I limp over to the bag chair and collapse into it. I shouldn’t be this tired after just a few exercises with light weight, but my body is screaming at me. I lean my head back against the wall, breathing heavy, but then I feel Hunter staring at me again and open my eyes. “What?”
“You didn’t stretch,” he says. “Your body will build up lactic acid and you’ll be sore if you don’t stretch.”
“Won’t I be sore anyway?”
He ponders this a minute before replying. “Yes. That’s likely if you have no experience lifting weights. I must recommend that you stretch, though.”
“Hunter, I’m not going to move from this chair for a bit. If you want to stretch, suit yourself.” As he bends and twists his body, I enjoy the view. He doesn’t have a spare ounce of flab. I think about my own soft stomach, the way my thighs slide together while I walk. Maybe lifting weights will change all of that. I think about Hunter touching my back, how my skin seemed to ripple beneath his fingers.
It’s just been awhile since I’ve been with a man, I convince myself.
I don’t want to get involved in a relationship, especially not with my landlord. My boss’s son. That’s not why I came here. Better change the subject, I think.
“Tell me about your project,” I say, turning to look out the window as Hunter bends to touch his toes.
He grabs a glass of brown liquid and sits next to me at his computer desk. “I took human tissue samples with me to the space station,” he says, pulling up some images on his computer. “I am doing my best to explain this in lay terms. I practiced last night.” He looks at me as if he’s frightened I might run away.
“I promise I’ll interrupt you if I don’t understand,” I say and he nods.
“My research was funded jointly by the institutes for health and the advancement of science. I was using my computational background to study and understand how gravity, or the lack of it, affects the tissue. The goal is to see what that means for disease and human health.”
“Wow. It’s so amazing to me that you’re my landlord and you’ve just, like, been to outer space.”
He blinks and scowls. “Should you be taking notes?”
“I’m good. Tell me more.” Hunter shows me how his tissue samples changed quickly in space and how he believes this is a model for how disease might slowly affect people’s tissues on earth. I have to interrupt him a few times when he starts explaining how vessels in bones behave differently from those in organs. “It sounds like your research requires you to be away from gravity,” I say, hopeful that I’m understanding him. “Can that be done without being in space?”
Hunter frowns. He’s quiet for a long time, and I’m worried he’s angry that I don’t understand what he’s talking about, but then he says, “that’s the crux of it, Abigail. We weren’t finished studying the samples yet, and they canceled the program.”
“So what are you trying to do? Build another space station and try again on your own?”
He frowns. “I just need someone to fund a mission back to the existing space station,” he says.
I pull out my phone and tap into the web browser. “So…you need 58 million dollars?”
“Approximately.”
I sigh. “Do you have anything to drink? I feel like I need one of Diana’s beers.”
Indigo calls a while later, when I’ve limped home and collapsed on the couch. “Ungh,” I groan by way of greeting. “I think my legs are on fire.”
“What on earth have you been up to over there?”
I tell her how I decided to start lifting weights and she cuts me off. “Get your ass over here. This sounds like an in-person kind of story.”
It takes much longer than it should to hobble slowly to the Inn, where Sara and Indigo are helping an elderly couple out to their car. “You all simply must come back this spring for the May Day festival,” Indigo coos, tossing a suitcase into the back seat. “I’ll save room number 6 just for you.” The woman pats Indigo’s hand while her husband fires up the engine of their ancient Cadillac. Sara drapes an arm loosely over her wife’s shoulders as I make my way toward them.
“Eesh,” Sara says, frowning. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Exercise,” I moan, hobbling up their porch steps. We walk back to the living room, and Sara pulls out a tennis ball.
“Here,” she says. “Lie down with this under your back and wriggle around. It’ll help, I promise.”
Indigo runs off for a tray of snacks as I roll around on their carpet.
“I brought cucumber water for us,” Indigo says, scooting up closer to her wife on the couch. I force my aching body to get up and into a chair opposite them and chug the water.
“I should have listened to Hunter and stretched,” I moan.
“Wait,” Sara stops mid-sip of her chilled cucumber water. “You were lifting weights with Hunter? Like, socially?”
Indigo passes me another mason jar of water when she sees I’ve finished mine. “Abigail here was about to spill her guts,” she says, pulling up a basket of popcorn. “I always like snacks for a good story. Now. How did you wind up lifting weights with Hunter Crawford?”
Sara rolls her eyes, but helps herself to a handful of the popcorn. I tell them about dinner and our barter. Then I bite my lip and reveal, “and he lifts weights with no shirt on.”
“Ooh, this is juicy,” Indigo says. “So you’re working out to shape up for a good shag?”
I explain that I can’t explain why I want to learn to work out. Sara interjects, “Well a half naked man will help. If you’re into that.”
I throw a piece of popcorn at her, but admit that shirtless, intense Hunter is definitely a perk. “He’s like an iceberg,” I tell them. “I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on beneath the surface.” By the time they each tell me what they know about him—not much, considering they’ve known him for years—I’m too sore to walk home and they put me up in one of the guest rooms for the night.
I walk into work the next day feeling lighter and stronger. I dive into writing remarks for Rose to host a fancy pants investor looking to help the undergrads form their own startup companies. Oak Creek College is a short train ride away from New York City and Philadelphia, and our students are filled with all sorts of interesting ideas for tech companies and smarter mass transit.
They’ve got ideas for apps and robots and all sorts of things.
I text Hunter to tell him about this one visiting investor, Asa Wexler. He seems like the kind of guy Hunter should meet, and he’s coming to town later this semester to meet with Rose about funding some chemistry initiatives. Come check out this guy’s investment portfolio when you get a chance.
I feel pretty proud that I retained everything Hunter told me about his work and located an investor prospect from this list. Asa’s interested in pharmaceutical research. Based on what Hunter has said, I have a feeling this will be a good connection for him.
I’m jolted out of my thoughts when I hear a chorus of laughter erupt from Christa’s cubicle. All the women from my floor are gathered around her computer howling, dabbing at their eyes. I must have been deeply engrossed in my work to miss what got them to this state. “What on earth is going on over there?”
Christa beckons me over. “Ignore the illustrations,” she says, pointing at an article on her monitor. “Or don’t. Your mileage may vary.”
I squint and lean in to see they’re all cackling about an article proclaiming there’s a new technique for going down on a woman.
“Guaranteed to deliver orgasm in under three minutes.” I feel a flush begin in my chest and spread upward to the tips of my ears. As Christa and Anne gush about how their boyfriends do just fine without this new technique, I can’t help but remember how reluctant Jack was to try anything adventurous.
I’d had other partners before him, but in the years between high school and Jack, nobody was doing anything mind blowing. With a sigh, I read along about this so-called Kivin method until I hear a voice over my shoulder.
“Biological approach to stimulation of the vulva. Fascinating.”