Marcello’s mouth opens and then closes again. “Some reading,” he repeats and that look is there again. Even if I can’t decipher it, at least he looks a little bit more eager about the next few hours of his life than he did ten minutes ago.
“So, shall we?” I pat my pockets three times checking I’ve got my phone, keys and wallet, and then I point to the door.
“Sure.” Marcello gives me another half-smile and then he follows me outside.
*****
“This is the fanciest sports shop I’ve ever been in,” Marcello calls out from behind the changing room curtain. “As if there are chairs in the actual cubicles?”
“It’s a strenuous business trying on new sportswear,” I say, leaning back into the plush armchair I’m sitting in just outside Marcello’s cubicle. Unsurprisingly, at mid-afternoon on a weekday, the shop isn’t busy and we’re the only ones in the changing rooms.
“I don’t know where to start.” Marcello’s voice carries through the curtain again and he genuinely sounds perplexed.
We spent a good thirty minutes picking up a range of clothes, from running shorts and vests to T-shirts and shorts more suitable for lifting and training, and they even had a few tri-suits for Marcello to try.
“Try the gym gear first,” I say. “It’s important you’re comfortable and have good range of motion in your training gear. Not to mention, everybody needs a good pump cover.”
“A good what?”
“Loose fitting clothes to hide all your massive gains,” I explain.
“Or maybe just my massive midriff?” Marcello huffs out a soft laugh.
I’m not sure what to say to that. I can’t quite tell if he’s berating himself and while I don’t like that, not at all, I also don’t want to tell him to stop doing so because that would actually draw more attention to what he’s saying
There’s nothing wrong with his body. In fact, I think I like his body. A lot. And that’s another reason why I don’t want to offer up a compliment about how attractive his stocky torso is and how much I like the hair on his arms and legs, because that would also draw attention to something I am trying to not acknowledge for myself, and the last thing I want is for Marcello to be aware of it.
There is nothing worse than having a straight friend find out that you may possibly have feelings for them. It nukes friendships faster than politics and poor personal hygiene. And for some reason, I really don’t want this friendship to be nuked. So I’m going to keep my budding attraction to Marcello to myself, by which I mean, I’m going to do my utmost to ignore it completely until it disappears.
“So stupid question…” he calls out from behind the curtain.
“There are no stupid questions.”
“Oh, hang around with me a bit longer and you’ll realise there absolutely are.” He laughs at himself again but this time it actually sounds like he’s amused. I smile along with him. “Do I tuck the T-shirt in or leave it hanging out?”
“Do whatever is most comfortable for you,” I answer honestly. I have stronger opinions about tucking when it comes to formal wear and smart casual attire, but for gym sessions, that’s very much personal preference.
“Okay, here goes nothing,” Marcello says as he opens the curtain.
Wearing an oversized T-shirt and light cotton gym shorts, both in a soft grey colour, Marcello holds his hands out and does a little twirl in front of me. In the end, it appears he decided to tuck in the front but not the back.
“Looking good,” I say, and I mean it. The cut of the T-shirt emphasises his chunky forearms, and the light shade of grey makes his olive skin and dark arm hair pop. His legs, the leanest part of his body, look longer thanks to the hem of the shorts falling a little higher than the football shorts he normally wears, and it’s now I see him wearing clothes in his current size rather than his size a decade or more ago makes me realise just how much of an injustice his previous gym gear was doing him. That’s myprofessionalopinion.
My verypersonalopinion is that Marcello looks hot. Sinfully hot. The hair on his arms looks soft and strokable. The definition in his calf muscles makes me want to sink my teeth into his flesh. And the way a few strandsof his hair have escaped the bun on top of his head has my hands itching to play with them, to bring them to my face and find out what they smell like.
Fuck, I’m going to need to work a bit harder at ignoring this growing crush.
“The question is,” I say, clearing my throat. “How do you feel?”
“Honestly, I feel comfortable. Really comfortable. Like I could just curl up on the sofa and watch a movie with a bag of popcorn kind of comfortable.”
“Hmm, that’s not exactly what we were going for.” I shift forward and rest my elbows on my knees. I steeple my fingers. “Do a few squats.”
“Pardon?”
“To test the range of movement. To check they are still comfortable when moving around.”
Marcello gives me a sceptical look but then does indeed spread his legs and drop his backside to the ground.
