Make Mindy sweat

{if Edge < 200}{else}Reminder: activate game mode on the side bar.{endif}

{if victoria_blackout = true}”Are you sure that you are up for this?” Mindy looks at me dubiously. “You look like you were hit by a car.”

“I had a crazy date last night... Consider it my handicap for our workout.”

Mindy still looks concerned. “Please don’t wear yourself out though. If your date didn’t let you get any sleep, you can take a nap on the couch until you need to work.”

“Oh, no. You aren’t getting out of a workout that easy,” I say, grinning mischievously. “I will take a coffee refill, though.”

“Ahhh! I was so close...” She gets up from the table and pours me another.

{else}”You look tired, Warren. Did you not sleep well?” Mindy asks.

“I had a date that went a lot longer than I expected,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“Oh my!” She says in mock shock, but she can’t hold back the grin. I didn’t mean it to come out that way, but don’t feel like elaborating.

{endif}

“It is going to be a hard workout today. It is high endurance interval training.”

“Well that doesn’t sounds ominous at all. Do you think I am ready for that?”

“Have you been doing your planks everyday?”

“I have, and they suck.”

“Are you feeling stronger while doing them?”

“Yes, but that just means I suffer for LONGER.”

“You are ready then. The good news is that HIIT workouts are short and intense, with very little resting.”

Mindy purses her lips to the side. “Do you have anything in the short and relaxing category?”

“Not today. Ready?”

She groans. “Okay, just don’t kill me.”

I follow her into the workout room, then pull out my phone. “Here is a timer. When you hear a whistle we start an exercise. When you hear a gong we stop, then get ten seconds to rest while we get ready for the next exercise. When you hear a cheer...then we are DONE.” I describe the series of exercise moves we are going to cycle through. “This is about working as hard as you can in short bursts to work on strength. The lack of rests turns this into a cardio and calorie burner. No matter how hard an exercise gets, remember that we get to switch to something different very soon. If you can’t do another rep, modify it so you can. Work until the gong sounds.” She nods, looking willing but not confident. I give her a wide smile. “The entire workout is only fifteen minutes. Here we go!” I start the timer.

We start with mountain climbers. Mindy watches me to remember which exercises we are switching to. By the time we are on round two, we are starting to sweat and breathe hard. By round three, we are starting to struggle. She is getting fewer reps than I am, but hanging in there.

“You are kicking ass! Keep it up!”

By round four, we are sweating a lot. Droplets are running down out faces and hitting the yoga mats.

“Go! Go! Go! We are over half done! Two more rounds!”

I’m proud of her. She is out of breath, but digging deep to keep going.

“Last round! Finish strong!”

She looks determined. She is gasping, but not letting up. The intensity in her face is impressive. There is enough sweat under us for our mats make wet spongy sounds when we hit them.

“Last exercise! Stay with me!”

We look at each other. Her dark eyes and furrowed eyebrows are fierce. I’ve never seen her like this. I’m surprised how much her eyes remind me of Victoria’s. I’m momentarily taken back to last night’s events. There is a sudden tingle in my balls, but with all this heart-pounding exertion, the sensation barely registers. My thoughts are interrupted by an applause sound sound, signaling the end of the workout. We collapse on our backs, chests heaving for a couple minutes.

“Oh...my....word! That...was... so...intense!” She can barely find enough oxygen to speak.

“You...killed it!” I reach out a hand and she limply high-fives me. A few minutes later we are sitting up and drinking water. She looks down at herself. Her cotton shirt and sweatpants are soaked and clinging uncomfortably. “Well, this is very ladylike.” She pulls the damp shirt away from her breasts and shakes it.

“Ha! Yeah...you have graduated to the next level. Now you need some real gym clothes. It is so much more comfortable when you are getting sweaty. You’ll never go back!”

“Now I can see why. It always looked like brand name marketing and celebrity endorsements.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s that, too. Definitely. Don’t let that turn you off to it.”

“Okay. Well, if you think I’ve earned it,” she smiled.

“You are sitting in your own sweat puddle. You earned it!”

“It sounds gross when you put it that way.” She got up, groaning with exhaustion and took the few steps to a folded towel. “Is it normal to feel this nauseated?”

“Unfortunately, yes. But in an hour or two. You are going to feel great the rest of the day.”

“I’ll keep you posted on that.” She wipes up her sweat puddle. “So...tell me more about the date you had last night.”

“What do you want to know?” And what can I tell?

“Um...was this your first date with her?”

“Yes, I would call it a first.”

“You looked pretty tired when you got here, so I’m guessing it went pretty well?

I puffed out my cheeks and blew. “I don’t even know.” I feel a little weird talking to Mindy about Victoria like it was an actual date, but I also am overflowing with unresolved feelings about it. “She is attractive, but unpredictable. I got a lot of conflicting signals. She was all over the place... I don’t understand how a person can a person be so...untethered.” I stared into the distance. “There were **** highs and lows. I haven’t had time to process it yet.”

“Ha! ’all over the place’ and ‘untethered’... That sounds like me just after the divorce.”

“Oh, I doubt that! You are always so reliable,” I say as a complement, but Mindy doesn’t seem to know how to take it.

“I was anything but, for a few weeks at least. By ‘reliable’, don’t you mean ‘not exciting’? I’m sure that is real high on dating profile searches these days,” she says ruefully.

“After all the turbulence I went just through last night, ‘reliable’ or just ‘stable’ is looking pretty good...” I realize a second too late that my musing sounds like I could be flirting with her. There is a long couple seconds of silence.

“So, do you have a picture of her I can see?”