Sebastian
It was unfortunate my usual gym was getting shut down. With all the payments I had with the small salary I would get, I could barely afford it when I first signed up. Yet it was something I knew I needed.
Sanity was important.
Now I was doing a little better financially, so it wouldn't hurt to switch to one a bit more expensive. Not that I even had a choice anyway.
The cheaper one also had me drive to the edge of the city which I didn't mind either. Driving was a form of therapy, especially with music blasting at full volume. My eardrums were probably at risk to give out soon, but it would be worth it.
A quick look online showed me there was one on the opposite side of town, but it would still be closer than the other one was. Making the drive shorter by ten minutes. I could go with twenty minute drives.
Putting the address into the navigation in my car, I followed directions, arriving five minutes quicker than expected. The lack of traffic was the reason for that.
The parking lot to the gym seemed packed, but I managed to find an empty spot and quickly swerved into it before the car coming in the opposite direction was able to claim it.
After parking and taking out my gym bag from the trunk, I locked my car and headed inside.
Immediately I spotted just how different it was in here than the last place I went to. For starters, it had more than one floor. The bottom floor having a giant indoor pool and a long wall dedicated to heavy weightlifting. I couldn't see the second floor from here apart from the treadmills lining the glass railing.
On second thought, maybe I couldn't afford this place.
The lady at the front office smiled at me and I braced myself to hear the price as I walked up to her.
"Hi, are you new?"
I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck with my free hand. "I just wanted to ask how much is the membership here?"
She typed into her computer before speaking. "Well, there's different levels. Starting at forty a month."
"Oh." That really wasn't as bad as I imagined. "Well what are the benefits to each tier?"
"Well forty is the basic membership where you can use any of the equipment in the gym. Just no pool or massage room access."
Considering I never liked swimming anyway and I didn't have time to get massages, I nodded at her for the first tier. "The first tier will be fine for me then."
"Awesome."
After giving her all my information and showing her my ID, I was finally allowed access into the gym and I looked around in search for what to do first. With all the options, I wasn't even sure where to start. Eventually, I settled with going upstairs to use one of the treadmills as a warm up.
As I was walking down the stairs to go to the weightlifting section, I saw a familiar face walk in through the glass doors. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she was wearing a blue gym set. Tight leggings, a sports bra and a cropped zip up that was only zipped halfway.
I felt weird for staring, so I resumed my descend down the stairs and headed towards the long wall of lifting equipment as she greeted the girl at the front desk.
"Eve, hi!"
Now I was regretting my decision to sign up for this specific gym. What if she thought I was a stalker? Or worse; what if she thought I was one of those guys that followed her around everywhere cause he liked her so much.
Surely she had more common sense than to think a stranger would fall for her that quickly, enough to follow her. I was sure I was overthinking.
If I just minded my business in here she shouldn't think anything of it. Gyms were for public access after all.
I already paid to be here for the whole month anyway, might as well take advantage now that I was here.
Despite me expecting her to go straight for cardio as her first stop, she surprised me when she came straight towards me. As expected, she recognized me when she got close enough and her left eyebrow lifted slightly. She didn't want to be obvious about her confusion, but I noticed.
Trying to cover it up, she then smiled at me and carried her teal gym bag over to one of the corners where a large mat was. Despite already having a mat, she pulled out her own from her gym bag and rolled it out.
As I was focusing on my own workouts, I couldn't help but look over at her as she stretched out on her mat. It seemed like she was doing yoga as her warmup. As if feeling me staring at her, she turned her head in my direction and I played it off by grabbing my chin to crack my neck in both directions.
I didn't wanna risk catching her eye by looking over again, so for the rest of the time I was there I ignored her.
• • •
I was walking out of the bathroom after a much needed shower when Ryan bumped into me in the hallway. I gripped the towel around my waist to ensure it didn't fall off as I glared at him.
"The hell?"
"My bad," he muttered as he struggled to carry a bunch of snacks into his room. I was surprised he didn't drop a single one when he bumped into me. "You still smell, by the way," he called out before shutting his door.
I rolled my eyes as I made my way into my own room. It was a long day, and all I wanted to do was lay down and go to sleep.
It was only nine-thirty and my friends always called me old for going to bed so early, but if they worked as much as I had to, they'd sleep even earlier. I just fought my sleep as long as I could.
If it were up to my body, I'd knock out at seven and wouldn't wake up until the next morning. I had too much to do to allow myself to sleep that early, though. I was a busy man. I had a set schedule. Ten was a perfect time to sleep for me.
I stepped into a pair of boxers before laying under my sheets, scrolling through random apps on my phone before having to sleep.
Nathan shared a post about a party in one of his recent posts and I rolled my eyes. Him and Ryan were the biggest party animals. If they weren't invited to a party every weekend, they created a party. This time, Nathan decided to throw a party at his house.
His parents would be out of town to visit his grandparents. That meant even Britney would be away, so he thought it was a perfect time to throw his own party.
Curious about who was gonna go to his party, I tapped on the comments and scrolled upon a familiar face again. It was as if she was all I noticed now that I knew about her.
Why was she everywhere.
Realistically, it wasn't that weird considering she was friends with one of my best friends. If she would be around him more often, it was obvious I'd see her a lot too.
I just felt weird about how quick I always noticed her.
The gym was a complete coincidence.
Unless Nathan set me up. I wouldn't doubt it at all if he did. It was as if he found amusement in my curiosity about his friend.
Aleah commented on his post with an ecstatic, I'll be there! with a bunch of teal little heart emojis. Her comment was the one with the most likes, with a whopping sixty likes.
Considering she barely commented that ten minutes ago, that showed me just how popular she was at parties. Yet another reason why I shouldn't be interested in her. We were complete opposites. I didn't do parties. She loved parties.
Letting out a sigh, I set my alarm before leaving my phone face down on the night stand. I laid on my side as I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
But the second I closed my eyes, I saw her smile on the back of my lids and I snapped my eyes open.
There was no way she was already gonna ruin my sleep schedule. I. Hardly. Knew. The. Girl.
Irritated, I picked my phone back up and went back to Nathan's post. In his post he says whoever is attending to just react to his post.
After a few moments of debating it, I simply tapped on the react button and sighed when my name was added to the list of names that had already reacted before me.
One party wouldn't hurt.