And it wasn’t just the bootcamp I was doing. See, ever since I returned home from D’Arcy Island in one ragged, bruised heap, I’d decided to take things into my own hands. If I was going to be doing the Experiment in Terror show with my partner Dex and putting myself in dangerous situations, I was going to need to prepare myself for anything and everything and in as many ways as possible. And until recently, I hadn’t been prepared at all.

From being thrown through windows to riding bucking broncos to being attacked by wild “animals” to being attacked by potential rapists to being clubbed over the head and locked in a floating coffin…well, these aren’t your ordinary work hazards. In fact, if I think about it too much, it really starts to scare me. And sooner or later, my good luck, or whatever it is that’s keeping me in one piece, will run out. I know this.

Once upon a time I had taken some training in self-defense and I’ve had karate and stuntwoman classes but it’s just not enough insurance against the unknown.

And so, as soon as Dex dropped me off at my house after the last “adventure” two weeks ago, and after seeing my parents’ faces when they saw what an absolute wreck I was, I promised them, and myself, that I was going to “man up.” So I signed up for a quick boot camp, I went back to the firing range that I used to frequent a couple of years ago and I took three private, refresher Karate lessons. None of these were cheap, of course, and with my sparse salary coming in only from Shownet, and only sporadically at that, plus the fact that I was now paying rent to my parents, it swallowed the last of my paycheck from my previous receptionist job. But I knew it would be worth it, if not right away then somewhere down the line.

But as I finished up my two laps around the field and felt the fire building up around my heart and the stiffening pinch in my chest, it did seem like a waste of money. Once again, why was I paying someone to put me through pain?

I stopped and caught my breath for a quick second, ready to return to the group of chubby college students, single moms and frail yoga flowers before Brock called me Miss Muffin Top again (such an endearing nickname), when I noticed they were done and everyone was staggering back to their cars. Looks like I wouldn’t have to join them on burpees and mountain climbs after all. Class was over.

Relieved as hell, I turned toward my motorbike Putt-Putt, which sat off in the park’s parking lot. One more day, I thought.

“Muffin Top!” I heard Brock bark.

My shoulders sank and I reluctantly looked in his direction. He was walking over to me, his strong legs rippling in the dying afternoon light. What now? Private after-class torture sessions?

I crossed my arms and gave him my best “you’ve got to be kidding me” look, feeling the first waves of chilly pre-winter air nipping along my sweaty body. Even with the sweater and jacket I had back at Putt-Putt, it was going to be a cold ride home.

Brock stopped in front of me and smiled uneasily. I wasn’t used to seeing him smile; maybe that’s why I thought it looked strange on his face. Not that he had a bad face; he was handsome in that broad-necked, tanned way that most fitness buffs were. But whenever he was barking at me, it was accompanied by a grim, overseer look.

“What?” I asked. “Class not dismissed for me?”

He scratched the back of his head, his Adam’s apple pulsing in and out. “One more class…,” he said and I suddenly got the impression that he was shy, like a boy trying to make conversation in the schoolyard.

“Yeah,” I said, eyeing him suspiciously. “Thank God.”

He looked embarrassed and said, “Sorry if I’ve been pushing you too hard.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to figure him out. All that was missing was for him to twist his toe into the mud.

“As you said, it’s just one more class,” I told him, feeling the situation growing strangely awkward. The breeze swept in and I eyed Putt-Putt again, wanting to get warm and go home.

“I watch your show, you know,” he said.

I looked back at him, surprised. “You do? My show? Experiment in Terror?”

“Yeah. Seen every episode.”

Not that that said a lot since there had only been like five of them. I was always shocked when I found random people who watched it.

“You knew who I was from the start?”

“I sure did. I didn’t want to say anything in case it embarrassed you.”

I burst out laughing. “You’ve been calling me Miss Muffin Top for two weeks straight and running me ragged till the cows come home. And you didn’t want to embarrass me.”

“Hey, you’re not Miss Muffin Top anymore, right?” he asked, smiling again as he reached over and grabbed my love handles with one of his strong hands. It was brusque and off-putting and my body tensed up, my instincts greased and ready to go. He was right though. A lot of extra chub I had carried around my waist was now gone. I hadn’t been this streamlined in…well, ever.

Still, I stared down at his grabby hand, unimpressed. He took it back and shrugged. “Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m proud of you. You’ve changed a lot in two weeks and I hope this will go far…in the future. I knew you needed to get on top of your game, I could see it on your face, I could it see in the show, especially that last episode…on the island. It scared me, if you can believe it, and I thought it must have scared you and I figured you could use an extra push.”

“I see,” I mused. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I looked back and tried to pinpoint if at some moment it seemed like he was trying to convert me into a UFC champion or something. I couldn’t see Brock as anything more than just another ego-tripping trainer who liked to make unfit women’s lives a living hell. In fact, it sounded like he was trying to sell me on signing up for another class.

“Would you like to go to dinner sometime?” he asked sweetly.

I almost laughed again but I’m glad I didn’t. One glance at his face and I could see he was sincere. My ‘roid monkey bootcamp sergeant was asking me, Perry Palomino, out on a date. The question caught me so off guard that I didn’t even know what to say. I didn’t even know how I felt about it.

OK. That’s a lie. I did know how I felt about it. It felt wrong. Not because Brock was a bad guy, a bad-looking guy, or because I knew we’d probably have nothing in common. It felt wrong because my heart wasn’t in it. My heart wasn’t intrigued. My ego, sure, that was poking its head about inside, ears pricked and raised. But my heart…it belonged to someone else. Someone who wasn’t mine.

It’s funny. Even though it had been two weeks since I last saw Dex, time had done nothing to erase my feelings about him. The island had done something to us. At least, it had done something to me. If I thought I was head over heels for him before, this time I was so far gone it’s like I fell into my own grave. Head over heels and down a hole. Bury me with dirt, stick a stake into my heart, and call it a day.

“I’m sorry,” Brock said, his expression turning down. “I didn’t mean to be so bold.”

I shook my head and tried to wipe off the look on my face, which probably looked pained. I certainly felt pained. My heart ached in a different way than it had just minutes before, when it was suffering from cardio onslaught.

“No, don’t be sorry,” I said, trying to smile.

“You have a boyfriend, of course,” he said.

My smile fell slightly. “No. No I don’t.”

Because, of course, Dex was just my partner. Sure I was in love with him, sure he told me some things on that island that melted my heart, sure I still had tingly images of him with his head between my legs and felt his grip on my hips. But there was always Jennifer Rodriguez, his stupid fucking girlfriend who never seemed to be going anywhere. I had hoped that perhaps after her pregnancy scare, after Dex confronted the fact that he wasn’t ready to be a dad, and after, well, he kinda (perhaps regretfully) cheated on her with me, that she’d be on her way out. I still held out for that hope – it’s not like that’s the kind of thing we’d discuss on the phone anyway – but as far as I knew, she was still in the picture.

“Oh,” Brock said, and I realized how awkward I had just made it for him. What was wrong with me, anyway? A cute, buff meathead was asking me out for dinner and all it was doing was making my head spin and my soul hurt. That wasn’t right.

Without thinking, I reached over and grabbed his beefy forearm.

“I’d love to go for dinner with you,” I said. This wasn’t true, but I said it anyway.

He must have seen that on my face because he hesitated and then said, “Really, I can handle rejection, I-”

“I mean it,” I said quickly and started feeling like maybe I did mean it. “You just caught me off-guard. I’m not used to being asked out.”

He gave me a disbelieving look. “Oh, please, I have a hard time with that.”

I shrugged, not wanting to get into it. “It’s true but anyway, thank you, I’d love to. Just promise me you’ll stop with the nicknames.”

He agreed. I already had one nickname and that was enough.

~~

“Hey, kiddo.”

It was Dex on the phone. We had gone from texting and emailing each other whenever we had something to say, to calling each other every now and then, sometimes just to talk. At least our relationship had progressed in that way.

After I had arrived home from the boot camp and took a hot shower to wash the mud off and ease my aches and pains, I roamed the house looking for my sister, Ada. For once, I was miffed that she wasn’t at home. Not that she was home all that often, especially since she started dating this guy Layton, who was two grades older than her (my sister is 15), but I needed to talk to her. I know this sounds stupid coming from a 23-year old, but I wanted her advice on boys. What happened with Brock had simultaneously torn me up and excited me and I needed to vent to someone about it. I had become more and more dependent on Ada as a friend instead of viewing her as just a sister.

Which was great, but on this night it left me feeling fidgety. And talking to Dex wouldn’t help either. Though Dex was my friend in every sense of the word, and I trusted my life to him, he was the last person I could vent about this to.

Regardless…

“Hey Dex,” I said, cradling my phone against my ear. I didn’t just say it though, I smiled it. I was sitting cross-legged on my bed, thumbing through an old issue of Guitar World magazine, looking for inspiration and an excuse to use my electric guitar that sat forlornly in the corner of my room.

“How was The Biggest Loser?” he asked, the amusement flitting along the trough of his deep voice. It was his nickname for the bootcamp, despite the number of times I told him there were no real fat people in the group.

“It was…interesting,” I said and suddenly didn’t want to say anymore about it.

“That guy still riding you hard?”

I snickered. I couldn’t help myself.

“What?” he asked, never one to like being left out of a joke.