This is a Love Story (25 page)

‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I puffed as the black strip ground to a halt. I felt dizzy and annoyed.

He obviously didn’t pick up on my hostility as he jumped up and started swinging off the side of the treadmill confidently. He was

built like Popeye.

‘I run this gym. My name’s Ben. Basically yeah, it’s all about the way your feet strike the ground. It’s perfectly normal,’ he tried

to reassure me but I was starting to take offence. He was doing that thing where you bring the tone of your voice up at the end of a

sentence to imply it’s a question when it isn’t.

This was annoying. ‘And what’s wrong with the way my feet strike the ground?’ I asked defensively, dabbing my face with a

pink fluffy towel. I was horribly aware of how much I sweated compared to, well, anyone. Hell, I could outsweat the men.

‘It’s not wrong, exactly. It’s to do with the alignment of your hips and all sorts of things, but it can cause injuries unless you get

trainers to accommodate it.’

He was quite handsome, actually, but it was starting to sound like he was trying to sell me trainers, so he could go take a hike.

‘Look. Just come over here, would you?’ he beckoned. I followed, still pissed off. He put his arm on the bottom of my back as we

walked and I jumped out of my skin, almost tripping over a girl doing stretches on the floor.

‘Hey! Can’t you see I’m a bit hot and bothered here?’ I cried self-consciously.

‘That’s a good thing,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘It means you’re actually doing some work, which is more than can be said for

some people.’

Wow. That was a surprise. I thought like most people in here, he would find me a freak of nature and avoid me at all costs.

He led me to a desk and reached over to pull out a file. I was starting to feel really off now, but I took a couple of deep breaths

and soldiered on. The muscles in his arms flexed as he lifted the thick pile of documents onto the surface. OK, he was quite nice. But

still. He was criticising my legs. What kind of man starts talking to a woman by criticising her legs?

He flicked through the pages frantically, a long fringe falling over his face and covering the top of his perfectly straight Roman

nose. ‘Ah, here it is,’ he announced, pulling out a sheet of paper covered in diagrams. ‘Now, this is what your legs are doing.

Around 30 per cent of runners have this problem, but it can be easily corrected with the right footwear. With the wrong footwear,

you can get problems here, here and, er, here,’ he added, pointing out the shins, knees and hips on the drawings.

OK. So maybe he wasn’t talking utter trash. There were diagrams and everything, and they looked vaguely scientific because they

had the names of the muscles on them.

He looked up at me, a pair of sea-green eyes waiting for a reaction. I felt sick from the exercise; my heart started to thump.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, rushing to his feet and standing in front of me. He had very expensive-looking trainers on and I feared

they would soon be covered in my lunch.

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ I protested. The room was starting to spin.

‘Look, I have a banana in my bag if you want that? You look like your blood sugar might be a bit low . . .’

But he didn’t get the chance to finish because I ran. And as I ran my legs started to shake, things got whiter and whiter until I

found myself lunging in front of the toilet and holding on to it for dear life.

I was sick. Very sick. There was nothing I could do to hide it, either. Some people make it sound like an inconvenient cough

whereas I sound like I’m roaring in anger. Embarrassing.

The sharp twinges of acid from my stomach were stinging my nose. Gross. I hadn’t thrown up for ages and I’d forgotten how

horrible it was. After a couple of minutes there was a gentle knock on the door. My legs were shaking like a frightened animal at the

vet and my stomach muscles ached.

‘Hi. My name’s Naomi,’ came a concerned female voice. ‘I’m one of the personal trainers here and my colleague Ben asked me

to check if you were OK. You haven’t been sick, have you?’ she asked timidly.

Of course I’ve been bloody sick. The whole of London probably heard me. Most of the women in the changing room had

probably run out screaming in their bras and knickers and promptly cancelled their direct debits. I cleared my throat and whispered

through tears, still able to deny the obvious, ‘No, no. I’m OK, thanks. Sorry. I’ll be fine.’

‘All right. Well, if you need anything I’ll be near the reception desk, OK?’

I grunted in response. Eventually, when I had composed myself, I found the strength to stand up and peeked my head around the

door. Two ladies quickly turned around and fiddled with their lockers.

After I’d showered away my humiliation and sat on the bench for a while, I realised the only way out of this building was to go

past Ben. There was no secret exit for people who threw up and were too humiliated to face the world again. If I ever end up

owning a gym I will make sure there is at least one of those emergency exits in the floor plan. They should become a mandatory

government requirement.

I sheepishly darted out of the door and kept my head down all the way past the weights guys, past Britney and the water machine,

and out into the humid summer air. It looked like it had been raining, heavily.

Escape. Maybe I would just never go back. That sounded like a great idea. What a fantastic excuse.

‘Hello!’ Suddenly I heard the distant shouting of a familiar male voice. Oh bugger.

‘Hey, are you OK?’ It was Ben. Why on earth was he bothered enough to follow me out here? It could be some kind of fever-

induced vision, but he looked gorgeous.

‘Look, I feel really bad about what happened back there. I shouldn’t have just stopped you like that,’ he said, running his hands

awkwardly down his navy tracksuit bottoms. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Sienna,’ I answered, wishing I could be someone else. Someone who hadn’t just made an arse out of themselves. ‘Don’t worry

about it. I’m so embarrassed,’ I added, waving one of my hands in the air and blushing.

‘Look, will you please take this?’ he asked. As if from nowhere he pulled a banana from behind his back and flashed me a very

convincing guilty look. He didn’t seem at all mortified by this evening’s events, just really understanding.

‘Oh no, Ben. I can’t take that. And honestly, I can’t face eating anything right now. It’s very kind, though.’ I yanked my black

chunky-knit cardigan around my stomach as if to protect it from any incoming food advances. I glanced down at my baggy jeans

and trainers, realising what a mess I looked.

‘Well, if you won’t take that, then you must take this.’ He pushed a crumpled piece of paper into my hand, smiled, then ran back

to his gym.

Nice bum, I thought. When he was out of sight I carefully opened up the note. The short but sweet message was penned in blobby

blue ink, like the biro had been chewed on and was on the verge of exploding all over some poor person’s mouth. It was a simple

sentiment, paired with an eleven-digit phone number: ‘CALL ME’.

I’ve always been a bit funny about texting a man first and this occasion was no different. In fact, it was worse. It was a situation so

difficult that it required dinner and a chat with Elouise. Plus I needed her to take away the pain of the evening’s unfortunate vomiting

incident.

‘Text him, Si,’ came her playful response from the open-plan kitchen.

I sank back into the leather of her sofa and sighed. A plastic sword jabbed my ribs so I threw it into the toy box. ‘I . . . I . . . I

can’t, really, El,’ I muttered, scrunching up the piece of paper in my fist and shoving it into my bag.

‘And why on earth can’t you? He owns a gym, for goodness’ sake – how cool is that?’ she scolded, approaching me with a

wooden spoon piled high with the most beautiful-looking paella, a fleshy prawn balanced on top of the orange rice. Now El really

knows how to make this dish, but I had thrown up just a few hours earlier so I was feeling more than a little delicate.

‘No, El, please,’ I protested, but it was too late – the spoon was wedged into my mouth, filling it with a delicious explosion of

flavours. She must have managed to find an opening during the ‘e’ and ‘a’ vowels of ‘please’. Elouise’s face lit up and she danced

back towards the pan. Suddenly my hunger returned. ‘Wow! That’s even better than the last one you made,’ I said, putting both

thumbs up.

‘So anyway, what’s the problem with you texting this bloke?’ she persisted.

I looked over to her and as she sashayed around the room in a pair of skinny jeans and a vest top, I wished I had just a little bit of

her confidence. Elouise is a heartbreaker, but not in an evil-on-purpose, bitchy kind of way. It’s just part and parcel of being Elouise

Dalton. If she needs a marquee for a party, ten will arrive the next day complete with musclebound men to put them up. If she needs

a lamp fixing, there will be electricians queuing out of the door. If there’s a leak, all of a sudden every bloke including the town vicar

will fancy himself a fully qualified plumber . . . You get the gist. She is adored, a sweetheart – and great to talk to about men.

‘Well, I don’t like chasing men, really, El. Plus, if it goes wrong I’ll have to go to a different gym.’ I slipped my boots off and put

my feet up on her sofa.

‘You need to think a little more romantically, my lovely. Just go for it. You’re gorgeous, he’ll be bowled over,’ she said, dishing

up the dinner.

My mouth started watering. ‘So what do I put?’ I asked, gratefully accepting my bowl full of heaven and starting to chow down.

‘Just say hi, and ask him on a date.’

‘A what?’ I shrieked, a tiny shrimp falling from my spoon and into my lap. I quickly picked it up and dropped it back into my

bowl before she noticed.

‘Yes, Sienna – a date. Are you sure you’re over Nick?’ She looked at me doubtfully.

‘Of course, El. Yes I am. In fact, I’m going to text Ben right now.’ I put down my fork and fished in my bag for my BlackBerry

and the piece of paper with Ben’s number. I drafted the message. ‘How does this sound? “Hi there, this is Sienna, from the gym. Do

you fancy a drink sometime? S x”’ I considered putting a joke in there about my loving embrace with the toilet pan, but felt it was

maybe best to let that one go.

‘Yeah, that’ll be just fine, Si,’ replied Elouise, that sparkle in her eye making me even more excited.

‘OK – I’m sending it now,’ I said, suddenly wussing out at the last minute and saving the message to drafts. God, I was pathetic.

‘Done!’ I looked at Elouise and did my best ‘I just sent that text’ smile.

‘Fab. See – it wasn’t that hard, was it?’

After dinner, I dashed up to the bathroom and brushed my teeth with the toothbrush I have at El’s for those drunken, sleepy nights

when I can’t face the walk home. I looked a lot better now, I thought, as I pushed my face towards the mirror above the sink. The

colour was returning to my skin. God knows what had happened at the gym earlier.

El and I talked for a few minutes before I walked out into the sticky summer evening to get back to Dad. As I made my way

towards the flat I felt a vibration in my bag and pulled my phone out, half expecting it to be my father. Instead, it was from a number

I didn’t recognise . . .

‘Hi, Sienna. Lovely to hear from you. Of course I want to go for a drink. How does Thursday night sound? Ben xx’

What a sneaky girl. And how could she tell I was lying? Some people would be very angry about this, but I was glad she’d done

it, really.

A smile spread across my face. It was so big, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. What on earth was I going to wear?

16 months later . . .

Nick

‘Let’s take it slow, Nick.’

That’s what she’d said less than a year ago as she slurped on a milkshake by the sea. It was a conversation right at the beginning

of our relationship. Sometime after the kiss ambush in the pub, and sometime before I felt it appropriate to take her to weddings and

let her use my toothbrush. Round about the period when we were doing posh dinners and cocktails on a Friday night, rather than

bickering over plughole hair.

But you see, that phrase is a bad sign – it means the opposite. People are generally quite bad at taking things slow, unless of

course it involves paying invoices or walking right in the middle of Oxford Street when you’re trying to dash from shop to shop.

And they are particularly bad at taking relationships slowly.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that as soon as you hear the phrase ‘Let’s take it slow,’ then you should know that things are

about to get a lot speedier.

And that’s exactly what has happened. She is all over my house. There are pots of Chanel nail varnish on the living-room table, a

ladies’ razor in the bathroom, unexplained cushions on the sofa and carefully placed lingerie in my bedroom. And it’s all a strategic

Chloe move to make me feel like I can’t live without her.

To be honest, she’s doing a pretty good job. She does not live with me. She does not have a key cut. She certainly isn’t insured on

my car. But she is creeping into my world. It’s like a slow infiltration of pink things that smell nice and almost every day I find

something new. It always makes my heart race a little bit, but I do think I need to grow up a little. I turn thirty this year, for God’s

sake. I really need to be able to cope with this, and if I can’t cope with a creature as beautiful as Chloe sharing my living quarters,