"Hey Rob, wanna come with me to the gym tonight?"
Leo's question in the phone surprised me a bit, but on the other hand, I had nothing better to do.
"Sure, why not," I replied. "I'll just grab my things and meet you there."
Twenty minutes later we stood in the locker room. Leo was already in his workout outfit - loose black pants, a tight white sleeveless shirt and fancy indoor sneakers - when I walked into the room. I told him to go ahead to start the warm-up, but he insisted on waiting for me. No problem, I got changed rather quickly, and we headed to the athletic facilities.
"So, how's it going with you and Alex?" Leo asked me as we were jogging on treadmills.
"Ah well," I started, feeling a bit embarrassed. Alex was a girl I had been dating for a couple of weeks, but the previous day she had told me she was hooking up with some New Zealander guy and so our dating was over. I didn't know how to take this, because me and Alex hadn't known each other for a very long time, but on the other hand I did feel pretty bad for being 'discarded' like that. All this went though my head before I replied to Leo, "You know, it didn't work out after all."
"Huh? So you ditched her?"
"Um, more like the other way around. But, well, I think it was the right thing to do," I lied with a straight face.
"I'm sorry to hear that, mate," Leo said. My positive/neutral disguise didn't fool him very well.
Another five minutes of jogging took place in silence, and then we moved from warm-up to the real deal; lifting weights.
Leo was a bit stronger than me, and we both knew it, but it didn't stop us from competing every single time we went to the gym. I liked to push my body to its limits, even with the taste of blood in my mouth, but I was wise enough to stop before getting seriously injured. And competing with me wasn't a child's play for Leo either, he too had to do his best to win me.
I had known Leo for quite some time now, we had been friends since high school. I hadn't been a big fan of sports back then, and Leo wasn't the captain of the football team either. He was a sound guy, equally talented in maths, science, music, and sports. Only English was giving him a hard time back in high school, mainly because his dyslexia and complete disinterest in prose and poetry. He did read newspapers and scietific texts, however, even the kind of books that looked so boring to me that I might consider reading them only if I suffered a serious state of sleeplessness. He used to joke about it, too; despite the fact that he might be a genius, he had no will to show it off, and he had a great sense of humor. We got along really well, and a solid proof of that was that we still kept in touch, even though high school was over and I had moved on to university. Leo had taken a job in a computer firm after graduating from high school, and he seemed to love what he was doing for living.
A thing I wondered about Leo was that he never talked about his girlfriends. I was sure he had had plenty; he was six feet and seven inches tall, had great muscles and a toned body, black hair and a charming little beard, and big blue eyes to make any woman crazy. With that kind of looks, combined to his wit, humor and intelligence, I thought women would be killing each other because of him. Yet, he never said a word about any female human being other than his friends and co-workers. I didn't dare to ask, seeing as it would sound rude and way too personal. If he didn't want to talk about his love life, I was fine with it β but it didn't stop me from wondering.
Right now, though, my brain had other issues to focus on. My biceps were crying for mercy as I lifted up two hunred pounds of metal, sweating and clenching my jaw, and repeated this move ten times over. Leo looked thoughtfully at this, and when I put the weights back to where they belonged, closing my eyes and breathing heavily, Leo added another 20 pounds to the iron bar. As I gave him room, he took the bar and lifted it up, repeating the move first ten times, then he breathed for a second and then lifted it for five more times.
"I quit," I said when he was finished. "I can't do this, Leo. You win."
He grinned at me, and suggested we head to the shower. I was happy to agree.
The water was steaming hot, running down my body and helping my muscles to relax. I had always been shorter and more broad-shouldered than Leo, only six feet tall and with a very muscular build. In fact, I probably looked stronger than him, even though I actually wasn't.