Max Mackenzie (hymnals) wrote in mnhttnprjct, @ 2010-06-17 21:47:00 |
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Brad loved going to the gym. He went almost every day, and on the days that he didn't he would almost go so far as to say that he felt uncomfortable and confused. He'd gone gym hunting almost immediately as he'd touched down in New York City for the first time four years ago, and had been lucky enough to find a new one that was opening in District 0. There were a lot of things that Brad liked about his gym, which was affectionately called The Gym by its frequenters - it had an actual name, but no one could seem to remember it. He liked the atmosphere. He liked that the free weights were always open. He liked that they played ESPN on almost all of the channels. The fact that The Gym's patrons were mostly - well, completely - male did not hurt, either. That Thursday evening Brad was decked out in his usual gym wear - shorts, running shoes, Duke Lacrosse t-shirt with the sleeves cut off - with a duffel bag slung over one arm and a water bottle in his other hand, standing outside of The Gym. He was waiting for Max. Why he had invited Max was kind of beyond Brad except for the promo they were holding, and Brad loved free things. He also thought that Max needed to get out more. He felt like that parent who is more upset than their child when he or she breaks up with their significant other. Max was a cool guy and nowhere near as much of a douche as some of his other friends - hey, that was kind of nice. Every guy can use a break from people like Harrison Burns. Brad rocked back on his heels and checked his watch as he took a swig from his water bottle. He suddenly remembered something and looked into his duffel bag to make sure that the necessary item was there and - hahaha, it was. This was going to be awesome. After leaving youth choir rehearsal -- this time playing the metaphorical second fiddle a.k.a. second keyboard to the actual director, Chris -- Max had taken a moment for a nice, brief chat with Alexa Weber before ducking into one of the church bathrooms to change into his gym clothes. He spent the whole bus ride across the river to the former Chelsea checking the address on his iHolo. He was relieved to see that Brad Owens was there when he strolled up to the sidewalk wearing shorts, sneakers, and a Music Marathon for Charity t-shirt, a backpack containing his clothes, water bottle, and folder of sheet music slung over one shoulder. After having admitted to Brad that he was a virgin, he half expected to have been sent to a strip club (were there any strip clubs in Chelsea?), and wouldn't he have looked like a fool then? He waved. "Hey!" Brad grinned when Max showed up, then dug in his bag for the item in question. This was going to be hilarious. He could already feel himself starting to laugh. "Hey! Hold on, I'm just looking for the promo thing..." He rooted around the bag for a little bit, letting the suspense build. Or he hoped he was letting it build. Finally, he produced a glass bottle of Smith Ice (a knockoff version of Smirnoff Ice that was not only cheaper, but born in the USA, as if you couldn't tell from the name) and held it out in front of him. "On your knees!" Slight pause. "Bitch." Another pause. "It's a game!" He suddenly felt the need to explain himself. "I do this to all my friends, dude. It's initiation. Hazing's illegal, so you don't have to do it." Pause number four. "But you should." Brad's grin widened and he waved the bottle, then reached into his pocket with his other hand to get his iHolo. This had to be photographed. If only so that it could be used as proof to his other friends that icing was, in fact, the greatest drinking game every created. Max stared at Brad as if he had grown a second head, but nevertheless dropped slowly to his knees. He hoped he wouldn't have to sit like this for long, since the sidewalk kind of hurt, and he was sure that when he got up, there would be little concrete indentations all over his his kneecaps. He looked up, still puzzled. "So uh, what am I supposed to do? Do you want me to drink that or something? Because you know, you're not supposed to operate gym equipment while intoxicated." And Smith Ice was disgusting, but Max wasn't sure if he wanted to tell Brad that. He seemed so proud of it. "No, you're just supposed to hold it," Brad said, laughing. "Of course you drink it! That's the point. And dude, intoxicated? This has, like, point two percent alcohol in it. It wouldn't even get a toddler drunk." Okay, that was an exaggeration. But still. It was a drink for girls, that should have explained the alcohol content immediately. Brad was readying his iHolo when the door opened and two guys walked out, one of them without a shirt. The shirtless one gave Brad a nod in greeting, while the other one raised a hand and said, "Ha, that guy's getting iced!" The shirtless one gave Brad a thumbs-up of approval and the two of them headed off in the opposite direction, laughing about something. Brad watched them go, thinking it was too bad that they were leaving, and then snapped his attention back to Max. "All right, kid, we don't have all day here. The Gym's not open all day!" Max too watched the two men leave, suspicious, like an appraiser examining fake jewels. Friends of Brad's? He was a little confused at the guy with his shirt off. Who went to the gym shirtless? But, Max had to admit, why not go to the gym shirtless when you looked like that? At least from what he buddy said, he could tell that what Brad was trying to pull was at least sort of legitimate. Sort of. "Okay, okay," he said, taking the Smith Ice. He eyed the drink as skeptically as he had the two men, but then he shrugged and twisted off the cap. Of course Smith Ice has a twisty cap. He held the bottle up to his lips and tilted it as if about to take a swig, and then a dangerous glint appeared in his eye. He stood up and jerked his arm towards Brad, spilling the clear, sticky açaí-flavored alcohol all over the Duke Lacrosse t-shirt. "Oops." Brad was all ready with his iHolo, preparing to take a photo and then upload it to his Twitter and his Facebook, when he had to quickly throw his hand in the air so that it wouldn't get doused with acai Smith Ice. "Dude, come on!" he cried out, hunching over so that the alcohol beverage could drip down his other hand and away from his iHolo. That one would have been hard to explain to the iHolo store. 'So, I was icing my bro the other day...' Anyway. Brad looked down at his shirt, thinking there was no way that he was going to walk into the gym smelling like a sixteen-year-old girl who had finally gotten her older brother to buy her alcohol. "Thanks a lot, man," Brad said, setting his duffel bag down and pulling his shirt over his head. Looks like it was his turn to go to the gym shirtless. He made a big show of wringing out his shirt - even though it wasn't that wet - and then shoved it into his bag. "Come on, asshole, let's go," he said, walking up to the door and pulling it open. "You're welcome," Max said. He started to ask "What are you doing?" when Brad put down his duffel bag, but he stopped himself when it became apparent that the answer was "taking my shirt off, duh." So now he was the guy who went to the gym with his ex's boss the shirtless former frat boy who tried to feed him Smith Ice before he was about to operate the weight machine. What was his life? He supposed he deserved it for trying to soak him. And if he wasn't already wary of The Gym, he quickly became so when he and Brad walked in and were greeted with a chirpy "Hi boysss!" from the attendant at the desk, who had several earrings in each ear and whose bleached hairstyle was either delightfully ironic or thirty years out of date. "Hey," he said to the attendant. To Brad, "So uh, was there actually a promo, or are you going to have to swipe me in?" Brad had forgotten about Kyle, the new guy The Gym had hired a few weeks ago to be the desk attendant. Kyle was just so...Kyle. "Hey, Kyle," Brad said in a resigned sort of way, wishing Kyle hadn't gone with that stupid haircut and had considered taking out all of those earrings. He clapped Max on the shoulder. "This is Max. Now give me my free gym time, or I'll get you fired for that shitty haircut." Kyle rolled his eyes and said something about Brad's shitty beard, but punched a few keys on his keyboard and handed Max a little card. "There you go, boys! Don't have too much fun now," Kyle added, winking. Brad could have hit him in the face with a free weight. "Told you there was a promo," he said after they'd both swiped in. Brad looked around for whatever was open, though it would have been clear that he was looking for someone rather than something. He glanced over to the free weights and - aha! Target sighted. Brad always forgot the other guy's name but the gym was the only place where it was acceptable to admire another guy's muscles and have it be totally okay. "Uh, so, this is The Gym," Brad continued, looking over at the free weights every couple of seconds as he started to give Max a half-assed tour of the place. "Treadmills, bikes, strength circuits...free weights. It's a gym, I don't know what else to say." "Cool," Max said, looking around at all the guys working out. And they were all guys. He looked over towards the treadmills, and he spotted a few free ones. He'd decided to sleep in and skip his morning run that day, so that seemed like as good a place as any to start. "I guess I'll just go leave my backpack in the locker room and grab a treadmill." He nodded towards Brad's duffel. "Do you want me to take yours?" Brad handed off the bag, but Max stopped him before he could make it over to the free weights. "Wait, I uh, I have a question. That guy Kyle, was he gay? Not that there's anything wrong with it, I'm just wondering." Brad stared at Max for a few seconds. Did he seriously just ask if Kyle was gay? All of a sudden Brad realized that it probably was kind of weird that he'd brought Max to a gym filled with sweaty, athletic guys instead of a place where there was more of a mix of people - you know, women, teenagers...fat people. But he really wanted that free month, okay? And he was pretty sure that none of his other friends would be so willing to walk into a place where, moments earlier, they had seen a shirtless guy in shorts that were maybe just a hair too short exiting the building. He could feel discomfort closing in on him, but Max's question made him realize that Max was pretty much clueless, which meant that there was no way he was going to ask the same question about Brad - but still. He was allowed to be nervous. He then had another realization - he'd been staring at Max with an incredulous look on his face. He quickly shifted his features. "No, he's dating this hot blond chick. They have matching haircuts," he deadpanned. "Are you kidding? He's such a f--" Brad stopped. Such a what? "...gay," he finished lamely. "Oh, okay. I thought so, but I just wanted to make sure. My gaydar was never all that great to begin with, but after four years in music school..." With his free hand, Max made a pantomime gesture that fell somewhere between 'flying away' and 'breaking down'. It looked like an arm spasm. Something about this place just didn't quite add up with what he knew about Brad, nor did it sit right with him. Max was used to people guessing that he was gay because of his occupation, and over the years he'd grown accustomed to denying it, but so far it seemed like every man at The Gym seemed to take the other patrons' homosexuality for granted. It was -- well, frankly it was a little frightening, and furthermore it didn't seem like the kind of thing a guy like Brad Owens would be okay with. If Brad hadn't seemed so familiar and at ease with the place (after all, Kyle knew about the beard, which Max had never seen in person), Max might have again thought he was being set up. Instead, he was just confused. Brad laughed nervously, the weirdness of him standing in the middle of a gym full of guys becoming clearer to him with each passing second. Was it just him, or was Max being really loud? He quickly looked from side to side to see if any of the other guys had overheard their conversation, all while trying to think of something to say that would make this less weird. Or maybe it was just him. Maybe it wasn't weird for Max at all, and he was blowing the situation way out of proportion. Why had he brought him here again? Oh, right, free stuff. And despite all the years he'd been going there, he didn't have too many friends there, so it was cool to have a friend there. "I just come here because all the guys think I'm hot," Brad blurted out, hoping that it would be a good enough cover. "Total ego boost. Low-pressure environment. Plus you don't have to deal with any of those tools who only go to the gym to impress girls." Yeah, you had to deal with the tools who were only there to impress guys. "Okay..." Max responded, the end of the word trailing off like a question he didn't expect answered. It would have made more sense if Brad had said that The Gym was the closest to his apartment or something like that. "I mean, I don't uh, I don't have a problem with it or anything. You know, musician. But you could have at least warned me." Max couldn't help but wonder, though, why Brad had decided to invite him. The man had plenty of other, better friends that he could have brought along. Why not them? Maybe he knew Max was used to hanging out with gay guys, but even so, it was never with such a homogeneously homosexual crowd as this. Maybe he -- no, he couldn't really think Max might be gay, not after they'd met through Aubrey Kline, who had been Max's girlfriend at the time. But then, there were those text messages... no, he was reading too much into this. He should just put these bags away, get on a treadmill, and try to forget about it. He looked around. "So, uh, where's the locker room?" As soon as Max spoke, Brad realized that he could have said The Gym was closer to his apartment or something that at least sounded a little more legitimate. And he was usually so good under pressure. "Yeah, sorry," Brad said at last. He almost added something about how he figured Max wouldn't have minded anyway, but that seemed like a stupid thing to say - even though his reaction to being there was considerably less violent than the reaction some of Brad's other friends' might have been. Maybe he subconsciously thought that Max was - ha ha, just kidding. He'd just broken up with his girlfriend. He was just really straight-laced and didn't sleep with his girlfriend, that wasn't an automatic indicator of homosexuality. On the other hand, Brad had had plenty of girlfriends he didn't sleep with. So there was that. Brad stopped himself before he could let this line of unproductive thinking go any further. "It's over there," he said, pointing towards the back corner where the line of treadmills ended. "I'm going to the weights." It was time to get away from Max and his questions. With a wave of his hand he turned and headed over to the free weights. "Okay," Max said, and he turned to walk over. For a second, he wondered why there was only one locker room, but then it made sense. Of course there was only one locker room. |