Page 133 of Bodybuilders for the BBW

Rhys

“Do you have the vision statement presentation?” Drew was looking at me expectantly the next time, but I just stared at him blankly. It was like a complete stranger just asked me how to get to Hogwarts or something. He let out a sigh as he raked his fingers through his hair. “Tell me you got that done.”

“I…”

There was nothing worse than disappointing a friend. Actually, I could think of one thing. Katie’s eyes, the sadness there, it haunted me, but not as much as this. Not disappointment, not anger, which Drew was clearly feeling right now, but resignation. Katie had come to grips with the fact we had let her down, let Bronson down, and it felt like I was watching the light die in her eyes in real time. Right there, in her grandparent’s lounge room, I wished I was a firie, because then I’d know how to coax those flames back to life. Everything in me wanted to fight that numbness that seemed to settle over her like a grey cloud. I was about to tell him all of that, when the suits arrived.

“Morning,” the head guy said. Couldn’t remember his name to save myself. That oily smile, it had me wanting to shiver. “Come through and let’s get the presentation out of the way.”

Drew glared at me, making it clear I needed to go first. Put me in front of the firing squad it appeared. I shook my head and stepped into the boardroom. The canned air, the interior done in monotonous shades of grey, then that big projector on the wall, they each had my whole body stiffening. Not since I was at school did I have such an intense reaction to a space.

Not here, my heart told me with every beat.This is not where we’re supposed to be, because if I blinked, I saw something, someone completely different. Katie, standing at the end of the table, the sunlight that was coming pouring in through the windows turning her hair to red gold. She looked like an angel, in my imagination and in reality, and right next to her was her soul dog.

“So…” My lips twitched, ready to snarl as the suit took his seat, the rest of his identically dressed team doing the same. “You were going to give us an overview of your vision for this new chain of gyms.” It was weird, because he’d approached us about the whole thing and yet now we were being asked to Shark Tank this shit and ‘wow’ him. “What’s your vision for the future?”

Drew turned to look at me, making clear this was my part of the presentation, but he didn’t get it. We’d met at a gym when we were both just out of school and somehow because I wasn’t a homophobic dick, that made me his token straight friend. We’d sat around on weight benches, bitching about the way the gyms we went to were run, but he was the one that started spitballing ideas for a different kind of place. It was always his vision. I just helped make it happen.

And that’s what made me happy.

Seeing Drew go from a skinny kid who copped stupid levels of abuse about a part of himself that he could never change, to the confident man he was now, complete with adoring partner. That was what got me out of bed every day, not the gym. It smelled. Guys were dicks and never put their damn weights away and don’t get me started on the mess they made in the bathrooms.

It would be no great tragedy if I never spent another day in the gym.

That realisation had me smiling, knowing now what I needed to do.

“Drew’s got a presentation for you,” I said, which earned me a dark look from my partner. “It has the facts, figures and forward projections, but he asked me to talk about the vision. I didn’t prepare a PowerPoint for that.” This had the suits shifting restlessly. “Because no stock images of pretty people working out will help you to understand the vision, Drew’s vision.”

I sucked in a breath, willing my business partner to see it. It’d all be OK.

“Drew came up with an idea that I think makes our gym completely different to others. We’re not a couple of ‘roid heads flexing our muscles and making people feel inadequate about themselves, before signing them up for year long memberships in the vain attempt they could look just like us.”

When I nodded slowly, Drew let a long breath out, finally relaxing. My focus shifted back to the suits. Get them on board, have them draw up the contracts and then…

Then I could walk away from all of this and towards Katie.

“If you decide to invest in the company and take the gym idea Australia wide, you’ll be creating a solution to a need that most gyms can’t or won’t deal with. I won’t cite the stats on obesity in this country.” I tilted my head Drew’s way. “He’ll have them all in his presentation along with charts.” A small chuckle went up around the table. “Nor cardiovasuclar fitness or preventable diseases. Most health organisations in Australia treat this as a problem with willpower. If people just made healthy choices. If they just ate less and moved more…”

My focus shifted to the window behind them, and as I spoke it felt like my consciousness left the room.

“A big thing holding people back is feeling like exercise, sport, movement is something you either excel at or don’t do it all. In our gyms we go above and beyond to ensure people of every size, every level of fitness feel comfortable enough to take the first step towards a healthier version of themselves.”

“Interesting.” The head suit spun an expensive ball point pen around between his fingers. “Alright, tell us more about how your gym differentiates itself from others in the market.”

“That’s where I come in,” Drew said, connecting his laptop up to the projector, then bringing up his presentation.

“You did it.”A couple of hours later, Drew and I were walking together towards the car park.

“Youdid it,” I corrected. “I had no idea we did that kind of money.”

“You don’t pay any attention to the reports I send you, do you?” He shook his head. His arm went around my shoulders as he messed with my hair. “That vision statement? It was exactly what we needed to convince the investors. We’re on the brink of something huge, Rhys.”

“You’re on the brink of something huge.”

I stopped then and so did he, searching my face for clues about what I was about to say. Not all of it could be put into words, my throat already feeling like it was closing down. Drew and me, we’d been friends almost as long as I had with the guys I shared a house with and right now…

Right now I was ready to walk away from every single one of them, if that’s what it took to get Katie to see me as boyfriend potential.

“I’m gonna sign my half of the gym over to you,” I told him.

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