"Cheye is..."
Brooke took a long pause, swirling her iced coffee in its cup. She hadn't meant to break eye contact at the question, but somehow found herself staring at the table while she pondered just how to answer it. After all, Cheyenne was one of her best friends. Avery too, but then the question wasn't about Avery... per se. Not that you could talk about one without at least mentioning the other these days. It didn't feel right to just air dirty laundry about her friends to someone she barely knew, but...
Well, Riley had to have some idea of what Cheyenne was like, right? They'd been close for years. And she'd tried to hang out with Avery once or twice two, Brooke remembered that much. So it wasn't like it was a complete stranger... even if Brooke and Riley didn't know each other, they at least knew the same people. That was something.
It was enough, at least, for Brooke to chuckle a little bit as she looked up from staring holes into the coffee shop table.
"Cheye is getting on my last fucking nerve, if you want me to be honest."
Riley offered a little laugh as she slurped on her own drink. An uncharacteristically caloric Caramel Ribbon Crunch frappuccino. Highly unusual for a personal trainer, but Brooke was hardly in any position to judge when and where she took her cheat days. Little droplets of light brown iced coffee trickled out of one side of her mouth before she wiped them off, composing herself.
"Tell me how you really feel, damn."
"Sorry, that was way more emphatic than I really wanted it to be." Brooke tittered as she handed Riley another napkin, "Anyway, she and Avery are just... they're just ugh not supportive at all, you know?"
"Mm." Riley sucked a little bit more to keep herself from coughing, "That hack! really sucks. I can see Avery doing that though."
"Ugh, it's just a lot. She and Cheye just... I love 'em, you know? But I really need to get out of that apartment every now and then."
"That's perfectly natural though—not to say that they have to support you through your fitness journey, but you getting some distance from them as you go through yours isn't like, the worst thing in the world."
"You'd be surprised at how often they try to make me feel that way..."
"Yeah, well..." Riley took a noticeably deep sip from her coffee, enough to make a significant dent in its remaining volume, "I'm, uh... I'm not gonna say anything too mean, you know. I know that you're friends with Avery and all, and I don't want to... you know..."
"No, it's fine, you can say what's on your mind."
"Avery's a real bitch, and I'm not surprised that she's trying to guilt you into feeling like shit for bettering yourself."
It should have upset her, hearing that about one of her oldest friends. But it was so audacious and so relatable to what was going on in her life right now that Brooke couldn't help but crack a smile and an astonished little laugh.
"What? You told me to say what's on my mind!"
"Dang! Tell me how you really feel!"
The two of them laughed about it, the outburst seemingly dropped. Whatever harsh feelings Riley had for Avery... Brooke kind of understood. There had never been any love lost on Avery's end at least. Back when Cheyenne was still sorta-kinda going to the gym, Avery used to nag anyone who would listen about how Cheyenne paid too much money for "some gym bunny" to give her advice and watch her work out. Brooke might have believed it... once upon a time. But after seeing her friends in a new light, she was beginning to see that there were both sides to this animosity.
"Nah, it's like... Avery hasn't always been really nice. Let's leave it at that." Riley held up her hands, "She's your friend, I don't want to be a bitch."
"It's okay, I kind of understand where you're coming from." Brooke swirled her coffee again, "She's got like this way of getting under your skin. Like little comments, you know?"
"Believe me, I know." Riley took another slurp from her straw, "Her and my mom would get along just fine."
There was a short pause between the two of them. Brooke wasn't having as horrible of a time as she might have thought; at least, not yet anyway. But sensing the sort of drift that they'd undergone, Brooke went back to the original topic of conversation—Cheyenne. The person that Riley had initially asked about, and the reason why Brooke had been avoiding Riley for so long. Because... you know, awkward.
"But back to Cheyenne..."
"Ah yes, the person we were originally discussing." Riley played it off cool, "How is she? I haven't seen her in a while."
"She's, uh..." Brooke cleared her throat, "She's good."
"She's cough cough good, or really good?"
"I mean, she seems happy enough." Brooke made it a point not to say 'like a pig in mud', "She and Avery spend a lot of time together, you know watching movies, eating out..."
A perplexed look on Riley's face, combined with what Avery had told Brooke about Riley, made Brooke quickly correct herself.
"U-Uh, you know, like DoorDash and stuff."
"Ah. That makes more sense."
Another big slurp from Riley. She was already almost halfway done with her frappe.
"So she's, uh..."
"Oh yeah." Brooke nodded, "Cheye's a pretty big girl these days."
"Ugh... I hate that for her." Riley groused, "She really wanted to lose weight for a while, and then we got her down to just under two hundred and everything went to shit."
"That's at least partly my fault." Brooke sheepishly smiled, "You know, movie marathons, takeout binges... I-I hadn't really tried losing weight yet, a-and—"
"Relax, I'm not mad about it." Riley rolled her eyes in a friendly sort of way, "Cheye's her own person and as long as she's happy, I'm happy. She's not my client anymore, so it's not my job to get on her about her weight. Or any other bad influences in her life."
Riley stuck out her tongue, and Brooke laughed.
"Okay, guilty as charged." Brooke smiled, "But in my defense—that was before I knew that I didn't have to be fat my whole life."
"Yeah, well, as long as you stick with it, I'll be happy." Riley put her coffee down on the table for the first time since they'd sat down, the only thing left of her frappe was a gooey hill of whipped cream at the bottom of the cup, "I've seen so many clients come and go lately, it'll just be nice to have like, someone I'm friendly with at the gym, you know?"
"I know. Personally, I try and get in and out as quickly as possible."
"That's kinda me too these days." Riley sighed, "Ugh. I miss Planet Fitness."
"You don't like it at Fitness Edge?"
"It's not... ugh, it's not the gym. It's the whole atmosphere, I guess." Riley frowned, "Lots of gym bros, my boss is a dick, and I just turned thirty."
"Wow." Brooke sipped from her coffee, "You're, like, a little old lady."
"You can't possibly be that much younger than me."
"Yeah, but I'm not... thirty."
Brooke giggled while Riley's face pursed as she held back laughter.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Riley grabbed her frappe by the bubble lid and shook the straw around before reaching over and throwing it in the bin, "Ugh. I needed this. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk."
"Hey, you invited me." Brooke smiled, "I'm always happy to make Gym Friends."
"Gym Friends are pretty hard to come by nowadays." Riley blew a stream of air out contemplatively, "I promise not to, like, pump you to be a client or something if you promise we can do this more often."
"I'd like that." Brooke smiled, "Next time, I'll buy."
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