Page 19 of Ominous: Part 1
I stackwhite towels up on the counter, the steady whir of treadmills and ellipticals playing beneathHigherby Creed, a constant on the gym owner, Scott’s, playlist. He said I could make my own, connect it to the wireless speakers in the gym, but I don’t think the patrons would appreciate my taste in music. Sometimes, I don’t even appreciate it. It just depresses me.
A collection of thousands of songs, most about drugs, suicide, psychopaths, alongside a few more socially acceptable ones mixed with Russian and Greek hip-hop, it’s not something I show off often. A secret tucked into my pocket most days.
When I’m done with the towels, my hands are dry and I reach for the lotion in my backpack, on the floor behind the counter and the old, unreliable computer we use to let people scan in with their key cards.
The scent of coconut and pineapple reaches my nose as I slather the contents of the small bottle of yellow lotion on my hands, and I think of Eli. It’s been several hours he’s had my number now, and he hasn’t texted me. My cheeks flush, even though no one can see me.
“Have a good night, Eden!” A woman’s cheerful voice reaches me where I’m crouched down on the thin carpet of the check-in area, and I drop my lotion in the side compartment of my checkered bag and straighten so fast my head spins.
But I catch sight of Carol as the door chimes with her exit. She’s a regular for our evening Pilates class, and I offer her a smile. “’Night, Carol.” Her wrinkled face stretches into a grin of her own and she pushes out the door, water bottle and her own fluffy, pink towel clutched in her hand, a bob of white hair disappearing into the darkening night of the plaza Fit4Everis located at.
I wiggle the mouse on the old computer, glancing at the red-lighted scanner facing the glass doors. Tracking my eyes back to the screen, over the data, I see we’ve got seven people in here right now, a drop from the fourteen who had been in just minutes ago for Pilates.
Looking over my shoulder, I spot the rows of cardio machines, where most people currently trudge along with phones or paperbacks in hand. Behind them are the weight machines, then free weights, with mirrors lining the entire L-shaped corner, men with beer bellies but impressive biceps doing curls and staring in the mirror.
One of the guys, in a white muscle tank and short shorts, sees me watching and grins. It doesn’t feel the same as Carol’s smile, but I return it all the same. His name is Fred or Frank or something and he often lets his eyes linger a little longer than I feel comfortable with. He comes in a few times during my shifts for different types of workouts and to bake in the tanning beds. I swear he just spends his entire life here.
I shift my gaze from him and find the cut-out door frame that, if you take a left, leads to the tanning beds in the back, none of them currently in use. To the right are change rooms, no showers, and right at my back is the group activity room, with an actual door which is now cracked open. It’s like a dance room, with mirrors making up one wall, and currently, I see Patty, the Italian Pilates teacher, stretching, her mass of dark, curly hair draped over her knee as she does.
A chime for the door Carol just walked out of sounds and I turn back around, plastering on my customer-service smile.
Immediately, it falters at the figure gliding through the door, and the sweat I’d staved off for two hours now due to the impressive A/C blowing through this place returns with a vengeance.
Eli. Fucking. Addison.
Before I can think the better of it, I look down at my loose, black tank top,Not Famous Yetprinted across the front—I cut the sides so it shows off my ribcage—and my black, ripped yoga pants, my favorite gym attire, a gift from Mom when I first started here and had only a few pairs of loose, ratty joggers in the way of gym clothes. I never worked out to beseenbefore, but here, it’s my entire job.
I’ve got green Vans on my feet, black socks pulled up high, and my hair still in braids. I look more or less the same as I did at school I guess, minus the uniform and the boots, but if I had known Eli would show up at my work…
“What the hell?”I hiss each word with vicious annoyance.
Eli’s mouth curves upward as he approaches the counter, scanning the place quickly, almost dismissively. I try to view it through his eyes. Pale yellow walls, thin, beige carpet. It’s nothing impressive, a dollar store next door, trash blowing in the parking lot, a grocery store with gum stuck to the tiles every time I go in to grab a protein bar for dinner.
I look beyond Eli, now leaning against the counter on his elbows, and see his blacked-out Infiniti, out of place among the Chevys and Fords dotting the lot. Sebastian is picking me up since I needed Mom to drive me straight here so I wouldn’t be late, so my Sentra is nowhere in sight.
“Excuse me?” Eli replies, tilting his head as he gazes down at me. Even leaning on his elbows, he’s still taller than I am.
Regardless, there’s an entire counter separating us, and I’m grateful for it.
I grip the edge of it to keep myself steady, noting Eli’s damp hair, wavier than usual. The black choker around his neck over his black T-shirt,Trafalgar Dragonsprinted on the front which must be some inside wrestling joke I don’t get because our mascot is a dragonfly. Gray joggers, I can’t see his shoes from here, but I imagine the white Chucks he was wearing Monday night in the library.
I take a breath, and beyond the scent of the gym—bleach, sweat, and laundry detergent from the stacked white towels a foot from me at the end of the counter—I can smell him. Clean, soap, the beach. It’s better than the lotion I used, which is now making my fingers slippery against the counter as they clam up.
“What, exactly, are you doing here?”Why did you never text me?
In the background, I hear the clank of weights. A grunt, probably unnecessary, and the hum of the Pilates teacher softly drifting from the cracked door of the dance room. I try to hold onto the familiar, Eli’s presence completely throwing me off.
He grins, showing white teeth. “Am I not allowed in?”Why would I text you when I could just stalk you?
I shake my head, feeling warmth spread down my chest. “You don’t have a membership here.”
Eli eyes the scanner at his elbow as if he’s profoundly interested in becoming intimately acquainted with it. “Not yet,” he agrees, slowly dragging his gaze back to me, curving a single brow in an expression that’s almost innocent. “But maybe in a second, if you’re offering.”
“I’m not.” I glance at the camera above the glass door, aimed at the counter. For my sake, not for the company’s, Scott told me. To keep records of customers, not employees.I can’t murder Eli right here and now, so I’m not sure that’s really true.Folding my arms over my chest like some sort of protection from his charm, I hold his eyes for long seconds. He’s still smiling, but his irises look darker, and I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he has to know coming tomy workafter our conversation in the hallway about my schedule on Tuesday, is over the top.
“Oh?” he finally asks, a single word, quiet like he always is, yet it somehow rings louder, above anything else happening in this gym right now, and there is alotof noise here. It’s one thing I don’t like about it. Too many sensations make it hard for me to focus.
But hooked into Eli’s attention, like a fish at the end of a line, it all fades away, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. I think of the pills in my bag, wishing I could down one to still my pulse. To gain outward control over my nerves.
