“You have to get up,” he said.
Vaguely, she heard him, but she didn’t move.
“Sara, my dear, you’re going to the gym with me.”
She buried her head under the four pillows they’d bought.
“Up!”
She didn’t budge.
Mike put his hands on her waist and pulled her out of bed. When Sara made no effort to wake up, he hung her over his arm like a wet towel and carried her to the bathroom where he set her on the side of the tub.
He held up a plastic shopping bag. “These are for you. Put them on. You have ten minutes.”
“I don’t want—”
Mike left the bathroom.
“I hate exercise,” she muttered as she picked up the bag. It was full of workout clothes, including sneakers, all in her size.
Sara grimaced. It seemed that yesterday while she’d been happily enjoying their time together, Mike had been deviously, underhandedly, and sneakily planning to make her go to the gym with him.
When she left the bathroom, her hair was pulled back, and she was wearing dreadful black leggings and a blue tank top with a ghastly sports bra under it.
When Mike blinked a couple of times in appreciation of the shape of her, she was sure she had him. “Are you telling me that I have to go to a gym because you don’t like the way I look?”
>
“You look great today, but four years from now you’ll hit thirty, and things will start falling. Think of it as prevention.” He handed her a bottle filled with water and put his arm around her shoulders. “Look, if you hate it, tomorrow you can stay home and turn into mush. But today we’re going to the gym. And who knows? Maybe you’ll like it.”
Sara started to reply but then he opened the front door and she saw that it was still dark outside. She turned back toward the bedroom but he caught her. Chuckling, he got her to the car.
Sara was not laughing. “So when did you connive to buy all this?”
“Yesterday while you were lusting over those expensive cake pans, I called a friend of mine. She got everything and left it outside the front door. She’s going to meet us at the gym.”
“She? You’re introducing your wife to one of your former lovers?”
“You can try to start all the fights you want but you’re still going to the gym. She’s a yoga instructor.”
“Yoga? Why would you think I’d want to do that?”
“I happen to know that you can put your knees in your ears and your ankles in my ears at the same time—and that’s when we’re standing up. I don’t know why, but I thought yoga and you seemed to be a perfect match.”
Sara had to look out the window to hide her smile.
“That’s better,” he said. “Her name’s Megan, and for the record, I’ve never been to bed with her.”
“I’d rather go to bed with her than exercise with her,” Sara mumbled unhappily.
“Yeah?” Mike asked, eyebrows raised.
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
He laughed, and minutes later they pulled into a big parking lot full of cars.
“Who in the world goes to the gym this early in the morning?”