Chapter 17: Kat

Kat stood before the full-length mirror in the gym locker room, admiring her own reflection. She adjusted her ponytail, making sure it looked just right.

"Perfect, I’m cute," Kat said, smiling, her deep blue eyes catching the light as her friend Mina snapped the first picture.

She shifted her pose, puffing out her nice chest, one hand behind her head, the other on her hip. The dark sports bra strained against her firm boobs.

But they were not the main event.

She turned sideways for the next shot, arching her lower back just enough. Her waist tapered in, narrow, almost unfairly so, before exploding into the heavy, rounded curve of her hips. Her small shorts clung to the full, thick swell of her perfect bubble butt.

Kat was confident her ass could turn heads and stop conversations.

She faced the mirror one last time and smiled, admiring her beautiful face and long blonde hair. She was satisfied with herself.

With the posing and pictures done, the girl focused on actually training, with Mina accompanying her, until her friend spotted someone.

"Kat, look." Mina pointed across the gym. "That guy. The one on the pull-up bar. Have you seen him? He is so tall and handsome."

Kat looked at the man. He was indeed quite handsome, but she was used to meeting celebrities in her daily life, so she wasn’t exactly impressed.

"Do you want me to talk to him for you?" she simply asked, already imagining where her friend was going with this.

"You’re so much braver than me! Please? Just go ask him about his routine or something, and then maybe I can..."

"Fine." Kat ran her fingers through her ponytail, loosening it slightly and letting a few strands fall across her neck, unconsciously making sure she looked perfect.

Then she started walking, her hips naturally swaying with each step. It was the kind of rolling stride that turned heads whether she intended it or not.

She stopped a few feet from the pull-up bar and waited for him to drop down. "Excuse me?"

Arthur wiped his hands on his shorts and looked at her. His eyes were vaguely irritated, but Kat didn’t bother with it.

"Hi, sorry to bother you. I’ve seen you here a few times. I’m Kat." She flashed her best smile, the one that could melt ice. "I just wanted to ask, are you doing a split routine? Maybe we could exchange contacts."

"Thanks," he said flatly. "But I’m not interested."

Kat’s smile didn’t fall. It shattered.

For a full two seconds, she stood there with the expression of someone who had just been told the sky was green. Her eyes went wide and her mouth hung open slightly, as if the words "not interested" were a foreign language she needed a moment to translate.

Then her brows knitted together. Her lips curled into an indignant scowl. She looked like someone who had been personally offended.

"What?" she said, the word sharp enough to cut glass.

"You heard me," the young man said, already turning back to the bar.

"Excuse me? Excuse me?" Kat stepped forward, her voice rising. "I wasn’t... I didn’t want anything from you! I was asking about your training, you know, your routine? What, did you think I was hitting on you?"

"Didn’t you?" he asked, glancing back, unimpressed.

"Sorry, I thought you were," Arthur commented, but the lack of interest in his eyes made the excuse invalid in Kat’s eyes. "But you’re talking to the wrong person, I’m just like you, I started training last week."

"I’ve been training for more than a year!" she snapped, the words coming out louder and sharper than she intended.

Her outburst wasn’t Arthur’s fault. She was already feeling a little insecure about the one and a half pounds she had gained over summer break. Then, when he assumed she was new to the gym, it made her worry that she might have lost all the progress she had made throughout the year.

"I’m sorry, I just thought so..." Arthur said, his mind clearly somewhere else. He wasn’t even looking at her.

Kat’s face went through three expressions in half a second: fury, embarrassment, and something that looked like a chipmunk storing nuts for winter. She puffed out her cheeks, her lips pressing into a round, pouty ball of wounded pride.

"Fuck you!" she said loudly.

Arthur flinched, more from the volume than the words.

"Is everything alright here?" a trainer quickly approached to check on the situation. His eyes moved between Kat and Arthur warily.

"He’s being creepy," she said, crossing her arms, still pouting. "I just came over to ask about training, and he’s being all weird and making me uncomfortable, and I just... Ugh! I don’t even want to be near him."

She said it quickly, without thinking much about her words, simply venting her frustration. But the trainer took her words much more seriously.

His expression shifted. He looked at Arthur with anger, then back at Kat, whose arms were crossed, whose eyes were red, and whose lower lip was trembling in a way that, from the outside, looked a lot more like distress than temper.

"We treat sexual assault very seriously here, miss. Can you tell us how he made you uncomfortable?"

"Wait, I..." Arthur wanted to defend himself, but the trainer told him to shut up.

Kat, meanwhile, just realized the implication her words could have. She had no intention of accusing him, but looking around, she saw people already murmuring.

Shit, I fucked up, she thought, clenching her fist.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Kat’s loud voice cut across the gym floor. "Sorry, I gave the wrong impression, he didn’t do anything to me."

The trainer’s eyes relaxed, but now he looked annoyed at Kat. Most people lost interest.

"I got angry, okay?" Kat continued. "He was rude to me, and I was mad."

Arthur blinked in shock, surprised at how Kat owned her mistake. Not that he was any less angry with her, after she had just caused a big commotion. Anyway, it was a relief that the problem was solved easily.

The trainer gave her a stern lecture about shouting in the gym, and Kat apologized once again, but she was let off the hook, since it was just a small incident.

With everyone finally gone, the blonde girl turned her attention to Arthur, who had already restarted his training.

"Listen," she said, sharply getting his attention. "I’m sorry about... well, I didn’t mean for it to come out as an accusation."

"It’s fine," he said. "Thanks for clearing it up."

"Don’t thank me!" she said angrily, pointing at him. "Clearing up a misunderstanding is not worth a thank you!"

Arthur let out a sigh, finding her a pain in the ass, but he didn’t bother answering. And then, just as he thought the whole ordeal was over, her expression shifted.

"I’m very sorry for what I did, but I still hate you, though," she said, sticking her tongue out in a cute expression. "And I never want to see your stupid face again."

She spun on her heel, her ponytail whipping through the air, and marched away, drawing every eye in the gym as she went, completely unaware of the trail of admiration she left in her wake, or of the fact that Arthur was watching her go with the bewildered expression of a man who had just survived a natural disaster.

She never noticed his eyes following her, briefly caught by the sexy sway of her hips and her perfect bubble butt.

Arthur shook his head slowly.

That girl is weird, he thought.

But no harm was done. He grabbed the bar, chalked his hands, and went back to his set. But before he could get any workout done, he received a call from Vanessa, she was back in town and wanted to know if he would be free to go help her with things in her apartment at night.

He immediately said yes.