Do I Know You?(34)

Finally, it comes to me.

I haven’t had time to exercise seriously since law school, when I would hit UCLA’s Wooden Center on my way home from contracts or torts. I did everything—weights, rowing, running. I enjoyed it, how the physical balanced out the mental work in my days. Okay, I enjoyed the confidence of being in shape, too.

Work got overwhelming when I joined my firm, leaving barely enough time for grocery shopping or sleep, not to mention serious fitness. Investment Banker Graham, however, probably goes to Equinox at six in the morning before the office. It would be good to reconnect with the Graham who got in regular workouts. Flush with the momentum of my first real idea since my ingenious second coffee trip, I spring from the white comforter. I grab my tennis shoes from the floor and pull on a T-shirt.

Time to hit the gym.





19


    Eliza


I LOVE THE water. Graham, not so much. On our honeymoon in Greece, despite the crystalline waters of Santorini, I could only keep him at the beach for an hour before he would get restless and want to wander into town for gyros or sightseeing. Not that I really minded. Our honeymoon was perfect.

Nevertheless, without Graham checking his watch next to me, I stayed at the pool until it closed. The hours were serene. I floated in the water, swam lazy strokes to exercise the stress from my muscles, read my script while I sunned on the lounge chair—in short, I vacationed.

Finally, though, with my feet in my sandals, hearing the gate clang closed behind me, I could no longer ignore the faint tug I’d felt since I’d gotten there earlier. I hadn’t seen Graham since he left the pool hours ago, hadn’t even heard from him. The couple times I checked my phone, pretending to myself I wasn’t wondering whether he’d texted, I found only my background photo—sand dollars I found washed up on the shore in La Jolla.

How is Graham spending his time? For the past fifteen minutes, I’ve nonchalantly strolled the hotel grounds, searching for some sign of him instead of returning to my room. Maybe he’s been holed up in his Jacuzzi, but I figure, honeymoon suite notwithstanding, he would have to be bored by now.

I walk by the bar. Graham’s six feet and two inches would put him over the heads of the other patrons, but his golden hair is nowhere to be found. I continue to the business center, convincing myself quite reasonably I’ll find him logging into his work email or printing out hundreds of pages of case documents. But the space is empty, orderly with disuse, the two computer screens showing only photographic slideshow screensavers. I even walk the winding path down to his room and ring the bell on the pretense of wanting to check his bag for something I can’t find. He’s not there.

In fact, he’s nowhere to be found.

Finally, I give up. My curiosity feels like a hangnail. I pretend it’s no problem and I’ll forget it in five minutes, knowing the whole while it’s going to distract and irritate me every five minutes. But I’m not going to keep up my one-woman search party for my own husband late into the night, scouring every inch of the Treeline Resort.

Instead, I’ll head back to my room, where I’ll shower, then casually text Graham, just like I would if we really were just starting our relationship. Like I did when we were just starting our relationship. I like these echoes, these reprises. It’s like when the chorus repeats in your favorite song.

On my way back to my room, I walk past the gym.

Then I stop.

I double back to peer in the windows.

Because there is Graham, sitting at the bench press, out of breath. His white T-shirt stretches over the drool-worthy shoulders I ogled in the pool earlier. He’s doing biceps curls, focused on each rep with grimacing intensity. The sheen of sweat on his brow, his forearms, the collar of his shirt, shows me he’s been here for some time. It’s extremely distracting in the best way.

I watch him. For the second time today, I just stare, lost in the sight of him in front of me.

Until he catches me looking. We make eye contact through the window while he lowers the dumbbell slowly. His green eyes linger on me for a second before he raises an eyebrow, like he’s asking, Been there long?

Despite the new flirtatious charge between us, I will not have him thinking I was just out here gazing in wonderment for the past five minutes. In fairness, it’s been more like three minutes. Quickly, I school my features into impassivity and waltz into the gym like I’m unembarrassed.

While I walk up to him, he doesn’t change what he’s doing—just picks up the dumbbell with his other hand. I reach him, and I can’t help myself. I ask the question in my head even though it’s not in character. “What are you doing here?”

He looks up, grinning when he sees me. “Getting my workout in. Normally, I’m a morning-gym guy,” he replies, despite this being nowhere in the vicinity of the truth. Graham is a morning-coffee guy. Sometimes a morning-reading guy, though I have no idea what’s on his Kindle. A morning-gym guy? He hasn’t gone to the gym since law school.

Yet there’s nothing except casual conviction in his voice. I stare, my reason different this time. For once, Graham is undeniably, unquestionably playing our game better than me.

He deposits the dumbbell on the floor. “I’m only out here now because, well,” he goes on, starting to smile, “when I’m not in a relationship, I find working out before bed helps me burn off my extra . . . energy.”