as to never be seen again. Lance grabbed at it and slammed the locker closed.
The Siege of Tyre was playing havoc with Lance’s mind, but in a good way. It was funny too, as he had demanded the story from Kirk as a means to inspire him to work out harder. But in the end, it might have actually been Lance that benefitted the most. Just the idea of this famous general, Alexander the Great, failing so tremendously, yet not giving up had Lance feeling pulses of inspiration shoot right through him. He’d heard of Alexander the Great and knew him to be one of the greatest generals of all time, so the fact that even he could make a mistake was revealing.
With the folder in hand, Lance took a seat at the back of the locker room and started to flip through eagerly. The folder contained all the information that Lance had collected on his protein-smoothie bar idea. Everything from rough designs he had sketched, to smoothie recipe ideas he had invented, down to possible names he had come up with (none of which were any good). Looking at it now, Lance couldn’t believe how darn messy it all was. There was no order or structure to speak of, and most of it was hand-written on random pieces of paper. But he didn’t care. For the first time all week he was excited again and he was going to ride this feeling out until it stopped.
“Ah... excuse me...” a soft voice spoke from across the locker room; so soft that Lance barely heard it.
It was Kirk Little, standing on the other side of the locker room, fidgeting with his hands, looking like he wanted to be anywhere other than where he was. God, the guy was in need of some confidence. He wasn’t even a bad looking dude; in fact, Lance actually thought he was pretty cute. It was just so clear that Kirk didn’t think so.
“Oh, hey, man.” Lance quickly closed the folder, put it down and out of sight, and jumped to his feet. “What’s up – did you forget something?”
“No... I...” Kirk swallowed nervously. “I just wanted to say, thank you.” Kirk was gay. Lance had no doubt about that. And if he wasn’t sure before, the way Kirk was acting now made it all but fact.
“For?”
“For that workout, and what you told me – about these things taking time. To be honest... I was starting to double guess if the gym was even for me – that or steroids, right?” he gave a nervous chuckle, then added quickly, “But now I’m thinking it might be worth sticking it out a little while longer.”
“Ha!” Lance couldn’t help but laugh. “Not a problem at all. I’ll make sure to have a yarn with Carlo too. See about getting you on that diet.”
“Is diet really that big of a deal?” Kirk took a step closer to Lance; timid, as if worried Lance might turn and flee.
“Honestly, even more so than the weights,” Lance said seriously. “Like they both have their place, but...” Just like that, Lance found himself thinking of his protein-smoothie bar idea. This conversation, right here, was the exact reason he’d come up with the concept in the first place.
“But what?” Kirk took another step closer.
Lance hesitated, before coming to a snap decision. “Here, check this out.” He sat back down on the bench and indicated for Kirk to join him. For a moment, he thought that Kirk wasn’t going to, but then he hurried across the room and sat down, nice and close. “Building muscle is all about knowing what muscle’s need to grow.” Lance scooped up the folder.
“You mean weights?”
“Not just weight. Food.” Lance opened the folder to a page where he had managed to break down the importance of diet pretty clearly. “In order for muscles to grow through diet, they need three things: Carbohydrates, protein and fats. And just to make it that little bit harder, you need a precise amount of each one of these – like you can’t just shovel them into your mouth and hope for the best.”
Kirk’s eyes scanned the page. His hand then reached out and shifted the folder so he could better read it. At the moment he was reading an example that Lance had written about how to measure carbohydrates. “How much do you need of each?”
“Depends on the person. And their goals. And where they are in their journey – really, the weightlifting is