‘You’re cool, Duncan. You got this, man.’ He told himself for the dozenth time that day. It was about a half hour before his meeting time with Layla. He had felt full of restless energy. Even dismissing the auto-clean robots to do his own floors to keep busy. He didn’t let himself get distracted with his SP or his many post responses. It was time to go. He had a carefully considered genius plan to arrive early to alleviate some nerves with some light weights. Duncan barely took in the bland corridor as he marched through, counting his steps. He was relieved to be off and on his way to the gym and very relieved he’d be there first and able to relax. Suddenly his brain started giving him the visual information of his surrounds as he peeked through the doorway into the gym. There she was. She’d beaten him there, damnit! ‘Of course!’ he muttered to himself then immediately regrated it. Layla had been standing strangely silhouetted between the overhead lights in a random dead spot of light. His mutter recrimination must have been louder than he thought as her head whipped up. The change of her position in response to his arrival, brought her eyes into the light and he noticed how astoundingly blue they were, as if they’d captured the oceans light. Then she smiled and all his careful plans for today evaporated, fled like a forgotten rain.

Duncan walked over and suavely said, ‘Uh. Hey.’ ‘Hey yourself.’ Layla replied, the smile widening. The silence was momentary but somehow deafening in his ears. ‘So I was thinking, we could start with some basic lifts and…yeah…’ he trailed off lamely. ‘No witty lines about the weather today? OK great, tell me what to do?’ It didn’t fail to register with Duncan how she was totally at ease with things and he was nervous as hell. He took her through some basic exercises. She took to it like a duck on a pond. He couldn’t help but notice her hands nestled perfectly in the middle of the dumbbell bar. She seemed an uncanny natural. They chatted a little, at first about the lifts themselves then about broader things. ‘So I was thinking, we should all get together on this level and pool our income to get a coffee upgrade.’ Layla stated, racking the dumbbell. Her voice was steady and only the lightest sheen of perspiration was visible. Duncan found that immensely distracting and gazed a little off into the distance. ‘Yeah that’d be great. This stuff just tastes like someone waved something coffee flavoured over some hot water.’ Her laughter in response was easy and infectious. Duncan found himself relaxing and grinning. ‘Maybe we could save up and see if we can get some third rate coffee from somewhere together as a upgrade?’ she asked. He blinked, wondering if she’d asked him out. His smile was shy and genuine as he said, ‘I’d like that a lot.’ She raised her hand for a high five and he met hers with his own, her warmth pleasing to his skin. ‘So do you work above Universal?’ This was a fairly common getting-to-know-you question among adults so Duncan had expected it. ‘Yeah I’m a Cutman.’ Layla nodded, her face interested. ‘Wow ok. You know I was just talking to a friend and she was saying some guy who’s a Cutman has started putting out commentary on his job. Apparently he’s not preachy but makes points about it while letting people make up their own mind. I was going to look him up later.’ Suddenly, Duncan’s earlier worries about nervousness and being uncomfortable paled in comparison to this moment. ‘Yeah. Well. Um cut work is pretty interesting sometimes, I suppose.’ He answered lamely. She nodded in response. ‘I’m going to search his feed later. He sounds like a fascinating guy.’ Duncan nodded, non-committal, wondering if he should tell her that sounded like him. He decided against it and instead stepped in behind her to correct her motion as she curled the weight. ‘You don’t want to swing the weight, you want your arm to do the work,’ he said to her as he placed his hand on her hip then with his other, guided her arm into the correct positioning, ‘otherwise the lift is ineffective and you aren’t working the muscle. Set your arm and lift using only the arm itself.’ Layla’s eyes were watching his hand on her skin as she easily improved her motion. He suddenly realised his physical contact with a good portion of her body and blushed, nearly springing back. ‘Uh…Sorry!’ he stuttered. Her eyes went wide then she laughed. She dumped the weight on the ground and doubled over laughing at him. His face went a deeper red. ‘I’m sorry! It’s just, you looked so embarrassed.’ He scowled in mock severity as a grin threatened to still his pose. ‘Madam, I do believe you have made sport of me and I will not stand for it!’ she laughed even louder. ‘Sir, I would never! Why never ever!’ They both laughed and continued the workout.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

After weights they talked long as they stretched on the matting. Neither of them needed it but both settled in as a way to prolong their time together. Duncan was getting the idea that maybe she liked him a little and wondered and his mind quietly, yet frantically, thought up reasons to arrange another meeting. Once again, Layla go there first. ‘Listen tomorrow I have some things to do but the next day it’d be great to do this again?’ Duncan nodded and tried to play it cool and shut the “HELL YES!” in to his internal monologue. ‘Yeah that sounds good.’ He said in what he hoped was a cool manner. He watched her as she turned to leave, his hands in his pockets. Layla turned after a few steps and came quickly back to him. She put her hand on his chest and leaned in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek before saying thank you and with laughing, impish eyes, she left him there slightly stunned. Rather than letting himself obsess about the meaning of that kiss, Duncan threw a good weight onto a bar and bench pressed until his arms quivered. His mind didn’t slow a bit.

As he entered his apartment, he promptly forgot how many steps he’d counted and sat at his short bench to shovel down a bowl of jelly boogers. He un-muted the main Newscaster feed. ‘So Annie, I cant help but notice that’s been a few days since the big announcement and people are already posting about names.’ Sandy said exuberantly. Duncan immediately muted the feed again, not hearing Annie’s typical enthused response. He briefly wondered if these two actually cared about this crap. ‘ I mean, it seems like Annie cares and Sandy thinks himself a little aloof and above it all but I’d back on her being the one that goes home and wants to headbutt some knitting needles into her eyeballs.’ He said aloud. He winced at the morbidity of that but thought some more about it. Do we all just behave in a way we think others would like to see us? Do most people genuinely give a shit about this stuff? Is it easier to care about that than being stuck on Universal? Would we be happier back in the capital days when we didn’t have it or StarPower to feed us? Surely not, because back then we had to grind out our living and so many people lacked food and healthcare and somewhere to live. Surely caring about such banal things was a decent price to pay. He considered firing up his cam and asking a wider audience on his feed, figuring the debate might be a great thing but then remembered Layla. She said she was going to look for him. ‘Well, she didn’t say for you, she said for a guy.’ He mused to himself, his voice as usual echoing back at him. Could she even have a realistic chance of finding him that way? If her friend was on his feed she could send a link but without that, his posts were just one voice in billions. ‘I mean, even with my jump to SP17 that’s not going to get a lot of hits in a search.’ The echo was louder this time, his voice growing with certainty. He remembered he’d minimised his personal SP on his mainscreen and waved to bring it back up. He grew very still. Blinking softly, SP51.