My stomach was flat, slightly squishy, but it didn’t protrude. My arms looked relatively toned. Maybe I went to the gym! Maybe I worked out? Maybe I did marathons and things like that. Okay, maybe that was taking it too far, or was it? I didn’t know.
“That’s perfect, then. Something to add to your list!” Maxine said, starting to close the drawer, but then she paused. She looked down at it with something that resembled lust. “I’m just going to . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence and grabbed some chocolate out of the drawer and then slammed it closed, as if punishing it. “Definitely gym tomorrow!” she said, looking at the chocolate as if she wanted to climb inside it.
“Great!” I chirped. “Sounds fun.”
“We leave early, though,” Noah added quickly.
“That’s fine. Maybe I’m an early riser too!”
“Cool. See you in the morning,” Maxine said, as Noah and I left. Strangely enough, I felt pretty excited about the prospect of the gym. I had a feeling that I did go to the gym. In fact, I had a feeling that I really liked working out.
CHAPTER 19
“She’s cool. Where do you know her from?” I asked, peeling the red paper off the Kit Kat and exposing the long, sleek chocolate fingers.
“She goes to my gym. I met her there. I was looking for someone to rent my garden cottage, she was looking for a place to stay, so it worked out.”
“Why would her reputation be ruined if people knew she ate chocolate?”
Noah chuckled. “She is the most hardcore personal trainer at the gym. People are scared of her. She craps on her clients if they so much as look at sugar.”
I shook my head. “She’s also a little weird.”
“That she is!” Noah now smiled in a way that set me on edge. I didn’t mean to ask it, I didn’t intend to, but somehow the words floated out of my mouth.
“Have you and her . . . are you guys?”
“Maxine and me?” Noah turned, looking shocked. “No. I am not her type.”
“Really? I would have thought you guys were, all muscles and all.”
“No, she likes these nerdy small guys that wear glasses and work in IT. The last one ran a bookstore.”
“What?” I sat forward in my chair, intrigued. This was not what I imagined.
Noah leaned in too, as if gossiping. “She’s on this dating app for guys who like muscular women and want to be tossed around and wrestled a bit.”
“Nooo.” I gasped now. “I would never have guessed. And she likes to wrestle them then?”
“She must, or she wouldn’t be on it.”
“A dating app,” I mused thoughtfully. “I wonder if I’m on one?”
“Well, if you’re not in a relationship, you probably are. Everyone is.”
“Are you?” I suddenly heard myself ask, and it seemed like such a personal question I wasn’t sure if I had crossed a line with it.
“Sure. Some,” he said, sounding deliberately nonchalant, as if he was trying not to put effort into what he was saying.
“Some? How many?”
“Not all of them.”
“How many are there?” I asked.
“Too many to count. Most are total crap, though. People just looking for hook-ups, you know?” He looked at me now, blue eyes coming into contact with mine. They almost had a sound to them. Like the sound of lasers cutting through the air, or a jet hurtling into the sky.
“And . . . you’re not into, just, hooking up?” I looked away now. This conversation seemed to be veering somewhere else now, and in my entire life, which was short, granted, I’d never had a conversation like this before.
“Well, I mean, it’s fine from time to time, I guess. But it’s not really what I want. It’s hard to find what I’m looking for. I work long, strange hours and I don’t get to meet many people in my job.”
“People that aren’t unconscious,” I piped up.
“You were conscious,” he said back quickly.
“But I was also a little out of it.”
“The animals went in two by two by two,” Noah suddenly sang.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You don’t remember singing it?” He looked amused now.
“No. When?”
“You kind of thought I was Noah, as in of the ark.”
“Noooo! I didn’t! Oh wait, I did.” I face-palmed. “That is so embarrassing. I asked you about the snakes. You must have thought I had totally lost it! No wonder you got such a shock when I came here. Not only did you probably think I was a stalker, but a crazy one at that.”