Felicity smiled at the lady who held to door to the gym open for her. She had finally talked herself into going to the gym after she had gotten out of breath walking up the three flights of stairs to her apartment when the elevator had stopped working. Maybe those morning workout videos weren't as effective as she thought they were.
After dropping off her bag in the locker room and filling up her water bottle, she put her ear buds in, hopped on a treadmill, and started jogging.
"Jogging is totally fine. It's an acceptable form of a cardio workout. Not everyone can run for 45 minutes at a time. There's a lady down there jogging and she looks great," She reassured herself.
Going to the gym was a torturous experience, yet somehow, she kept convincing herself to come back. As she got lost in her music, she glanced around the gym. There was a hot guy weightlifting by the mirrors, an actual model on the elliptical in front of her, and a teen sprinting on the treadmill next to her. She resisted the urge to increase her speed on the treadmill by telling herself that this wasn't a competition.
She glanced towards the people doing calisthenics and jealously noted how happy they looked. She was dying over here. "How the hell are they doing that? I'm starting to have trouble breathing and oh my god is that man doing one armed pushups?" She actually stumbled a bit and had to grip the handles to regain her footing.
Yep, there was a man over there doing one armed pushups in front of a giant mirror that allowed her to see his gorgeous body from every angle. Pushups. With one arm. What the hell? She couldn't look away. His tanned skin was glistening with sweat and his muscle shirt was drenched. This couldn't be legal.
He finally stopped doing those damned pushups and stood up to grab a drink of water. When she saw his face she stumbled again. For her own safety, she really needed to stop doing that.
His face should be illegal. Strong jaw line, incredible blue eyes, a scruffy beard and sinful lips. Someone with a face like that shouldn't be able to have arms like those.
"Is he leaning down to start doing more pushups? Yes he is and yep, he's doing one-armed ones again. Okay this is getting ridiculous." When she turned away to focus on her footing, she saw the teen next to her giving her a weird look. When she glanced at her time, she realized why. She'd been staring at that guy for five whole minutes. Well, it wasn't so bad. She didn't even notice that she was totally of breath and it made the time pass by faster. If she was forcing herself to go to the gym, she might as well reap the rewards.
She glanced back towards man and he was still doing one-armed pushups… and he was looking her way. She wrenched her eyes away from his and back towards her feet.
"Oh my god no, please don't look this way. I can't even breathe properly and my face is probably really red and I clearly hate my life right now. Please go back to being an Olympic gold medalist in one-armed pushups." She muttered under her breath.
When she gathered the courage to look up again, she saw that he was back to focusing on his stupid pushups, thank god.
She finished the last few minutes of her run and hopped of the treadmill. She wiped off the machine and jumped onto the elliptical. From the elliptical, to the stairs machine, to the stationary bike, she couldn't help but stare at the man. He moved from one-armed pushups to dead lifting a ridiculous amount of weights.
When she finished her workout, she started walking towards the locker room and realized she had to walk past the unfairly attractive muscle man. She kept her head down and nearly sprinted into the locker room.
After changing her clothes and mentally preparing herself to walk past the hot guy again, she stepped outside and against her own will, her eyes wandered over to where she had last seen him. He wasn't there. And if she felt a little bit of disappointment, it wasn't because of him.
Good. She certainly wasn't the only one who had noticed his drool-worthy arms and firm ass. Now everyone else could focus on their own workouts and live in peace.
As she shifted her gym bag over her shoulder, she ran into a wall.
Her bag slipped of her shoulder and she let out a startled cry. There wasn't supposed to be a wall right here.
"Oomf," She fixed her glasses and bent down pick up her bag. Mid-reach, her head collided with something hard. What the hell is going on?
This time she heard a distinctly more masculine "oomf". She looked up and into the exact same eyes that belonged to the man who she'd been staring at all afternoon. She knew she shouldn't have, but she started to feel a little irritated. First he has the audacity to look so distracting while she was trying to be a healthier person, and now he won't even let her escape in a dignified manner?
And then the hot guy opened his mouth and said, "You think I'm distracting?" and come on! His voice was not allowed to be that deep and it shouldn't affect her in the way that it did. Hang on. Did he read her mind or something? After she realized how ridiculous that sounded, she came to the conclusion that I probably said something out loud unintentionally. Well, she might as well be honest.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure everyone in the whole gym was distracted by your huge arms. And for real? You were doing pushups for ten whole minutes with one arm! So yes, you can say that I was a little distracted."
The guy shook his head a little and chuckled, "I'm sorry. Maybe I could make it up to you? I teach a crossfit class and there's an empty spot. It's yours if you want it. It's a good way to increase muscle mass. Maybe you could get some 'huge arms' of your own." He smiled a little and his eyes sparkled with laughter.
Was he asking her out? Or does he think she looked weak? He saw how out of breath she had been while jogging, so it wasn't that inconceivable. Either way, if she went into a crossfit class, there was no way she would walk out alive.
"I'm going to be honest here. I only came to the gym today because I pay $25 a month to be a member here, the month is almost over, and this is my first time coming in. Actually, that's a lie. Not the only working out once this month, that part was sadly true. I actually only came in because my cardio is seriously embarrassing. Which is something you really didn't need to know. Anyways, if you really wanted to make it up to me, you could take me out to get some ice cream." She sucked in a deep breath and glanced at the guy. He was smiling at her.
"There's a great place down the street. We could go right now if you want?" Okay, this cannot be happening. This isn't real. Hot, One-Armed Pushups guy was asking her out for ice cream. All of her dreams were coming true.
She tried to remain calm when she answered, "Yeah that sounds great. I'm Felicity by the way."
"Nice to meet you Felicity, I'm Oliver." He held the door open for her and they walked off towards the ice cream shop.
"I should go to the gym more often," Felicity thought to herself.