Free Just Friends With Benefits by Meredith Schorr Page B

do you like the guy or was it just great sex?”
     
    “I think I like him, Suze. He makes me nervous in a good way and I feel the need to impress him like I haven’t felt around a guy in ages.”
     
    “Impress him how?” Suzanne asked.
     
    “With my smarts.”
     
    Before I could continue, Suzanne snorted and I waved my hand in protest, almost knocking over my drink. “Seriously, he’s a brain and, while I love chick-flicks and repeats of ‘The Brady Bunch,’ I want him to know I’m not one dimensional.”
     
    “Stephanie, he’s known you since college. I’m sure your deeper side has surfaced at least once or twice in that time,” Suzanne said before breaking out in laughter.
     
    “Don’t laugh at me!” I begged. “C’mon. I actually have feelings for a guy that go beyond tepid for the first time since you’ve known me and you laugh. Nice.”
     
    Finally serious, Suzanne said, “I’m sorry, Steph. I admit, I am having too much fun with this. I’ll stop.”
     
    “Thanks.”
     
    “So, when you are going to see Butterscotch again”?
     
    “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from Butterscotch since he left my hotel room five days ago.” And I had double checked to make my sure my phone was charged and on at all times. And since Hille had responded to the ‘joke of the day’ email Paul had sent to all of us, I knew he wasn’t trapped under a dresser in his apartment.
     
    Tapping her perfectly manicured pointer finger on the table, Suzanne said, “You know what I always say?”
     
    Hoping for sage advice, I asked, “What’s that?”
     
    “Don’t put all your eggs in one bastard.”
     
     
     
     
     

Ten
     
     
     
    The following night, Hille still hadn’t called and I needed an excuse to put distance between me and my phone so I went to the gym. Running was a much better stress reliever than sitting in front of the tube with a pint of Cherry Garcia and I wanted to be in good shape in case Hille called and wanted to see me naked again. I stepped on the treadmill, entered my stats and began my two minute warm-up of walking briskly. Although I was usually pretty focused at the gym, I decided to actually look around and see if there was any eye candy. I needed to prove to myself that Hille was not the only guy I found appealing. To my left, a girl who weighed next to nothing was running vigorously. She was probably better off strength training or eating something more than raw carrots. To my right, a plump guy, probably close to my age, was jogging at a slow pace. He was perspiring so profusely that some of his sweat landed on my treadmill and I scanned the room for another open machine. There weren’t any so I focused on not vocalizing how disgusting I thought he was. Next to the row of treadmills, the resident meat heads showed off their massive biceps by lifting heavy weights but none of them did it for me. I was never attracted to the really muscular type. I preferred guys who were in shape, like Hille, but didn’t look like they spent all of their free time at the gym.
     
    Just thinking about Hille made me horny and as the beginning notes of U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” played on my MP3, I increased the speed of the treadmill to 8.0. I quietly sang along to the music, hoping to drown out thoughts of him but it didn’t work. The faster I ran, the more vividly I could imagine him cheering me on, screaming “That’s my girl!” while I crossed the finish line of the National Marathon.
     
    After my run, I walked to the floor mats to stretch and do some sit-ups. As I passed the row of Nautilus equipment, I stopped short in my tracks and banged into one of the male fitness instructors.
     
    The instructor, a tall guy wearing a black t-shirt with the word ‘Trainer’ printed across the left breast, put his hand on my shoulder and asked, “Are you okay?”
     
    Flustered and distracted by another guy who, from the back, looked exactly like Hille and was wearing a