“Thanks for being a good sport.” I pat him roughly on the shoulder. “And now we’ve earned a trip to the bakery. Let’s go.”
PERCY
I have no clue what just happened. One second, I was walking down the street, distracted by an email from one of the students in the class I TA, vaguely looking for the new bakery that just opened, and now some big, blond gorilla has his arm around me after crushing me in an arm wrestling match.
“I didn’t catch your name, by the way,” he says, punching the button for the walk signal on the corner with more force than necessary. No wonder these damn things are always broken if other people are treating them like that.
“Percy.” I suddenly wish I’d picked a less nerdy name. I always thought the name fit me, it felt right, but now that I’m saying it out loud to a gym himbo—gymbo?—it sounds like I’m a scrawny academic… which, okay, I guess is accurate.
He furrows his brow and scratches his chin with his free hand. “Percy,” he echoes. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
“It’s a name. You use it to address the person.” The sarcasm drips from my tongue and I immediately feel like a dick. I don’t know this guy well enough to be giving him shit. My best friend Juno always tells me this is why I have trouble making friends. “Sorry, that was?—”
He laughs loudly, cutting off my apology. The light changes and he tightens his grip on my shoulder, leading me across the street. I can see now where I went wrong.Sweetis directly across fromSweat, which explains how I ended up in a gym for literally the first time in my entire life. Well, if you don’t count gym class, which I don’t since I spent as much time as possible begging the nurse for notes to get me out of it.
“I’m Butch.” He ignores the ribbing I gave him.
“Butch.” I echo his name the same way he did with mine. Yeah, that name checks out. It’s almost too perfect, actually. Maybe if I’d picked a name like Butch I could have inspired myself to be something other than a string bean bookworm.
“What’s your last name?” His brow is furrowed like he’s thinking really hard about something as he pulls the door open and finally drops his arm from around my shoulders.
Is it weird that I kind of miss the musky scent of his sweat now that there’s some space between us?
“Rockton.”
His smile brightens again like a puppy being offered a treat.
“Hell yeah. Rock, Rocky, The Rock,” he rattles off, balling up his fist and giving me a pretend slug to the stomach.
“What?” I stumble back an inch instinctively.
“Don’t worry, it’ll grow on you.”
“What will?”
He laughs again without answering my question. Maybe all those steroids have given him brain damage or something. He seems nice, at least.
“Oh, fuck me sideways and call me Sally, they have key lime cupcakes. I’m going to have to warn Xeno that Stud Muffin has some major competition.”
“What?” I sputter yet another laugh. Seriously, is this big dope for real?
“What?” he says, like he isn’t sure which part of that nonsense sentence might need clarification.
We get up to the counter and he orders a key lime cupcake while I ask for a couple of Danishes, a coffee, and a chai tea.
“You don’t have to pay for mine. I’m picking up for my roommate too.” I wave Butch off when he reaches for his wallet.
“Don’t worry about it.” He slaps his card down on the counter before I get the chance to dig mine out of my messenger bag.
“Thanks,” I murmur, shifting on my feet.
The woman behind the counter hands his card back and assures us it’ll only be a few minutes. We shift over to the pickup area and I start to wonder if I’ve slipped through some kind of wormhole into an extra bizarre alternate timeline.
“You… uh… didn’t have to do that.” I fiddle with the strap on my bag. “I really didn’t mind arm wrestling you. It’ll make for a funny story.”
“Sure. You should sign up for a membership,” Butch blurts.
I don’t just laugh at that one, I double over. Me, pumping iron? Nowthat’sa bizarre alternate timeline if I’ve ever heard of one. It finally makes sense why he came over to the bakery with me and is acting so friendly. He must get a commission for every membership sign-up he gets.
