“Ugh.” It tastes like you think. I just drank a quarter-cup of oil.
“Muscle power.”
“If I vomit in the middle of my sprint, it’s on you.”
“Nope. My reflexes are better than yours. You won’t get any on me.”
I snort. He shoves me to the twin spin bikes in the workout room attached to my office. “Put up or shut up.”
I climb on my bike and wait for the music. The same song opens all of our 60-minute spin sessions for warm-up.
Queen’s Fat-Bottomed Girls.
Vince doesn’t start the music, though. His eyes are narrowed to slits, and he’s staring at my midsection.
“The fuck, Andrew?” Unlike everyone else who works for me, Vince doesn’t call me Mr. or Sir.
“What?”
“Something you want to share with the class?”
“What class?”
He yanks my left hand off the handlebars. “You got married?”
“Oh, that.”
“You’re wearing a wedding ring for shits and giggles?”
“No.”
“You gonna explain this to me?”
“No.”
“I have to spin it out of you?”
“Just try.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Burn me to the ground, Vince.”
“Done.”
The music starts.
Five minutes into it and my legs are screaming.
Ten minutes into it and Vince is screaming.
Twenty minutes into it and I’m screaming.
Forty minutes later, the lambs are screaming.
With five minutes to go, Vince’s soundtrack shifts to a song I’ve never heard before.
“You changed the lineup?”
“Sure. Variety is the spice of life.”
“Don’t do that. Stick to the plan.”
“My plan, Andrew. You can’t make me do the same damn shit over and over.”
When I hired Vince, I told him exactly what I wanted. Technique, pacing, playlist, the whole bit. All he had to do was ride with me and hold me accountable.
“Screw you,” he said that day. “I do what I want because I’m the best. Don’t like it? Don’t hire me.”
I hired him on the spot.
“Changing the music makes me lose my place,” I huff.
“Changing the music forces you to adapt. You’re too rigid.”
“Go to hell, Vince.”
“You only say that when I’m right.”
I don’t have the lung power to answer.
Five minutes later, I’m stretching. Vince is at the blender.
“Smoothie?” I ask, as I feel my pulse in my eyelashes.
“Bulletproof coffee with protein powder.”
“Coffee and whey?” I cringe. I uncringe. How did Vince make my face muscles ache like this? Damn. “Do I look like Little Miss Muffet with a latte?”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t trust someone whose primary diet source is rotten plankton.”
He just grunts, then shoves a pint glass filled with beige cream at me.
“Seriously, Vince, what’s in this?” It looks like a hot latte met an oil slick.
“Try it.”
I do. It tastes like milk blended with coffee and snot. I gag on the first try.
“You’re like a chick giving her first blow job, Andrew.”
“Now I really want to put this in my mouth. You’re so inspirational.”
“Wimp.”
“Asshole.”
“You have too much energy left,” he declares. “Let’s lift.”
Verbal abuse is my second language. I’m fluent in it when talking to other guys.
“I’m not lifting. I’ve got a call with some investors in Turkey.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
“If you haven’t noticed, I run a Fortune 500 company.”
“And you’re wearing a wedding ring you won’t talk about.”
“I’m not married.”
“Spill it.”
Damn. He’s not letting me live this down, is he?
I tell him the whole story. The abridged version.
In one sentence.
“Amanda and I drank hallucinogen-spiked wine in Vegas and woke up wearing wedding rings, but it turns out we didn’t actually marry each other.”
His eyes narrow.
“Why are you still wearing the ring?”
I shrug. “Haven’t had time to take it off.”
His eyebrows go up. “You haven’t had two spare seconds?”
Damn.
“Fine.” I reach down and slide the ring off my finger, holding it in my palm. “See?” I curl my fingers around it, protective.
“Don’t take it off for my benefit. I’m not the one who gets fake married and then comes home in real denial.”
“Denial?”
“All I’m saying is that the chick you almost-married must be one hell of a woman if you’re still wearing a wedding ring you don’t need to wear. Most guys would have ripped that off their finger the second they could.”
“I’m not most guys.”
“No, you’re not. And speaking of that special woman, how are you doing on your wasp lessons?”
Back up. Wasp lessons? I know what you’re thinking. It’s not—well—
“I’m doing fine,” I grind out, covering my mouth with the lip of the glass filled with caffeinated snot.
“You’re practicing?”
“I don’t need to practice.”
You ever hear metal grind against an orc’s bowels? That’s the sound Vince makes.