Page 5 of D.I.E.T. (Did I Eat That?)

Dante wrote about the nine circles of hell in hisInferno. He missed one. There were ten. Ten, one might ask? What could possibly be the tenth circle? Oh, I’d rather spend eternity in fire and brimstone than face one more minute of this circle. Burpees.

For only Satan himself could be cruel enough to think up this means of torture. Stand straight. Drop into a squat. Push feet out into a pushup alignment. Bring feet back into squat. Stand straight and do it all over again. No breaks. All in one, possibly two, quick motions. Trevor, Satan’s righthand man, ordered us to start with a hundred. Start with? I got through four and sorely regretted that bowl of frosted wheat squares. Halfway through burpee number five, everyone else in the room, especially those closest to me, regretted my choice of frosted wheat squares. I puked. Upchucked all over the carpeted floor.

“Oh god,” Sinjin said, stepping aside while gently moving me back from the puddle. Tears welled in my eyes as that curdled vomit smell reached every corner of the room. I pulled away from Sinjin, feeling like I could die. Trevor called for us to break for ten minutes or so while janitorial attempted to put us to rights again.

As I stood in the corner crying, because puking wasn’t bad enough, our ever-dutiful instructor walked over to hug me. “We get at least four to seven pukers the first day of bootcamp, every session. You just got us started. Shake it off,” he said. Oh really? Justshake it off? I balled my fist, filling with the need to punch him, but judging by the outline of the six-pack still protruding through his exceptionally tight workout shirt, I figured all I’d accomplish with that move was to break my wrist. “Where’s your buddy?” he asked.

“Here,” Sinjin said, stepping up next to me and seriously, he moved me from Trevor’s arms by sliding his own arm around my waist and inching me away.

Trevor didn’t seem to care. “Go—take her to the smoothie bar. When she feels ready, you can rejoin the class.”

“I don’t want a smoothie,” I protested.

“Geet, it’ll feel good on your stomach,” Sinjin whispered in my ear.Geet?I never told him that was my nickname. I never invited him to use it. And finally, I never agreed to get a smoothie with the man, yet as he put pressure on my waist to move me along, my feet dutifully followed.

Sinjin led me back through the main workout space to the reception desk and took a left. Walking down a short, narrow hallway behind and to the right of the desk, we entered the smoothie bar. Set up like a “regular” bar, they had a bar top with stools lined up underneath. And there were several tables with chairs filling the floor as well. Unlike a regular bar, the order station and cash register sat to the left of the bar top. This also happened to be the merch shop. Anything and everything corporate’s promo department could think of, slap a logo on and charge a premium price for, lined the shelves and display stands.

I walked over to one such display stand and picked up the small box. Super Fitness chocolates? Only eleven dollars for the box. Of course, big, bold lettering spelled out ORGANIC. Dark chocolate. Made from the finest ingredients in Switzerland. Seventy percent cocoa. For eleven bucks, this box of fine Swiss chocolate better do my dishes. Come on, I made good money at the salon. But eleven dollars for four pieces of chocolate? What was that old saying? A fool and his money soon parted? No one accused me of being a fool. I set the box back down and turned, running smack-dab into Sinjin.

“Smoothie,” he ordered, smiling, directing me to the counter.

“What can I make for you today?” the young guy behind said counter asked. Young might’ve been an understatement, that or he won the genetics lottery. He hardly looked old enough to work without a permit.

As I perused the menu written on a large black chalkboard with aqua and pink chalk, Sinjin said, “We need something to counteract burpees.” I narrowed my eyes at both men chuckling at my expense.

“I can hook you up,” the young guy said. “Blueberry Power Punch. And for you?”

“The same. Just in case.”

I searched the blackboard for Blueberry Power Punch and as I read the ingredients, a thought hit me. “My purse is in the locker.” I tried to go retrieve it.Triedbeing the operative word because Sinjin snagged me around the waist again, planting me to the spot as he opened up a payment app on his phone.

The counter man scanned it and with another big smile said, “Coming right up.”

“How much was it?” I asked. If they wanted eleven bucks for chocolates, I knew that big smoothie couldn’t have been cheap.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s on me.”

“I really can’t—”

“Sure you can. It’s easy.”

The counter guy handed off the first smoothie.

Sinjin handed it off to me. “Drink,” he said. “Or I’ll be offended.” If I was going to be stuck with this guy as my accountability partner for the next six weeks, I didn’t want to offend him on the first day. That could at least wait until next week.

“Fine.” I huffed, stuffing the straw into the straw hole to sip on the spinach, blueberry, and fig concoction with matcha green tea and protein powders. It shouldn’t have worked, but oh man, I could’ve bathed in this, it was so good. “I think I’m in love,” I murmured, taking another thick sip. “We might need some alone time. I wanna have this smoothie’s babies.”

Chuckling filled the air and I looked up in time to see Sinjin and the counter guy side-eying each other and smirking, then Sinjin’s hand went to the spot between my shoulder blades to usher me over toward a table. “Then let’s sit before things get uncomfortable for the blendista,” he said.

“Only the blendista?” I asked.

“Hey,” he replied. “I’m totally down for some girl-on-blueberry-drink action. It sounds hot.”

I shivered. “Cold, actually.” We both laughed as he pulled out the chair for me. It was a small gesture, probably something he did without thinking every day. Something his mama had taught him when he was little, but it meant something to me. Men, even out of rote memory, never pulled my chair for me. I paused briefly as I thought on things, and realizing I blanked out, dropped into the seat because the guy waited to help me adjust my chair in, too, before he ever sat down next to me.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said next, sipping his own drink.

“Not much to tell.”

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