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Page 14

The first thing my fingers find is small, square, and made of foil. I shake the condom in his face. “Really?”
Ben shrugs. “You never know.”
“See, this is what I meant when I said I need to be more like you,” I say, turning back around and dropping the condom into his bag. “Ready for sex anytime, anywhere. Even the gym, apparently.”
“The gym’s sort of the best place, sweetie,” he says.
I pull back again. “Really?”
He nods, keeping his eyes on the road. “Are you kidding? All that sweat and blood pumping? You’re telling me you’ve never been horny after a good workout?”
“Well, sure,” I say, finally finding the towel and plopping back into my seat. “But where do you do it?”
“What?”
“You know,” I say, gesturing with the towel, which thankfully, does seem to be clean. “You’re off pumping iron, or whatever. Some hot thing on the elliptical catches your eye…then what?”
He grimaces. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes!” I shake the towel. “I told you, I’m going to start doing what you do. Casual sex.”
“Okay, first of all, the people that call it casual sex are absolutely the ones who should not be doing it. Second of all, I was sort of hoping that you either didn’t remember your insane declaration from Saturday night, or would at least acknowledge that it was a wine-motivated bad idea.”
I rub furiously at the deodorant spot. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“It is.”
“You do it.”
“Yeah, but I’m…”
He breaks off, but I glance up, eyes narrowed. “You’re what?”
“Nothing,” he mutters.
“Were you just going to say that you’re a guy?”
My memory of the other night is fuzzy, but I seem to remember him playing at the same double-standard shit then, too, and it pisses me off. Ben isn’t a chauvinistic pig or anything, but I’m definitely getting the feeling that he thinks it’s okay for him to play the field, but not for me to follow suit.
“Finish your sentence,” I demand.
“Um, no,” he says. “You’re looking for a fight.”
I purse my lips. “You’re probably right.”
“I’m definitely right,” he says as he pulls onto the campus where we both work. We work in different buildings, and he pulls up in front of mine to drop me off.
“Girls like sex, too, you know,” I say, making one last swipe at the deodorant mark that has more or less faded, and then gather up my purse and work bag.
Ben rolls his eyes. “Yes, Blanton, I’m aware that you’re a modern woman. You’re allowed to have sex wherever you want to.”
“Even the gym?” I ask.
“Even the gym.”
I pounce. “Okay, seriously, where? I mean…there’s nowhere private. Is there? I guess there’s the bathroom, but nobody would ever—”
I break off as I see his wince that he tries to hide and fails.
“No!” I say, scandalized. “You do it in the bathroom?”
“Trust me, it’s not as weird or unusual as you think.”
“But—”
He shook his head. “No way. We’ll talk about it later. Go to work. I’ll tell you about the ins and outs of gym sex later. If you’re good, I can even explain how to do it in the shower.”
“Oh my God,” I mutter, opening the car door. “I bet you have athlete’s foot and don’t even know it.”
He motions impatiently for me to shut the door, and I do, turning toward the front door of my building. I dig out my security badge as he drives away.
Minutes later, I’m settling into my cube, my mind pulled in two directions, although, unfortunately, neither is the presentation that I have to give in forty minutes.
Instead, I’m torn between contemplating the logistics of sex in the gym and wanting to wallow in the fact that I’m in my second day of singledom, and not of my own doing.
A tall, thin blonde appears at the entrance of my cube and holds out a paper cup. “Coffee. My treat.”
“You shouldn’t have,” I say, gratefully accepting the cup of completely mediocre coffee that’s free to all employees. I hold out a hand, and she drops two creamers and a sugar packet into my palm.
“You’re good people, Bowman,” I say, adding the creamer and sugar to the cute polka-dot Kate Spade mug Lance got me when I first landed this job. For a second, I debate throwing the mug in the trash, but even getting dumped isn’t a good enough reason to defile Kate Spade.
I pour the coffee on top of the creamer before finally turning to face my friend, who’s flipping through something on her phone, too used to my morning coffee routine to bother watching it.
Lori Bowman is my best work friend, but not in the We’re only friends because we work together kind of way. The girl is legit. Snarky as hell, but also the first person to give you a hug when you realize after you’ve come out of a meeting with your boss’s boss that you have major pit stains.
“Huh. I just now realized I have a lot of armpit problems,” I say to her, taking a sip of my coffee.
“Huh?” she says, glancing up.
I point to my shirt. “Deodorant.”
“You should get the invisible kind.”
“I did get the invisible kind. Although it apparently doesn’t work because remember last week when I had big old wet spots under my arms like a homeless person?”