“Isa?”
I close my eyes.No. No. No.Please go away.
Squinting, I look up at the tower of man above me. It’s Manny, but not. At least not the way I had remembered him six years ago. The man had a genuine glow-up.
“Hi.” I sigh, finally looking up at him.
Jesus. When was the last time I saw him? Surely, he wasn’t this muscular. Looking up, I find him in a red cut tank top. The cuts run deep on his sides, revealing the ripple of muscles in his abdomen and chest. A toned bicep and forearm reach out in front of me as he offers me a hand. I take it, and he pulls me up to face him.
“What were you doing?” he asks, looking from the ground back to the bar.
“I was trying to follow this video. I got confused,” I explain, pulling out my phone and showing him the instructional video I was following.
He watches it intently, his brow arching before he lets out a chuckle.
“That’s, um,creative?Why don’t you just use that machine? It does the same thing, and hits the same muscles without, well, without the safety risks,” he says, pointing to one of the leg press machines a few rows down.
“I think I’m just going to go.”
“What? No. Don’t go, you just got here.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“I work here part-time, and I saw you walk in from my office,” he says, pointing with his thumb to the small offices behind us labeled “Personal Training Center”. “I’ve been trying to talk to you since you moved back, but I got the feeling you were maybe avoiding me?”
The double f’ers, fear and failure, are hot on my heels. I didn’t want to do this here. The double f’ers are allergic to confrontation and conflict.
“No. It’s not like that.” I lie, horribly, because Manny’s brow arches again.
“You deleted me off social media,” he replies.
“Actually, my Instagram was taken down for a community violation.” This was actually the truth.
“A community violation?” he asks.Fuck here we go.
“Remember that girl we went to school with, Patty Douglas? Well, I was stalking her sister’s husband’s niece, who is some type of influencer. She was throwing her dog a quinceañera, and me being me, I made a comment that upset her and every dog lover in history, worked together to report my account.”
I don’t tell him about the comment in question. Which was “This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen”. No one wants to admit to trolling people on the internet. Should I have just moved on? Yes. But that day, I just woke up seeking violence, and someone spending thousands of dollars on a pet party was my target that day. Next thing you know, I can’t log into Instagram and, well, I regret nothing. Manny smiles, and I think I’ve convinced him, but then he’s back with a rebuttal.
“Okay, but what about the other times you clearly go out of your way to avoid me?”
“I don’t go out of my way to avoid you,” I say defensively.
“You sure? Because the other day when I dropped offJunior, I could have sworn I heard you yell to Desmond, ‘Tell him I’m not here,’” he says with a smirk.
Shit.
“You heard that?” I ask, biting down on my lip.
“I did. Not gonna lie, kinda hurt my feelers, Isa.” Manny puts his hand to his heart.
I go to tell another lie, but it’s five in the morning, and that part of my brain is not functioning the way it needs to. Searching Manny’s eyes, I let out a sigh to relax, the tension building up my spine.
“It’s just the whole divorce thing, and you being Juan Carlos’s best friend?—”
“Isa,” he interrupts me. “I was your friend first. We were best friends. I’m not some asset that needs to be divided between you two.” I can hear the hurt behind his words, and I nod.
“I know, and I’m sorry, but since the divorce, I’ve been trying to avoid anything that reminds me of Juan Carlos.”
