“Savvy!” someone calls before I reach the door.
I turn and see the bar’s owner, Smithy, coming up the sidewalk, hands tucked in pockets. “Hey, bud,” I say. “What’s up?”
“Just running in to check on the new bartender. What about you? How’s my beautiful future wife?”
I roll my eyes and smile. “Not much. How’s my future ex-husband?”
He chuckles, low and raspy, like he’s laughed so much his vocal cords have worn out from it. “You know it, hot stuff. You and me would be like an explosion—short, but so hot and so worth it.”
“No doubt.” I grin and nod toward the bar, where I already know Abbi, Brinley, and Stella are waiting for me. “I’d better head in. I’m meeting the girls.”
“For real?” He presses his palm to his chest. “Are you telling me my girls are reuniting after . . . what? A decade apart?”
“A slight exaggeration,” I say.
“Barely.”
I know what he means. It sure feels like forever since we’ve all been able to get together. I can’t even blame the girls all having men in their lives now. My schedule is just as crazy. There comes a point in your life where you either need to make your peace with the status quo or start to hustle for something bigger. I’ve been hustling.
Smithy pulls the door open and gestures for me to head in. “After you, beautiful.”
I wink at him, adjust my purse on my shoulder, and head to a booth at the back of the bar where the girls are already sipping their drinks.
“She’s here!” Brinley crows, putting down her glass and clapping her hands. She slides out of the booth and wraps me into a big hug, as if we didn’t just see each other at work this morning.
I squeeze her back. “Good to see you outside the office for once,” I say, pulling away.
“I know. I’ve been working too much, but I was just telling the girls that I’m restructuring at The Orchid so I can slow down a little.”
“Well, good for you!”
“It’s about time, right?” Abbi says.
I nod. “For sure.”
We take our spots in the booth across from Abbi and Stella, and Stella leans across the table and narrows her eyes at me. “Why are you late, bitch?”
“Don’t call her a bitch,” Abbi chides.
Stella rolls her eyes. “She knows I mean it lovingly.”
“I was stuck at work,” I say, and when Brinley’s face creases with that worried-boss look, I add, “With a client.”
“Someone else who works too much,” she says. “When are you going to let me hire another full-time trainer to help you back there?”
I shake my head. “Not until I find the right person. Anyway, you know I’m a control freak. This way I get to make all the rules.”
“Preach,” says Abbi. She just opened her own bakery, but even when she ran the kitchen at The Orchid, she was known for being a hard-ass with her employees. No one runs a cleaner kitchen than Abbi.
“So, what’s that look?” Stella asks.
I frown. “What look?”
She waves her pointer finger between my eyes. “That wrinkle only pops up when you’re stressing about something. What’s up?”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
Brinley turns and narrows her eyes at me. “Stella’s right. You do have that look. It’s obviously not nothing.”
“You know you can talk to us, right?” Abbi asks.
I sigh and do my best to relax my face. I’m sure I fail.
“Spill,” the girls chorus.
“I had this stupid dream of being one of The Rage Fitness premier instructors.”
“Why is that a stupid dream?” Abbi asks, cocking her head to the side. And that’s what I love about Abbi. She might have her own issues with her body and her confidence, but she never projects that onto me. She never judges me for being a gym rat or for counting my macros to make sure I can get as strong as I want. And I know she won’t judge me for this either. Honestly, I doubt any of them will.
“What’s The Rage?” Stella asks.
“The fitness streaming app,” Brinley says. “Marston said it’s offered by a lot of the higher-end hotels they stay with when they travel.”
“In hotels and in millions of homes across America,” I say. “Every quarter, The Rage picks up a new fitness instructor and lets them create their own program for their streaming platform. The instructor gets to give guidance on everything from lifestyle to meditation to nutrition and stream a new live workout five days a week.” I take a deep breath and clutch my hands in my lap. “Well, I applied, like I do every year, and they want to interview me in L.A. next week.”
“That’s awesome!” Abbi says.
“Congratulations!” Brinley adds.
Stella frowns. “What’s the catch?” She knows me too well. She knows I’d be all excitement and zero dread if I hadn’t screwed this up. Well, minimal dread at least.
I look away, focusing on Smithy’s servers hustling behind the bar for a few beats. I’m embarrassed about this part. “In my audition tape, I might have implied I was planning a wedding.”
“Why would you do that?” Brinley’s brow wrinkles.
“Is that the angle that you’re going for?” Abbi asks. “Targeting women trying to fit into wedding dresses? Tightening tummies and sculpting arms and all that?”
Stella folds her arms. “Really? What happened to your mantra? Work out to get stronger, not smaller?”
I bobble my head from side to side. “I mean I might have tried to imply that? But the truth is I wanted the CEO to think I was planning a wedding so that she’d assume there was a man involved in my business.”
Abbi wrinkles her nose like she smells something bad, and Stella’s RBF holds strong. Brinley just looks confused.
I sigh. “It’s disgusting and I’m not proud that I was willing to play the game.”
“It’s so out of character for you,” Brinley says. “You’re so independent. You don’t need a man to—”
“I know I don’t! But this woman? She’s got internalized misogyny like you wouldn’t believe. Everyone knows that if you get a meeting with her and she realizes you don’t have a man on your team or programming your workouts or making your business decisions, she dismisses you.”
Abbi mimes gagging over her shoulder, Stella looks like she’s ready to cut a bitch, and Brinley says, “Yuck.”
“I know. But this opportunity is bigger than that. We’re talking about the ability to reach millions of women and teach them that heavy weights aren’t just for men, showing them how good it feels to be strong and powerful in their own skin, teaching them to love their bodies and all they can do.” I drag a hand down my face. “I thought it might be worth playing the game for this opportunity, but now she wants my fiancé to come to dinner and explain his role in my business.”
Stella shudders as if she just discovered spiders crawling all over her. “This woman is despicable.”
“Agreed! I know. So now I don’t know what to do.” I swallow hard. “I mean, obviously I need to admit I lied. Or tell her the wedding’s off or . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to lose this opportunity. There’s no other platform that would allow me to reach so many women.”