Kiwi // H.S. // A.U.

Chapter One

HARRY

I watched her get off the treadmill and walk around a bit to catch her breath before gathering her stuff, taking a giant gulp of water, and walking over to the weight section. I lost track of my count as she plucked a sanitary wipe out of the dispenser on the wall and cleaned off a machine. She fiddled with the weights, deciding what was best for her, and sat down. She stared off into space for a moment before she began, ignoring the leering stare from the guy three machines down.

Today must be a bad day.

I had been watching her for the past three months, since the moment she walked in the door to sign up for a membership. I don't even know why. I don't go out of my way to speak to her, I don't even care to find out her name. She just intrigues me. I figured out she works out due to her mood. She's here almost every day, usually the same time as me, but varies her workouts due to whatever her mood is. If she's in a good mood she'll take a class, preferably yoga. If she's tired, she'll come in for about thirty minutes to do some basic core strengthening and leg workouts. If she's annoyed, she'll workout her arms and then take a dip in the pool. If she's having a bad day, she'll run.

Today she ran for nearly forty minutes. Normally, she would go home after that, but now she's working on her arms. Her eyes are unfocused, and she doesn't even look like she's paying attention to her reps.

I was pretty sure she had originally started coming to the gym to get her mind off of things. She never had a routine workout that would constitute a specific goal. I could tell she wasn't trying to bulk up or lose weight, but merely take her mind off things, work out her frustrations. It was something that I had always liked about the gym; no matter how jumbled my thoughts were, I could always count on a good workout to straighten everything out.

I stopped creeping on the poor girl when Mike came in and gestured for me to follow him. I cleaned off my equipment and followed him to the ring. Usually we would've already been sparring, but Mike had some 'prior commitment' he had forgotten to tell me about, so I had been mindlessly lifting weights until he arrived. I knew he didn't really have any set of commitment, but really it was his wife's time of ovulation. They had been trying the past three months to get pregnant, and I was left to hear all about their sex life.

I picked up his boxing gloves and threw them over to him as I put on my punch mitts. We did our basic warm-ups and I couldn't stop my mind from wandering back to her. My gaze flicked back to where she was, talking with a younger girl, showing her how to use the equipment, I think. She had taken off her shirt, now in just her yoga pants and sports bra. I stared a little too long at her thick thighs and got hit upside the head when I missed the rotation.

"Harry, what the fuck. Get your head out of the clouds. I've only got like forty more minutes until Naomi expects me back." Mike takes a swig of his power drink and then says, "What are you even looking at?"

"Nothing, just spacey today." I brush it off and switch positions with him.

"Yeah, right. Is it that girl?"

"What?" I panicked. I hadn't told anyone of my fascination with the girl. It's not like I had a crush on her or anything. Plus, I didn't want him to think I was weird for knowing so much about her when I really knew nothing about her.

He smirks at me, "Oh, so it is a girl." He stops your session and looks out at the open gym, surveying the options.

I cringe at him, not really liking the small bit of objectification he was participating in. I always hated checking out the woman at the gym. They already had to deal with the toxic masculinity that surrounds this place. Most of the guys are respectful, but there are a few 'meatheads' that run around.