Treadmill Guy

Meet-Cute(?)

A/N: This is a totally ridiculous side-product rom-com I'm writing based on the experiences of my friends and I. While based on real people, it is completely fictional. Also, I apologize in advance for my treatment of workout-aholics; I honestly love you and don't think of you as brainless meatheads. That's all.  ALSO, for those of you who read this part before I updated: I changed all the names because it felt slightly weird using my name and my friends'. So my name is now Violet and Dayna's is Lizzie. 

~Violet~

It was a Thursday night, and I was laughing. Lizzie stood next to me outside of the gym, imitating the loud grunting coming from just inside the door, where a couple of cocky macho meat-heads were practically screaming with the effort it apparently took to bench press some ridiculous amount of weight. They were truly ridiculous, the lot of them: 260 pounds of pure muscle and no brain, they seemed incapable of intelligent conversation -- or anything besides lifting, honestly. Lizzie let out one particularly convincing grunt, and I doubled over laughing as the gym rats turned to look our way, rather stupidly, and we ducked out of sight.

"We're going to have to go in at some point," I said, between giggles.

"Yeah but not now, they'll beat us up," she laughed.

I looked around the corner, but they had gone back to lifting, screaming, and repeating.

Lizzie sighed. "I guess we have to go work out now?"

"We don't have to. We could just go get smoothies."

"Tempting."

We walked in, trying our best not to make eye-contact with the grunting meatheads as we made our way to the ellipticals. Lizzie had joked that I'd find my soulmate at the gym -- probably just to convince me to go with her -- but it didn't seem likely. The only men in the vicinity were almost definitely complete morons, completely obsessed with putting themselves through incredible amounts of pain for no real reason. There was no way I could possible endure such high levels of nonsense on a regular basis. Besides; Buzzfeed told me my soulmate would be blonde, and all these men had dark hair. Unless, maybe, one of them did have blonde hair and it had just turned so dark with sweat that I couldn't tell.

Lizzie  nudged me. "Hey, Violet, I found your soulmate."

I followed her gaze to see a ridiculously attractive man running on a treadmill -- right next to the ellipticals we were hoping to use. Or, at least, he was probably attractive; he had his back to us and I couldn't really tell, although he was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a head of gloriously curly blond hair. How had I missed him? He was totally gorgeous -- and blond. I always knew there was a reason I took so many Buzzfeed quizzes -- it was all to prepare me for this moment. I wondered if Buzzfeed's other predictions would come true: Would I have a career as a supermodel? Would I become best friends with Taylor Swift? Did I really have the personality of a blueberry muffin?

"Oh my gosh, you're totally right," I said, and she laughed.

"Go talk to him," she said.

"You're funny."

"How is he going to know you're his soul mate if he doesn't know you exist?" She teased, and I rolled my eyes.

"Let's just go work out."

"Good idea; maybe he'll see you walk past and just know you're the one."

"I wish."

We continued walking towards the ellipticals, keeping an eye on our blonde Treadmill Guy as we went. As we walked, he suddenly upped the speed on the treadmill until he had worked his way into a full-out sprint.

I sighed. "Ugh. He's just another fitness nut."

"Is he really sprinting on a treadmill?" Lizzie looked slightly awe-struck. "That is so intense."

"It's seriously weird. He's probably certifiably insane, if you ask me."

"Or maybe just dedicated."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm afraid to walk past him, what if he flies off and hits me?" I was only half joking.

Lizzie laughed. "I seriously doubt that would ever happen."

"You never know."

She only laughed. Little did she know.

We kept walking, going as slowly as humanly possible in an attempt to avoid the inevitable. Within moments, we were behind the treadmills and approaching Treadmill Guy, who was still sprinting and had begun to sweat so much that his luscious blond curls were sticking to his forehead. He was even more handsome up close, although ever so slightly more smelly.

As we got closer, Treadmill Guy continued to up the speed until I was honestly shocked he could pump his legs fast enough to keep up. We kept walking, slightly freaked out, and he just kept going, breathing hard, his curls plastered to his forehead. Lizzie rushed ahead of me, annoyed with my terror, and got on an elliptical. But as I followed I heard a strangled cry and a thwump, the smell of male body odor and sweat invading my consciousness as something massive and sopping wet rammed right into me, and everything went black.

***

Coming up next: What in the world just happened???