“Is this the revelation about what you want to do postgrad?”
Elliot has had seven majors since we started college. She came into Lakeland undecided. After your first semester, you are required to declare a major, which she did until Elliot decided to play leapfrog from one major to the next.
“Yeah. I’ve always loved fitness but never saw it as a potential career.”
“People make a career out of everything. If you love it, you should go for it.”
Elliot smiles warmly, nodding. She drops our towels in a laundry basket before grabbing a mop. I dust the cubbies in the corner, putting the few abandoned water bottles in the lost and found.
“Ugh,” she groans. “Don’t they know I have the patience of a racehorse?”
We finish cleaning while Elliot tells me more about the company and daydreams about opening a studio someday. By the time she’s handing me my coat, she’s decided to go back to a business major and schedule a meeting with her advisor.
I tug on my floral beanie, taking my curls out of the braid I had thrown them into. All of my baby hairs are either glued to my skin by sweat or trying to make a break for it.
We’re walking out of the studio and down the hallway toward the exit, passing one of the three weight rooms. We both fall prey to letting our eyes roam over the guys working out. Simultaneously, our heads rotate to the left. I swear I see Elliot’s tongue peak out of her mouth, wetting her lips.
I know it’s a double standard, but come on, it’s a large glass window, and a majority of them opted not to wear shirts. It’d be the number one exhibit if colleges were a zoo. Men in their natural habitat. Flexing in the mirror to see who has the biggest biceps. Pretending they did one hundred chest presses when they only did eight.
My eyes catch on one guy: Zach Brighton.
I’ve had an on-and-off crush on him for the better part of my college years.
Zach is a pitcher on the baseball team. He’s tall with thick muscles stretching both his shirt and shorts. He flips up the hem of his shirt to swipe at his brow, flashing a tattoo that stretches up from the waistband of his shorts and wraps around his ribcage.
He’s not as defined or sculpted as our guy friends. More broad. Large and a little softer, but you can see how strong he still is.
Zach drops his shirt, talking to one of his teammates. Dirty blond brows pinch together, his green eyes magnetizing beneath them.
Someone squeezes my bicep, my head jerking in their direction.
It’s just Elliot. I was so enthralled with him for a minute that I forgot where I was.
“Zach is smiling at you!”
“What? No, he wasn’t,” I immediately combat.
She turns my body, and she’s right. “Explain that.”
An already enormous smile grows when our eyes catch. Signaling something to the group he’s working out with, he sprints through the entrance.
I keep walking, dragging Elliot with me. Her steps slow purposely.
“Sutton?” My name echoes behind us, bouncing through the other voices in the hallway.
“Keep walking,” I whisper to her, only to take a step forward and trip. Elliot is stopped dead in her tracks, my body ricocheting, momentum taking me down.
Shoes screech on the floor as Zach whirls in front of me, catching me with one arm around my waist. He helps me get my bearings, steadying me back on two feet. Over his shoulder, I spy Elliot biting her lip, stifling whatever witty comment she wants to say.
“Clumsy?”
Are voices supposed to be hot?
I stare blankly at him. Words to formulate a response swirl in my head but get lost somewhere on their way to my tongue.
Answer him, Sutton. Anything. One word. Yes or no. It’s not that hard.
“Y-yes. N-no.”
