“I forgot to turn my alarm off,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. He rolled over and silenced his alarm, then rolled right back into his former position. “Today is a gym day, but I’d like to say that last night was good enough exercise and skip going today.”
“You’re adorable when you’re sleepy. I take it you’re not a morning person.”
“I like sleep. Sleep likes me too. We have a good relationship, but silly things like work always interfere.” Perry stretched andinstead of getting up, he burrowed closer, wrapping his arm around my waist.
“What’s your usual routine on a gym day? Do you roll out of bed and go right over? Do you have breakfast first?”
“Food. Gym. Shower. More food.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your workout, so how about we do food and I can go check in on things at the clinic while you take care of gym and shower and we can meet up after for more food.” God, I was so clingy. This was already the date that never ended, and here I was making plans to spend the day with him.
“Intrude?” Perry made himself sit up. “Seeing you all sweaty would hardly classify as an intrusion.”
“Are you inviting me to work out with you?”
Perry shrugged. “I mean it’s a gym, not a secret society. I can get you in on a guest pass.”
“A secret society?”
Perry laughed. “I was obsessed with them when I was a teenager. The Knights Templar. The Knights of Pythias. The Seven Society. The Illuminati. The Freemasons. You know, the usual suspects. I know it was a weird thing to be interested in.”
“I hate to break it to you, Perry, but that’s hardly weird at all. You were just made to feel that way by boring people who didn’t want to engage about something they weren’t interested in. When I was a teen,” I continued, brushing a strand of hair off his forehead, “my special interest was studying animal anatomy textbooks because I knew I was going to be a vet. I’d study them and try to memorize everything I could and to test myself, I sometimes made very bad sketches of the anatomy from memory, just to see how much knowledge I retained.”
Some of Perry’s self-consciousness faded, and he looked more relaxed. He even managed a smile. “We’re a couple of nerds, you know that, right?”
“I see no problem with that. What got you interested in secret societies?”
Perry’s gaze darted away and he shrugged. He curled in on himself, shoulders rounding as if he was trying to protect himself.
“They just sounded cool, you know. The opposite of me, basically.” He flopped over and draped an arm over his face. Donut made an appearance and tried to stick his nose under Perry’s arm, which made him laugh and seemed to ease some of his tension.
“I don’t want to sound all whiny,” he said. “But I was the kid with the shit home life who was picked last for everything. A secret society sounded like a friend group that could never kick you out. I mean, some of them were arguably bad, but others were about preserving knowledge or working toward a common goal. But people fear things they don’t know about, so naturally people equate secret societies with evil. They’re thought of as dark and Machiavellian.”
Perry stretched and I found myself unable to look away. He had this way about him that just drew me in. It was an innocence in a way. This idea that he’d had every kind of physical manifestation of lust and sexual urges available to him, but he’d never been bought flowers before. He’d had sex, but rarely did he get to bask in the afterglow.
Selfishly, I liked the idea that I was the one who got to show him a different kind of way to be intimate with someone. That I got to be the one to drag him to a shower after sex and wash him down. That I got to be the one to buy him flowers and take him out on dates.
“Let’s hit the gym,” I said, agreeing to his invitation for better or worse. “It’s been a while since I set foot in one, so go easy on me.”
Perry’s eyes lit up like I’d just handed him a gift on Christmas morning. “Really?”
“Yeah. It sounds like fun. Well, I’m on the fence about the actual gym part being fun, but I like spending time with you.”
If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then I just watched Perry’s soul melt into a puddle when I said I liked spending time with him. His expression went all soft, starting with his eyes, that may or may not have glassed over before he quickly recovered, putting on an upbeat front to disguise the effect my words had on him.
“Then let’s go. I know a great place where we can get something before our workout. And I promise to let you set the pace.” He practically tackled me, stealing a quick kiss before bouncing out of bed. “Oh, God, we need to stop by my place first because I need proper clothes.”
When Perry was happy, he was a whirlwind of energy. A happy little tornado, spinning around from Point A to Point B. We stopped at his apartment and he was in and out in under five minutes just like he promised. His proper clothes were a pair of gray sweatpants and an old, threadbare muscle shirt.
At least, I thought that was his gym attire, but when we got to the gym after our quick breakfast, the gray sweatpants came off, revealing a pair of exceedingly short shorts.
I do not need a boner at the gym. I do not need a boner at the gym. I do not need—oh fuck, too late.
I had a boner at the gym. I forced myself to look away from Perry and that helped a bit. Even though the gym was crawling with hot guys, no one did it for me like Perry.
He seemed to sense my dilemma so he suggested we start out over on the treadmills and get a couple of miles in before moving on to other activities.
The first mile went down easy. As did the second. By the time we hit the third, Perry was barely winded, but I was nearingdeath. But true to his word, he slowed his treadmill to a walk and chatted at me during our cooldown walk and let me catch my breath.
