Two Charlie

If I never saw a man again in my life, I would die happy.

And yet, I still caught myself ogling the hunky movers as they carried furniture up to my second-floor apartment. Their muscles bulged with each lift and pivot, their husky voices grunting as they hefted my heavy couch up the tight stairwell. It was enough to get the long-dead teenager in me all hot and bothered before I even had a moment to form a coherent thought.

But then I looked down at the heavy banker's box held in my hands. It was full of papers from my old life. Bills, taxes, random bank statements, and, of course, my divorce papers.

"Good fucking riddance," I muttered under my breath as I hiked up the stairs behind the movers.

"What's that?" one of them said, glancing back at me. "What did you say?"

I shook my head. "Oh… I just said to drop that in the main room there," I replied, covering up my habit of talking to myself. "You can just push it up against a wall or something so it's out of the way."

"Right."

"In fact," I added, glancing back at the truck. "Just put everything in the main room except the bed." I felt my shoulders tense as I looked at the mostly empty truck. "Not like I got to keep much anyway…"

The mover gave me a somewhat pitiful look, which just made me feel worse. For the past few months, I'd been having the grandest of all pity parties for myself. Not that I didn't have a reason. When your husband comes home one day and says, ‘Hey, I don't love you anymore, and by the way, I'm dating my barista now,' it doesn't leave you with an overwhelming sense of confidence.

At first, I tried to shoulder my trauma like a champ, pretending it didn't bother me and that I was so much happier than I'd ever been. But after a while, my false bravado faded away, and all I was left with was a stack of papers, an ink pen, and a lawyer who didn't give two shits about me. And now I was moving into a one-bedroom apartment by myself in a nowhere city that I'd chosen by throwing darts at a map.

No. That wasn't a joke. I actually threw a dart at a map. I'd grown up in southern Tennessee, so moving to Michigan definitely wasn't on my to-do list. However, there was no way I could stay in that town anymore. People knew who I was; they knew my husband, and he'd done his homework. Long before he told me he wanted a divorce, he started planting little lies in people's heads to get them to feel bad for him and make me the bad guy. Even my own mother asked me what I'd done to him to make him so upset.

And that was the last straw.

That day, I bought a map, hung it up on the wall, and threw darts at it until one stuck. To my surprise, it landed on a little town called Ludington, MI. I didn't even research the city before I called up six or seven apartment complexes and took the first one that had an opening. Within a week, there were moving men at my mom's house packing up the remainder of my belongings. I barely even gave her a warning I was going. She always liked my ex-husband better anyway.

Maybe it was childish. Maybe it was a stupid move to leave my job and everyone I knew behind. But I didn't care. I needed a hard reset in my life if I wanted to survive the crushing weight of failure on my shoulders. I was only twenty-four, and I already had a failed marriage under my belt. Talk about being an overachiever.

The moving men dumped my couch in the small living room, pushing it up against the far wall. I stepped aside to let them back out and dropped my box on the ground. Taking one glance at the tiny galley kitchen and the pathetically thin brown carpet, I flopped onto the couch and draped my arm over my eyes.

"Home sweet home," I murmured sarcastically.

The place smelled like carpet cleaner and fresh paint, but underneath, I could pick out the years of cigarette smoke that had seeped into the walls. Downstairs the neighbor's television played too loudly, and in the parking lot, I could hear the constant thudding of some asshole's subwoofers in the back of his car.

Living here was going to take some getting used to. Up until that moment, I'd always lived in a house. My ex had been gifted a house right out of high school by his parents, and I'd moved in with him only a few months after we started dating. I'd somehow managed to completely skip the apartment section of my life… or… well, I guess it just took me longer to get there than some.

A half hour slowly ticked by as I listened to the sounds of the movers going up and down the stairs. They dropped my meager belongings into the living room and took my heavy mattress to the bedroom. I wasn't sure if I'd fallen asleep or just lost myself to my thoughts, but the clearing of a throat nearly scared the life out of me.

"What?!" I gasped, bolting upright. "What's wrong?!"

"Uh…" The two guys looked at one another. "We just wanted to let you know that we're done."

I sighed, running my hands through my ruffled dark hair. "Sorry," I muttered, pushing myself up from the couch. "I haven't been sleeping well lately. Nightmares."

"Sorry to hear that…" the guy replied, clearly uncomfortable with the amount of depression oozing off me.

"Here," I said, pushing myself up from the couch and taking out my wallet. I handed each of them a fifty-dollar bill as a tip. "Thanks for all your help. I apologize for not helping you bring stuff in."

"It's no problem, sir," he nodded, taking the cash. "That's what we're here for." Both of them headed for the door. "Enjoy your new home!" he added with a wave.

The door closed behind them, and I was left alone in the silence.

"Home…" I muttered. "Right…"

Time moved by slowly after that. For a while, I just sat on the couch staring at my phone, doomscrolling through whatever stupid videos popped up on my feed. Even though several of them were hilarious, I couldn't force more than a half-assed smile. Eventually, my stomach's grumblings grew too loud for even me to ignore, so I ordered food from a Mexican restaurant down the street. I figured the walk would do me some good.

Thanks to the divorce and comfort food, I'd put on more than a few pounds in the past few months. Not that there was anything wrong with it. Dad bods were all the range according to everyone on social media. But before, I had always been lean and strong, a product of several years of training throughout high school and college to maintain my place on the swim team. I'd already come to the conclusion that I needed to get back in the habit of taking care of myself, but I didn't know if this new town even had a gym. Sure, Lake Michigan was only a couple miles from my apartment, but there was no fucking way I was going swimming in October. Besides… it probably had sharks in it or something. A shark defying all odds in freshwater only to eat me would be just my luck.

Throwing on my favorite oversized hoodie, I marched out the door and down the street, heading to the restaurant to pick up my order. I'd gone no more than two blocks when I found myself walking past the front of a large, nice-looking gym.

It was like the universe had read my mind.

I stopped for a moment, peering through the windows at the rows and rows of treadmills and weight-lifting equipment. There was a strange sense of longing in the pit of my stomach, harkening back to simpler times. Spending evenings in the gym with my best friends in college was the peak of my social life. To some, that sounded pathetic, but to me, it was no different than hanging out with friends at a frat party or at homecoming. That's just where we saw each other the most.

Not to mention, there were several excellent memories that took place in the showers after the workout when endorphins were running high.

Fuck I missed having sex…

Before I even knew what I was doing, my hand was on the door, pulling it open. I stepped inside, and before I could back out, one of the desk attendants called out to me.

"Hey there! Welcome!" he said, flashing me his most charming smile. "Thanks for coming back!"

I furrowed my brows. "I… I've never been here before."

"Well then, welcome for the first time," he replied, completely nonplussed. "Do you have a membership with us, or are you just doing a drop-in today?"

"I'm not staying."

The guy looked confused.

"I mean, I'm just checking the place out," I corrected, shaking my head. "I just got done moving, and I don't know anything about the town."

He nodded. "Well, you've chosen the right place. And I'm not just saying that because I work here." For some reason, I believed him. "This is probably the best gym in town. We're not the cheapest, but we've got a huge range of equipment, massage tables, a sauna, and we even have personal trainers on staff if you're looking for a more personalized touch."

They really did have it all. "Uh… okay. Do you have like a flyer or something?"

"We do have pamphlets." He handed one across the counter as I stepped up. "And we're running a special right now. For select new members, we're offering four free sessions with our newest personal trainer. He's a local that's been coming here for years." The guy handed me a card to go with my pamphlet. "But between you and me, he's easily the best one we have on staff. The guy really knows his stuff."

I glanced down at the card with a bold name printed across the top.

Oliver Randall, CPT

"And he's got one last opening tomorrow afternoon," the clerk added. "You would be the final member he takes on."

"When did he start?"

"Today."

Wow. The guy was popular. And so was the gym if they'd pulled in that many new members in a single day. I glanced down at the card once more, the adrenaline building in my chest. Normal people didn't get excited about the prospect of working out all the time. But for me, it was a chance to reclaim some normality in my otherwise tumultuous life.

"I'll do it," I heard myself say. "I'll take the spot."