Even three years later, I could remember every detail, from the way her hair smelled to the taste of her lips. I could still feel the way she fit in my arms and hear the sounds that poured from her as I brought her body to ecstasy. I couldn’t let go of those memories and didn’t want to. It wasn’t pathetic I told myself. It wasn’t just me clinging to the one-night stand because it was the only thing I had, or that I was so wrapped up in her I hadn’t been able to move forward in my life at all. I’d had sex since my night with Kelly. Good sex. Maybe even great sex. But even then, nothing hit that same connection she and I had. There was something about her I didn’t get enough of, and that was what stayed with me.
I left the bar relatively early and went home to the same house. Taking the plate my mother had given me as I left her house after my also-traditional birthday dinner, I went into my bedroom and stripped down to my boxers. Sitting in the middle of my bed, I turned on my favorite movie and dug into the massive wedge of birthday cake Mom baked for me. That was one thing I could always rely on from my mother. If she was stressed, anxious, or particularly happy, she was in the kitchen baking. The combination of racing season and my birthday meant her house and the kitchen at the racing complex were overrun with goodies. My cake was my favorite rich, fudgy chocolate, and I ate my way through the whole slab before getting ready for bed and falling into a dream-filled sleep.
It might not have been the most raucous of birthday celebrations but stopping after only a couple shots did have a few distinct benefits. One became more obvious Monday morning when I showed up for my workout with Colby and found him still feeling the effects. Usually he was already partway through a workout when I arrived at the studio and used it as a chance to taunt me, but this time I pulled into the parking lot before his car was even there. I checked the time and saw it was a couple of minutes after our normal meeting time. He finally pulled in right as I was about to call him to make sure everything was all right.
Colby parked next to me and got out of the car wearing sunglasses. I laughed.
“Have too much fun?” I asked.
He grunted at me and reached into his back seat to yank out his gym bag.
“I had to make up for you,” he muttered. “Who has a birthday celebration and leaves their guests to do all the drinking for them?”
“I don’t think there’s a quota,” I pointed out.
We went into the gym and got started with our training. I’d been working out hard for the last several months, trying to get into better shape in hopes of upping my racing game even more. Though I’d been successful and was making even more of a name for myself in the circuit, I never wanted to be complacent. It was never lost on me that the other racers were driven to knock me off the top and take over the position. My success was a motivation to them. When I did well, it forced them to work harder so they could try to do better than me the next time. It was my mission to not let that happen. I had my taste of being at the top of the industry, and I wasn’t willing to just let it go.
The goal was to trim down and get stronger so I could stay in better control of the bike and shave off some time on my runs to get me even further ahead of the pack. When I first started with Colby, doing CrossFit completely kicked my ass. I’d been getting better since then, and that morning I felt particularly skilled. Of course, that came mostly from the fact that Colby was far from his usual self. He was dragging, which let me for once perform better than he was at the circuits.
I got a few laughs in at his expense, savoring my one opportunity to feel superior to him knowing full well the next time we were in the gym he would bury me. And chances where he would make sure I didn’t forget my crowing and I would come to greatly regret it. But that was a problem for future me. Right now, I was more than enjoying seeing him struggle a bit.
“So, what happened at the bar?” he asked after half an hour of sweating and forcing his body to move helped get rid of the fog.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Come on. You know what I mean,” he said. I did and was actually surprised it took him so long to bring it up. “We had just gotten there, you had one shot, and then you wandered off. You spent a few minutes talking to a good-looking girl, then came back to the table without her. Then you spent the rest of the night brooding.”
“I wasn’t brooding,” I corrected.
“You were definitely brooding. Tell me what’s up,” he said.
I considered making something up about Kelly, thinking of her as just another girl at the bar, but stopped myself. There really wasn’t any point in lying. It was what it was, and Colby was a
