“Come on, ladies! Harder! Let me see you punch!”

I blink back the sweat dripping into my eyes as Coach Kelsey’s shouts ring out over the sound of a dozen women attacking punching bags.

“Almost done now! Let’s go! Ten...Nine...”

My arms are on fire, but I summon up a final spark of adrenaline and blast through the last ten seconds of the drill, my fists a blur in front of me as I drive them over and over again into the red padding of the bag.

“And...time!”

The pounding in the room stops, replaced by all our heaving breaths.

“That one always kills me,” pants my friend Alice from beside me.

I just nod in response, leaning against the bag as I gulp air down into my burning lungs. We take a minute to rest and shake out our arms before strapping off our gloves and heading over to where Coach Kelsey is leading the cool-down stretches.

I follow along with all the lunges and shoulder rolls, already feeling a satisfying ache settle into my body. I’ve been kickboxing for half a year now and the classes have become an addiction. My schedule is tight, but I always manage to fit in at least one session a week. I don’t feel right if I go too long without working my arms so hard they feel like Jell-O.

The stretching ends and we all file out of the mirrored gym, heading towards the locker rooms.

“Christina!” Coach Kelsey barks as I pass her. “Good work today. You’ll be ready to move up a level soon.”

I smile and thank her. When I first started taking classes here, I got scared shitless every time she walked into the room. She’s a five foot two Malaysian woman who makes up for her lack of height by being a solid wall of muscle with a booming voice to match. She’s an incredibly supportive coach though, and just the sight of her kicks is enough to push me to work harder.

“At least one of us is moving up,” remarks Alice, as we open up our lockers. “I think I’ll be stuck in Beginner Two for the rest of my life.”

“Not true,” I counter. “Have you seen your arms lately? They’re turning into steel rods before my very eyes.”

“They may look like steel, but they feel like mush after a workout like that. Why is it I keep letting you bring me here?”

We both grab our towels and head to the showers.

“Because despite all of your complaining, you have admitted you like it,” I answer. “Also, there’s the cute butt benefit.”

I squeeze the curve of her Lycra booty shorts to emphasize my point.

She sighs. “My butt may be cute from doing all those kicky things, but I still haven’t been on a date in months.”

“Have a cute butt for your own sake. You don’t need a man to validate your ass.”

We step into adjacent showers and continue our conversation over the streaming jets. I think this place might have the best water pressure in the city; I exhale in relief as the blast pounds into the tender muscles of my shoulders.

“True,” Alice responds, “but I would still love to have a man validate me tonight. All night.”

“Maybe if you weren’t so picky.”

“Are you kidding me?” she snorts. “You’re, like, the queen of picky.”

I take a minute to consider the accusation. My love life is basically a conveyor belt of different dinner dates, but I rarely find anyone that’s worth putting the procession on hold for.

“Okay, you’re right. That’s a crown I’m willing to wear.”

We quiet down for a few minutes, steam rising in the room as the rest of the showers fill up. I try my best to keep my shoulder-length hair from getting hit by the spray. Along with skin that never fails to get the perfect tan, my Portuguese heritage gave me the kind of wavy mane that would make even Shakira jealous, but any contact with water turns my head into a frizz ball.

Alice starts humming the tune of the latest Ed Sheeran anthem.

“You know,” she ventures, cutting off the musical interlude. “I think I should just change my profile picture on OkCupid to a shot of my cute butt. Then maybe I’d have more luck.”

“Let me know how that one goes,” I respond, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Fifteen minutes later we’re dressed and getting into my car, heading off to the college where we’re both in the middle of studying for a diploma in advertising. On the first day of class last year, I noticed Alice doodling a very unflattering picture of our terrifying Intro to Copywriting instructor and we’ve been friends ever since.

There’s a five year age difference between us, and while it results in a lot of jokes about my dusty uterus, we make the friendship work. Alice is only twenty and on her first go at post-secondary education, whereas I’m back at school after an undergrad in business management and two years in and out of temp jobs made me realize I wanted to specialize in something more creative. I went freelance for awhile and still run a small business creating marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but I have my eyes set on a job at a firm and I need the credentials.

Alice plugs her phone into the car and starts blasting the same Ed Sheeran song she was singing in the shower.

“Volume!” I shout over the noise.

“You old fart,” she complains, reaching for the knob. “You’ve forgotten how to rock and roll.”

“I don’t think Ed Sheeran really qualifies as rock and roll.”

“True.” Alice bobs her head to the music. “This has been stuck in my head all day.”

She starts belting out the words just as loud as she had the music blasting a second ago. I shake my head and resign myself to the noise.

Ten minutes later, we pull up into the school’s parking lot and my rusty Subaru wheezes to a halt. One day I know this car is going to leave me stranded on a highway somewhere, but all my college payments mean a sweet new ride is not at the top of my financial priorities.

I grab my shoulder bag from the back seat and Alice hops out of the passenger side, swinging a Jansport onto her back.

“This Persuasive Communication class is killing me,” she complains, as we walk side by side into the main campus building.

“I’m taking it next term.”

“Prepare to die,” she warns me. “Although if you want a deeply discounted textbook, I’ve got you.”

“I’ll swap you out for my Digital Marketing book,” I offer.

“How is that class?” she asks. “I’m still trying to figure out when to take it.”

“It would be a great course,” I sigh, “only it’s ruined by the presence of one Aaron Penn.”

Alice nods solemnly. “The Douche King.”

“Whenever I need some extra motivation at kickboxing, I just imagine that the punching bag is his head.”

A big group of students passes through the middle of the hall, separating Alice and I for a moment. We join back together once they’re gone.

“I mean, he’s awful, but it’s impossible to completely hate him,” remarks Alice. “He’s got that...that thing, you know?”

I reflect on Aaron Penn, on his impossibly tight t-shirts, sandy hair that’s usually falling into his eyes from under a beanie, and smarmy smile that always seems to be able to see right through my clothes. Alice is right. No matter how many times he refers to me as ‘Peaches’ or struts around like god’s gift to planet Earth, there’s something magnetic about the energy he puts out. It’s served him well in the advertising program; you’d be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn’t buy anything he decided to sell.

“I know,” I concede, “but it’s because I can’t completely hate him that I hate him. He’s the kind of guy you should be able to write off as a carahlo and avoid for the rest of your life, and yet he’s still got half the campus drooling over him. It’s just so unfair.”

“Sexually frustrated much?” smirks Alice.

“Um, no. Frustrated, yes. But sexually? No way in hell.”

Alice raises her eyebrows.

“He’s hot,” I admit. “I’ll give him that, but come on Alice, he wears a beanie.”

She lets out a laugh loud enough for heads to turn towards us. “Okay yeah, the beanie is a bit much.”

“Anyways,” I continue, “we’re getting our partners assigned for the campaign project today, the one we use as a qualifier in the showcase.”

“Watch you get Aaron,” Alice jokes.

I give her a look. “If you just jinxed me, you’re going to pay.”

She laughs as we reach the door for her Communications class and wave goodbye. I jog up a flight of stairs after realizing I only have two minutes until my own class starts. I step through the door of the computer lab where Digital Marketing is held and find that most of the tables are already full. The only seats I can spot are in the row directly ahead of a beanie-clad blond whose eyes are locked on me.

I steel myself with a deep breath and then walk over to claim one of the swivel chairs, opening up the school laptop in front of me and logging on.

“Morning, Peaches.”

I don’t even turn my head. “I thought I told you not to call me that.”

“But you’re just so peachy keen,” drawls Aaron from behind me. “Cutting it close on the time, aren’t we?”

“I came from kickboxing class,” I inform him, “so I’m all prepped to take you out, Penn.”

“Take me out?” he repeats, his tone mocking. “What did you have in mind? Dinner date? A trip to the movies? Romantic walk in the park?”

“Don’t make me come over there and show you what I mean.”

Aaron laughs. “This isn’t really the time or place Dominguez, but I like your enthusiasm.”

Our instructor walks in, putting the exchange to a halt before I can get up and start using Aaron as a human punching bag. The thirty people in the class go silent as our instructor, Gary, takes his place at the Smart Board in front of us.

I’m still shocked at how different it feels to learn in a small college class. I remember the giant university lectures where I was just one of several hundred people listening to an ancient professor regurgitate facts about World War II. Classes here are much more accessible, and I don’t have to move mountains just to make sure my teachers actually know I exist.

Gary pushes his square-framed glasses up on his nose. He’s wearing a Stranger Things t-shirt over a pair of faded jeans. Most of our instructors are clean-cut professionals, but the idea of Gary in a suit is enough to make me have to stifle a laugh.

He gets away with his scruffy beard and worn-out sneakers by being a marketing genius. On the first day of class he walked in, made a Twitter account to promote a new TV show, and racked up a hundred followers before the lecture was even done.

“Alright, minions,” Gary begins, “today’s the day. I’m assigning your groups for the campaign project you’ll be working on for the last three weeks of the semester. You’ve known this was coming, so it shouldn’t be too much of a shocker, but I’ll review the concept anyways. Each of you will be working with a partner to design and implement a digital media campaign for a predetermined product. You’ll be integrating all the topics we’ve covered this term, including blogging, web-based advertising, social media engagement— the works.”

He pauses for a moment to flip on the Smart Board and then takes a seat at his desk.

“As you know, the top projects will also qualify to be part of this semester’s advertising showcase. We’ve got a lot of industry professionals attending, so if you’re aiming to get connections with big firms, this would be the chance to do it. I’ll be here to support you and provide feedback on your progress, but the main teaching portion of the course is done, thank god,” he jokes, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow as the class laughs. “Now, let’s find out who your partners are. In the olden days we’d do this with names in a hat, but it’s my job to be digitally engaged, so...”

He opens up an online team generator that already has all our names plugged in and presses the ‘Randomize’ button. Fifteen groups of partnered names appear on the screen. I scan through the list, searching for my own. The closer I get to the bottom of the screen, the more nervous I feel. Neither mine nor Aaron’s names have shown up yet.

There’s no way I’m that unlucky, I think. There’s just no way.

My eyes latch onto the familiar letters of my own name, sitting at the very bottom of the list. I slide my gaze over to the one next to mine and swear I can hear music of impending doom start to play.

Group fifteen: Christina Dominguez and Aaron Penn.

“Well would you look at that,” chimes Aaron’s voice from behind me. “Seems like you’ve got the luck of the draw today, Peaches.”

The rest of the class is buzzing with chatter as people acknowledge their partners from across the room. I’m also facing death glares from several girls who clearly wish they were in my place. For a moment I consider standing up and asking if any of them want to trade.

Instead I take the opportunity to spin my chair around and face a grinning Aaron, wheeling close enough that I can speak in a low voice meant only for him.

“Listen up, Penn—”

I’m about to launch into a tirade of threats about what will happen if he doesn’t wipe the satisfied smirk off his face right now when Gary calls everyone’s attention back to the front.

“You’ll get your information packages emailed to you in a moment with more details, but here are the fictional products each group will be marketing. Group one: Just Like Baba Makes, a line of frozen pierogis.”

I zone out as Gary continues with the list. A loop of my week so far plays in my head, and I try to pinpoint when I could have possibly done something so bad it made me deserve getting partnered with Aaron Penn. I cut someone off in traffic on Monday morning, but that’s not nearly catastrophic enough to merit this kind of payback.

I search even farther for the dark sin that has to be responsible for this. There must be something terrible lurking in my past.

There was that one time I broke my cousin’s new light saber on Christmas morning and then threw it in the garbage without telling him, I think. Karma’s a bitch.

After reflecting on how handy it would be to have a light saber for keeping Aaron in check, I focus back on Gary just in time to hear him announce our product.

“...and finally, group fifteen has Allure, a line of women’s lingerie.”

I hear Aaron wolf whistle behind me as the class bursts into laughter and shouts of “Ohhhh!”

My hands grip the edges of my chair so tight my knuckles start to go white and I grind my molars hard enough to make a dentist cringe. This is way beyond broken light saber territory now. There is nothing I have done to deserve this.

“Alright,” I hear Gary say, through the haze that’s descending on me, “your information packages should be in your inboxes now. You can spend the rest of the class going over them and starting on some brainstorming.”

I don’t even look at Aaron. The class starts shuffling around to sit with their partners, and in the confusion I head straight for Gary’s desk.

“Can I have a word please?” I ask.

He looks up at my foot-tapping, hands-on-hips, sassy-Portuguese-woman-with-a-problem pose and offers to speak in the hall.

“Lingerie?” I burst out, as soon as the door is closed behind us. “With Aaron Penn?”

A smile flashes across his face, but fades when I cock my head to the side and refuse to drop my angry glare.

“Christina, I realize the situation might be challenging, but that’s the—”

“Challenging?” I blurt out. “This could cost me my grade, Gary. He has the maturity level of a thirteen year-old boy and you give us lingerie. I mean, I’d even take pierogies over this.”

“Christina.” Gary waits a moment to see if I’ll interrupt again, and then continues when I stay silent, my foot still tapping against the floor. “In the business world, you may not always be working with people you get along with. In fact, I can guarantee that you won’t. Cooperation will always be one of the biggest challenges this industry has to offer. You’re one of my top students, though, and I know you have the skills to get through this.”

I take in a breath, trying to get myself under control. “I know freaking out at you like this isn’t exactly professional, and normally I’d try to handle things better, but this showcase means a lot to me.”

I pause, trying to come up with a way to make him understand.

“It’s everything I want,” I continue. “This is who I want to be, and it’s just...I mean, level with me Gary. It’s lingerie.”

I throw up my hands in exasperation, but the tension breaks a bit and I let out a small smile at how ridiculous this day has just become. Gary grins in return.

“If it really becomes a problem,” he tells me, “you can always come and speak to me. I expect my students to disagree with each other, but I also expect them to show respect. I’ll make sure Aaron knows that.”

“Thanks,” I reply.

We turn towards the door, and Gary adds one more comment before we head back inside. “And Christina, just remember, Aaron is one of my top students, too. You’ve both got the skills to do this well. You just have to make it work together.”

I nod as I step into the buzzing classroom and look over at Aaron’s desk. His smirk slides back into place when he sees me and he gives a little wave, pulling out the chair beside him and making a sweeping gesture for me to sit down.

I square my shoulders and cross the room, pulling the chair several inches away from him before taking a seat.

“So what should be our star product?” he asks. “The sassy thong or the sizzling merry widow?”

I throw some shade that is both sassy and sizzling before opening up my computer. I have a feeling that ‘making it work together’ is going to take more patience than I’ve got.