Life was in full cruise control.
Wake, coffee, shower, work, workout, dinner, sleep - repeat daily. I was a straight man in his early thirties starting to fall into that well-documented period where things began to dull.
My couple hours per day at the gym were a true escape from work and a rough marriage.
I had joined this high-end fitness club knowing it would act somewhat as therapy to assist the monotonous cycle that had formed.
Over the years I had the pleasure of meeting so many wonderful people at this club. The formula of high pricing in a trendy area seemingly works in attracting those are aesthetically appealing to the eye.
Another factor in the high-end club was it had a balance of all types - gay, straight, trans with thankfully very little of the stereotypical hardcore meatballs.
Though interestingly, one particular gentleman possibly his late twenties, who was very focused and not overly social, like many others, I was seeing regularly throughout my workout.
We eventually broke with a light acknowledged smile, hand wave and head-nod.
The bashful smirk started a bit robotic, almost as if we now had to do it because we literally saw each other multiple times per week.
But eventually our smirk slowly built up some meaning -- almost as-if we both were finding more and more in each other's' eyes as time went on.
This went on for months and months -- well over a year - literally hundreds of passing encounters and never one conversation.
I was in a stagnant marriage approaching 10 years and had never ventured outside my marriage to experience the many urges and distractions, let alone experiment with someone of my own sex.
With work occupying the majority of my time, attention and sexual appetite, I just hadn't yet had anything pull me away from my deeply embedded schedule.
In addition, what I found so perplexing was that we never once stopped to converse after all these years. There were many others I had met at the gym by just seeing each other so frequently that someone would break and start a conversation.
The closest we came to engaging was hearing someone nearby grunting loudly while lifting weights and we both caught eyes and laughed, but never further engaged to discuss the humorous incident.
Summer had begun, which meant lots of hosting and visitors coming to visit. The wife sent me on a hunt to the grocery store just before hosting some friends from out of town to purchase some last-minute items. I hadn't yet showered wearing my usual lazy weekend outfit of shorts and a broken in t-shirt. As I wrapped up loading bottles of wine into my cart, I turned the corner without looking and ran into someone's cart.
I looked up and there he was in a backward baseball cap, glasses, t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops.
"Oh no - I'm so sorry. Wait, I know you!" I apologetically barked for ramming into his cart.
"Oh yeah -- Hi," he softly smiled back.
"Sorry about that - wasn't really paying attention."
"No worries - just doing my weekly grocery shopping."
"Well gez -- all this time -- my name is Morgan, what's your name?"
"Right? I'm Adrian. Finally nice to meet you, Morgan."
"So nice to finally put a name with a face, Adrian."
"You seem to be gearing up for fun one!" As he peered into my cart.
"Yeah I think we'll be getting after it this weekend, but look at you Mr. Healthy! Look at all those veggies!" As I surveyed his cart with a titled head and smile.
"Hey I'm trying keep up with you Mr. Ripped", he smirked.
I smiled and admittedly blushed - with the thinnest margin of error considering my shorts, a light-weight, distressed material had nothing on under them.
" I see you pouring sweat on that treadmill for hours -- nice try!", I squinted my eyes and countered.
"Such a loser, right?"
"Well I think it's safe to say we're both devoted fitness nerds."
Our initial conversation quickly ran out of gas and we both gave the old, "Well alright - so nice to finally meet -- I'm sure I will see you at the gym soon."
As I moved towards to pay for the groceries, I noticed my shorts were quite revealing with my partly inflated cock straining against the thin material and some wet spots. My brain quickly processed some curiosity wondering if he had noticed - leaving me with an embarrassed feeling.
Just as I turned to push the cart back to the graveyard area of carts, I saw him leaving the grocery store.
He waved with one hand while pushing his cart and a smile that displayed his perfect teeth and jawline.
Without question, I felt some force of energy that wasn't your typical neighborly greeting.
My smirk mouthed silently, "See you at the gym soon", with my cheeks flush of continued excitement and interest.
As I drove off, my smile couldn't subside knowing something touched my curiosity for the first time in almost a decade.
I was truly caught off guard - my brain didn't really know how to process the engagement, interest, nor curiosity with Adrian.
With a continued wide smile, the windows went down and music went up as excitement built for my next fitness adventure.
Weeks went by back to my normal routine.
I found myself heading to the gym more often with the admitted hope of bumping back into Adrian.
Weeks turned into months and amazingly not one encounter.
The excitement and anticipation definitely diluted, but my radar remained optimistic I would soon see Adrian somewhere in the sweat factory.
It was a hot Wednesday afternoon in early September when and I was attending a work function. A group of colleagues decided to head over for happy hour after the function and I decided to tag along with a group.
Many of my colleagues were a ton of fun to hang out with. We were all married and typically enjoyed drinking and talking about the misery of marriage.
As we were about 3 drinks deep into happy hour, my radar exploded upon noticing Adrian in a group of men in suits.
My eyes zoomed in to make sure it was really him, but also quickly abandoned to make sure he didn't see me staring him down like some stalker.
As I glanced back over to him, my stomach dropped as he was smiling directly at me.
"Hi", he mouthed and waved.
"Hello", I smiled and mouthed back.
He held up a finger as wait for a second, stood up and started walking over in my direction.
I stood up with my large smile and cocktail with, "Well hello there."
"So all these years I see you passing at the gym and then finally meet, but then never see you at the gym again."
"Right? What the hell! You must have joined another gym because I have been there."
"Well actually I have been traveling non-stop, so sadly I haven't been getting my workout routine in."
"What kind of work do you do?"
"I'm an investment banker and we've been working on a deal that just closed."
"Well congrats", I lifted up my glass to cheers his martini glass.
"Thank you", as he smiled looking straight into my eyes, "Finally I get my life back. I will be back at the gym starting tomorrow. We have been working on this deal for over 3-months now - so relieved to finally close."
I raised my hand to wave over the waiter and ordered us two more cocktails.
I actually changed my order as Adrian convinced us into drinking dirty martinis.
We stood there talking about business, the weather, funny people at the gym and politics. It was easy and enjoyable conversation that continued until the sun went down. My colleagues had bailed, as did Adrian's and we ended up ordering some appetizers as our fluid conversations ran on with ease.
We eventually ventured into discussing relationships as I shared my marriage and the challenges we faced. He shared that him and his partner had recently separated, but still lived together. We definitely quickly learned we had a ton in common.
