Chapter Two
Emerson
“One more rep, E! Smash it, come on!” Chris growled at me.
I grunted under the bar as I pushed with all my might against the unrelenting weight. My arms felt like jelly and a fiery pain blasted through them as if my blood had been replaced with molten lava. Still, I delved deeper into the final reserves of strength I had left and extended my arms up until they locked, completing the rep. With a sigh of relief, I lowered the bar onto its supports and closed my eyes.
“Yeah, bro! Yeah!” Chris whooped. “New record, yo! Two hundred and eighty pounds! High five!”
With my eyes still closed, I extended a trembling hand, which he slapped enthusiastically.
“Of course,” he added, “if you would just try out a lil', you know, juice you'd be pushing three hundred and eighty pounds instead and you’d be doin’ it with ease, like me.”
“Not gonna happen,” I replied. “That stuff… I know you say it's safe, but you gotta think long term. It does a lotta damage to your body. No thanks, man; I'm just lifting to stay strong and healthy.”
“It is safe if you inject it and cycle it correctly, like I do. And, look at the results, bro! I'm ripped, dude! Bitches can't get enough of me. Yo, especially those two little hotties who just moved in next door! What did you think, man? Did they live up to old Wally's description or what? Don’t you remember last time we went down there to sort out the rent, he told us there was gonna be two smokin’ hot chicks moving in next to us? As old as he is, he sure ain't blind. They are fine. Especially the quiet one, what was her name?”
“Brooke,” I replied as I sat up from the bench and dabbed the sweat from my forehead with a gym towel.
Chris punched me playfully in the shoulder.
“I saw you checking her out, bro. Don't deny it.”
I shrugged. “I admit, she’s gorgeous. But man, she's got a bit of an attitude, don't ya think? I mean, we hauled that heavy sofa up three flights of stairs for her and she could barely find it in her to mutter a thank you? Yeah, she may be hot, but with a personality like that, I can't say I'm all that interested in getting to know her much.”
Chris scoffed. “Why you gotta get to know her, bro? I didn't say you should date her or make her your girlfriend or nothing. Shit, just get in there, have some fun, and then move on to the next one, before things get 'complicated' as chicks always like to say.”
Because I'm not like you, Chris is what I wanted to say, but didn't. Instead, I merely shrugged. “She's just not my type, man,” I replied. “I don't wanna waste time with a chick that I would just never be compatible with in a million years. And besides, you heard her–she's gonna have her nose stuck in books the whole semester, anyway. She sounds like an overachiever. Nah man, seriously, just forget about it. And what about you, huh? Why don't you see if you can pull something off with her roommate, Leslie? She seemed like a lot more fun-loving than Brooke. A little more your speed.”
“I dunno, bro,” he said with a shit-eating grin pasted across his unnaturally tanned face. “If you're not gonna go for Brooke, I think I just might get in there myself, know what I mean?”
A sudden flicker of jealousy flared up inside me—as much as I wanted to deny it. Stay the hell away from her is what I wanted to say, but I didn't. I took a moment to try to suppress the unwarranted reaction and then replied in a tone as calm and unemotional as I could muster, “Yeah, sure, whatever. Go ahead, if you wanna waste your time on a bore like her.”
“Maybe I will,” he grinned, apparently completely oblivious to the rage bubbling just beneath my skin.
“Hey, check it out,” he said, changing the topic and pointing across the gym. “Melissa.”
I looked up and my heart sank. It was definitely Melissa—and she had seen us.
“Here she comes, bro,” Chris whispered as Melissa stepped off of her exercise bike and headed over to where we stood in the free weights section.
Melissa had a crush on me for, well, I don't know how long. As long as I could remember. We'd had one or two moments together, but they'd always been when I was drunk. It wasn't that I wasn't physically attracted to her. I mean, any guy would be. She had a killer body and was a beautiful girl, but something about the kind of person she was not only put me off, it kind of repulsed me.
Chris, though, was super into her. It was pretty obvious to everyone but him that those feelings weren’t reciprocal. For whatever reason, it was me she was into. And the more I tried to push her away, the harder she tried to get into the zone. To make it worse, Chris would encourage it because whenever Melissa would want to hang out with us, she'd bring along a bevy of hot friends, most of whom were airheads who fell head over heels for his ripped body and lame jokes. It was easy pickings for him.
I admit, they were fun to be around for a while, fun to drink with, but I didn't care for the pressure Melissa always put on me. And, it would always end up like that when we had parties at our place. Chris and the other guys would be chatting merrily away with Melissa's friends, while she would manage to maneuver me away from the crowd and get me alone.
Time to put my powers of resistance to the test again—not that it would be an issue since I hadn’t been drinking.
“Well, hey there, guys,” she said as she walked toward us, exaggerating the swaying of her hips as she did. It looked like she'd just had a session in the spray tan booth. Her entire body was an even, honey-toned hue. It was hard to not to notice since most of her tanned skin was revealed in her skimpy gym outfit. It also looked like she'd just been to the cosmetic dentist; her teeth seemed impossibly white against her skin. I suddenly found myself wondering if anything on her was real. I knew her chest was fake—I won’t go into details about how I knew—and as she turned around (on purpose, I'm sure) I had to wonder if there were implants in the back, too. Such a perfectly round, firm rear just didn't seem like it was, well, real.
“Hi, Mel,” Chris said. “Working hard over there?”
“You bet. I'm a certified personal trainer now. Did you know that?” She was speaking to Chris, but her eyes were on me.
Chris replied anyway. “No way! Nice, girl, nice! So you're gonna be in the gym all day, every day now, huh?” he asked.
“That's right.”
“Damn, girl, I wish I could spend that much time in here.”
She turned to me. “And what about you, Emerson? Do you wish you could spend all day every day in here, too? With me?”
“Um, well, I like the gym,” I replied uneasily, avoiding eye contact, “but uh, I'm way too busy with other stuff to even think of doing something like that.”
Melissa rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “You're still persisting with that boring-ass science shit? You could be out making good cash right now, Emerson. You could model, for one thing. I told you, I've got connections to get you good-paying jobs. Or you could get serious about the gym and get your personal training certification like I have.”
“I'd have to drop out of college to take those jobs, Mel. They're all-day shoots, and often in different cities. And besides, I mean, thanks for the compliment and everything, but I just don't want to be a model. Science is my passion. Physics—”
“Is so lame and boring.” She rolled her eyes again. “And seriously, what are you gonna do with that when you graduate? Teach high school? There's no money in that.”
“It’s not about the money. Like I said, it's my passion and—”
“Hey, guys,” a new voice interrupted me. I glanced in its direction and saw Emily, one of Melissa's friends. She was dressed all in pink, and her bleached-blonde hair was done up in two bouncy pigtails. Like Melissa, she was well-built. And also like Melissa, I couldn't really be sure how much of it was real or how much of it had been surgically enhanced.
“Well, hey there, sexy,” Chris replied, looking Emily up and down with unabashed lust in his eyes. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, I'm totally awesome! You guys are looking good, all pumped up and sweaty, huh?”
“We've been crushing the lifts, yeah. Emerson here just broke his personal bench press record; he nailed two hundred and eighty pounds, yo.”
Emily beamed a toothy grin and me and clapped her hands with delight. “Nicely done, Emerson!”
Not to be bested, Chris had to interject. “Well, it's decent… for Emerson's standards. He's got a long way to go to get to four hundred pounds, though,” he said as he folded his arms across his chest and not-so-subtly flexed his upper body muscles to a point of bulging. “Just keep working hard, though, bro. We'll get you there.”
“Say, what are you guys up to tonight?” asked Mel.
“I'm—” I began, knowing where this was gonna go.
Chris, however, also knew where it was gonna go, and he wanted it to go there. “Nothing,” he said quickly, interrupting me before I could complete my sentence. “We've got no plans. You ladies wanna come over to our place for a drink or two? Then maybe we can head out and hit the clubs? It is Friday, after all, and the last weekend before the new semester starts.”
“Now, that sounds like a plan, Melissa said, staring straight at me with a suggestive glint sparkling in her blue eyes. “I’ll bring the vodka.”
***
I needed to get out for a while. Chris had been playing Call of Duty for over three hours and I could only take so much war. The sounds of grenades exploding and machine guns firing were driving me a bit nuts, especially coming through his huge sound system. It sounded as loud in my room as it did in his, whether the door was closed or not. The walls inside our apartment were paper-thin.
I walked past his door and knocked on my way out. “Hey, dude, I'm going to get out of the apartment for a bit, maybe walk down the road. I might pick up some chips and whatever on the way back; you want anything?”
“Nah, bro, I'm good,” came the reply, almost drowned out by a hammering machine gun blast that seemed to rattle the walls themselves. I wondered if the new neighbors could hear Chris' game, too.
As soon as I stepped out of the front door, I had the chance to get an answer to that question, but I never asked. Brooke was stepping out of her apartment at the exact same time. An unexpected thrill rushed through my veins at the sight of her long raven hair spilling over her shoulders, revealed so casually through a strappy top. She was dragging what seemed to be a pretty heavy garbage bag out of the apartment.
I walked over to her and smiled. “Hi, Brooke.”
If she was happy to see me, she didn't really show it. “Hi, um…”
“Emerson,” I reminded her.
“Sorry, I'm terrible with names. I forget my own sometimes.”
“No worries, it's not the easiest name to remember. Hey, do you need a hand with that?”
“No,” she replied a little too quickly it seemed. “I'll be fine on my own.”
“Um, are you sure? That bag looks pretty heavy. I'm on my way out, I really don't mind helping you get it down to the dumpster.”
She paused for a moment, staring at the garbage bag. I could tell she was internally debating about whether to let me help her or not. I won't lie, it kind of annoyed me. I mean, come on, was her stuck-up pride really so important that she was gonna break her back hauling a garbage bag that weighs a ton just to avoid having to interact with me? Sheesh. I've encountered some ice queens before but this one seemed to be a freakin' ice empress. But still, those eyes of hers, they did something to me…
“Alright,” she responded quite unexpectedly. “Yeah, I'd be super grateful if you could help. The previous tenants didn't clean the place out too well. I called the landlord, but he said it would be Monday before he could get anyone out here to clean it. I can’t stay in such a mess until then. So we are doing it.”
“Sounds fun,” I chuckled as I walked over to grab the bag from her.
“Loads. They left a lot of broken stuff lying around. We've spend the whole afternoon picking up their mess. And, Leslie is such a trooper. She’s scrubbing the bathroom. I won’t even tell you what kind of disaster area that is.”
“Yeah, I remember those two. They were a couple of nerdy guys. Spent all their time playing online games, smoking weed, and eating junk food. I can’t say I'm surprised they left the place trashed.” I grabbed the bag and grunted as I lifted it up. It was heavy. Made me wonder what the hell the dorks who'd previously lived in the place had kept in there. “Damn, did those guys have an S&M dungeon in there or what? Feels like this bag is full of old leg irons and steel handcuffs!” I joked.
She blushed and giggled politely, but I could tell the joke made her a little uncomfortable, or maybe she just didn’t think it was funny. Oh well, at least I tried. I made a mental note that I shouldn't try any more jokes, especially seeing as I appeared to be dealing with someone who didn't actually have a sense of humor. “Come on, follow me,” I said. “I'll show you a shortcut to get to the back of the building where the dumpsters are.”
“Thanks,” she replied, and we both set off.
She followed behind me. We didn't talk much as we went down the fire escape stairs—the shortcut I'd been referring to—but I could have sworn I could feel her eyes on me every step of the way. And not in a bad way, either. There was definitely something in the way that she looked at me when I glanced back at her. I felt it. She, however, seemed to be doing her best to pretend it wasn't there. If she didn’t feel it, I don’t know why. I'm sure she could see the same thing in my eyes.
When we got to the dumpster, she opened the top for me so I could swing the heavy bag over and in. It landed with a crashing thud, making a huge racket. For a moment, our eyes locked and we both started laughing. Then, it seemed that she forced herself to stop laughing as if she was doing something forbidden, and she looked away.
“Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate the help. Anyway, I guess I’ve gotta—”
“Emerson!”
We both looked up at the sudden intrusion. Walking down the alley, dressed in a sleek, impossibly tight-fitting and tiny cocktail dress, was Melissa, swinging an unopened bottle of vodka in her hand. Her apartment complex was only a couple of blocks away and the alley was the shortest distance. Her timing, as always, sucked.
“Oh, uh…hi, Mel,” I said, painfully aware of how awkward I suddenly felt. “You're a bit early.”
“It's never too early to party, Emerson, dear,” she countered, staring at me with a lascivious gaze. She walked over and looped her arm through mine and then leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek.
“Well, are we just gonna stand here next to the dumpster or are we gonna go up to your place and get the party started?” That’s when Melissa’s stare moved to Brooke. “And, who's this? I don't recall inviting anyone else to the party,” she said as she stared coldly at Brooke.
“Oh this is—”
“I'm Brooke.” Brooke jumped in before I could finish my sentence. “I'm just a neighbor, that's all. Nothing more.”
She extended a hand to Melissa who ignored it. Brooke gave her a look I could only describe as disgust. I had to suppress a laugh.
“Neighbor, huh? I hope you don't mind a little noise then, honey. It is Friday night, after all, and Emerson and I are gonna be getting a bit wild later on, I can tell ya that.”
“I'll be sure to put in some earplugs. Hyenas have never been my favorite wild animal,” Brooke said icily. “You guys have a good time,” she said and turned on her heels. I watched her stride briskly to the building before I could say anything at all.
After Brooke had disappeared around the corner, Melissa turned and stared at me until I brought my attention back to her. Suspicion was bubbling in her eyes. “Just a neighbor, huh?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah, just a neighbor. What's it to you, anyway?”
She waited a while, studying me for some reason, before replying. “Nothing. Now come on, let's get upstairs, stud. This vodka isn't gonna drink itself, and the other girls will be here shortly.”
“Alright,” I said reluctantly, following her.
I paused for a moment and stared at my new neighbor’s door before Melissa pulled me into my apartment.