Getting Even

Chapter 4: Cool People

Phillip

"Give me five more and then we're done," I told my last client for the day, Colleen Hubbard. I positioned myself behind her as she lifted and lowered the weighted bar over her head. "There you go, just like that." I encouraged her.

When she finished with the last rep, I took the bar from her before she dropped it because I knew her arms were exhausted from that last set I made her do. I returned the bar to the rack and handed her the water bottle. As she drank, her eyes traveled down the length of me. I knew that look well.

"I'm your last client for the day, right?" She asked as if she had purposely scheduled her appointment at this time for that reason.

"You are," I answered her while putting back the rest of the equipment we had used during her session.

"Why don't we grab something to eat or get a shake or something?" She tried her best to ask nonchalantly.

"I have somewhere I have to be." I lied. I had nothing against the attractive brunette, when it came to personal training I just never slept with any of my clients.

"That's too bad." She said not trying to hide the fact that she was flirting with me. I had been a personal trainer for three years so I was used to women trying to continue our workouts outside of the gym.

"Good workout today," I told her trying to focus on the positive. "I'll see you next week."

"I'll be there." She said, her smile telling me that she was still not giving up.

I waited until she walked towards the women's locker room before I clocked out at the front desk and gathered my things from my locker so that I could start my own workout with my boy.

When I scanned the gym, I found him talking to a blonde whose breasts were spilling out of her too small sports bra. I hung back and decided to get my cardio out of the way in the meantime. I ran five miles on the treadmill before he finally made his way over to me.

"Yo, did you see her?" He asked still looking behind him to where she was now doing squats.

"I saw." I said unimpressed.

Duane Carlson had been my best friend since our days of playing AAU ball. Neither one of us were ever good enough to actually take our talents past AAU, but we were good enough to help win some tournaments over the years. Even as adults, we were tight. We did everything together, all the way down to dancing at the strip club.

Duane and I were both juniors at N.C. State working on degrees in Health and Exercise Studies along with working part-time as personal trainers when we were first introduced to this world by another trainer. Right away we were both hooked when we realized the kind of money that could be made in one night. While I continued going to school at N.C. State and working as a trainer, Duane quit both and chose to focus on dancing and 'securing the bag.' As much as I enjoyed the perks, I still remained focused on my life outside of dancing.

It took only six months for me to pay off all of my school loans. I could've stopped then, but I decided to keep going to try and secure as much money as I could towards my future. I honestly didn't have a timeline for when I wanted to stop, I just felt that when the time was right, I would know when to walk away.

My dream going into college was to start a gym franchise with my boy, one that would rival Gold's, Lifetime Fitness, and Planet Fitness, all across the nation. Duane wasn't interested in that dream anymore, but it still remained my ultimate goal. I knew the more money I didn't have to borrow from the bank, the easier it would be to make my dream a reality.