the front desk by Sydney, our gym instructor.

'Hey guys,' he said, 'how's it going?'

He was full on energy, as I suppose is a requirement of his job. Gladys and I on the other hand had shared a bottle of wine, as well as a large sandwich and a cocktail each. I was glad we were just here for a tour, not an actual workout. Neither of us had ever actually stepped into a gym before.

'So I'll take you downstairs first, show you the pool and the spa,' he said, 'then into the gym to show you the equipment we have.'

I'd never seen any pictures of him in any other part of the building other than the gym, so it didn't seem worth doing the full tour. I was here for one reason only - to see if I could meet the guy I was supposedly dating. But it didn't feel right telling Sydney we weren't interested in seeing the rest. He might start to wonder why we wanted the tour of this all singing, all dancing gym, when there were other cheaper and more basic ones around.

So we followed him around and asked questions to seem interested. It was a great place. I used to love swimming when I was younger and the spa looked lovely. Had I lived round here on a more permanent basis, I may have been interested in joining.

'We'll head to the gym now,' he said, and my heart skipped a beat. I knew it was unlikely I'd just bump into him by chance, but it had to be worth a try.

As he opened the door to the gym floor, it looked much bigger inside than I imagined it would be from the outside. It was like the Tardis.

'This is where the magic happens,' Sydney said. I could tell he was excited about showing this place off to perspective new clients. He clearly spent a lot of time here anyway, judging by the fact that his arms were thicker than my waist.

Over the next thirty minutes, he showed us equipment that looked more like medieval torture devices than anything related to health. He demonstrated multiple pieces of kit, including the rowing machine and treadmills. He took us into an area where all the weights were kept. I started to feel really weedy as I watched all the hunky guys hitting the weights hard.

I looked from face to face, seeing if the face of my online love was amongst them. The area looked familiar. This was definitely the place where Alex had posted all those pictures of himself. I felt like I was closer to him than ever. I wanted to show a picture of him to Sydney. They both spent a lot of time here. It seemed likely they would know each other. They were maybe even friends. But I didn't want to give the game away. I didn't want Sydney to suspect that we were only here to track someone down, and that neither of us had any intention of signing up. So instead I asked multiple questions, trying to stretch our visit out for as long as possible. The longer we were here, the better the chances were of us seeing him.

But I could only drag it out so long. He'd shown us everything there was to see.
'Do what do you think?' Sydney asked us. We knew we were about to have the pressure applied to join.

'It's a great place,' I said.

Sydney looked proud, like it was his own gym he'd been showing off.

'We've just got one other place to look at,' Gladys said, trying to put a stop to the sales attempt before it started.

'Oh right,' he said. 'Well be sure to ask for me if you do decide on us.'

'We will,' we both said together. We thanked him and started to walk towards the door. But as we walked past the changing roomd, I saw a man with a dark complexion and jet back hair. I tried to focus on his face. Was it...Alex?

'Gladys,' I said, 'is that him?'

'Where?'

I nodded my head towards where I'd seen him.

'I can't see him,' she said. The room was pretty busy, and he was pretty far away. There was a good chance that it could be someone else with similar features. But I had to at least check it out. This was the reason I was here, and now there was a chance that I had actually found him.

'Alex,' I called across the room, speeding up slightly to try and catch up with him. I bumped into a couple of people who told me to watch where I was going. I apologised and carried on in pursuit of the man.

I got out onto the busy street and looked both ways. He was nowhere to be seen, but I knew it was him. I knew I had seen him.

Gladys caught up with me at the front doors. 'Was it him?' she asked. I nodded. 'But you didn't catch up with him?' I shook my head. 'So what's your next move?'

'I'm not sure,' I said. I was completely out of ideas.

*******

Gladys went home shortly after that. I decided that I was going to stay in town for a little while longer. So I found a cafe, bought myself a latte and sat myself down in the window seat. I had seen him. He was out there amongst these people somewhere. I had to try reaching out to him one more time. Maybe if he knew how close to him I was, then he might come and meet me for a coffee.

I decided not to tell him about the trip to his gym. I didn't want him to think I was stalking him, although realised I was getting very close to doing just that. It had to stop. I had to just tell him how I felt and hope he wanted the same as me. He only had a few days to make this happen. After that, I would be back home in Sheffield and it was unlikely I would be back again any time soon.

I didn't want to lie an ultimatum down, but it was unlikely I would want to keep communications up of I didn't get to see him. I had this thought that the second I was back home, at a safe distance, he would want to carry on with the chatting g and flirting we'd engaged in before I came to London. I imagined him being all like 'I'm sorry I missed your messages. Shall we pick up where we left off?'

Well that wasn't good enough. I was here now. If he wanted me, he had to step up and come and get me.

I opened up my message thread from him and started typing.

Hey Alex - I'm not sure if you got my last message or not? I hoped I would have heard back from you. Maybe you forgot, or maybe you've been busy, but it wouldn't have taken a second just to type something back, even it were just Hi.

I know I probably put you under a lot of pressure by showing up here unannounced. I'm not sure if it was the right thing for me to do or not. I'm guessing by your reaction (or lack of) that it wasn't, but here's the situation. I am here. I'm here right now. In fact, I'm sat at a coffee shop in Camden as we speak.

I would love to get together for a coffee with you if you have the time?
Maybe you're not ready for this. Maybe I scared you and that's why you've stopped messaging me. But I think it would be crazy to let this opportunity slip by. We could really have something, and we could never know what that is if we don't actually meet. Even if you just want to meet as friends, that would be cool with me. I'm happy to step things back a bit if that's what you want? I just miss talking to you.

Anyways, let me know.

Ash x

Author's note

Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. As always, if you enjoyed, I'd appreciate any votes of comments you want to throw my way.