Before the Trainer Arrives

The text message came through at 4:47 PM. A photo. Elina in the living room, mid-stretch, one leg propped on the back of the couch, her yoga pants pulling tight across her hips. She'd sent it with no caption. Just the image, and I could see the reflection of Giulia in the mirror behind her, sitting on the floor, laughing at something I couldn't hear.

I was still at the office. Two reports left to finish, a client call at five. I typed back: Looking good. Be home by six-thirty.

She didn't reply.

That was the first thing. The not replying. Elina always replied. Even if it was just a thumbs up or a heart, she'd send something. But the message stayed there, unread by her, and I stared at it longer than I should have.

Giulia had been coming over for their workouts for three weeks now. She was Elina's oldest friend from university, a physiotherapy student who'd gotten into powerlifting and needed a training partner. Elina had asked me if it was okay. Of course it was okay. I wasn't the kind of boyfriend who policed his girlfriend's friendships. That was the whole point. I trusted her.

But the photo bothered me. Not the photo itself. The timing. She knew I was at work. She knew I'd see it and want to be there. And she sent it anyway.

I finished the reports. I made the call. I drove home with the radio off, which is something I never do.

The apartment smelled like sweat and coconut oil when I walked in. Elina's gym bag was dumped by the door, a towel spilling out of it. From the living room I could hear voices, low and relaxed, the kind of conversation people have when they've known each other for years.

"In here," Elina called.

I took off my shoes. The living room looked different somehow. The coffee table had been pushed against the wall. Yoga mats covered the floor. Giulia was sitting cross-legged on one, rolling her shoulder, and Elina was on the couch with her feet tucked under her, drinking from a water bottle.

"You're early," she said.

"Traffic was light."

Giulia looked up at me and smiled. She had one of those smiles that made you feel like you were in on a joke you hadn't heard yet. "Hey, Marco."

"Hey."

"We're waiting for the trainer," Elina said. "He's running late. Should be here in twenty minutes."

I sat down in the armchair across from them. The trainer. Right. She'd mentioned him. A guy named Luca who worked at Giulia's gym, specialized in functional movement, whatever that meant. I'd pictured a wiry guy in his forties with a clipboard. The way Elina talked about him, though, she'd never actually described him.

"He's good," Giulia said, as if reading my mind. "Really knows his stuff."

"I'm sure."

Elina stretched her arms over her head. Her shirt rode up, exposing a strip of stomach. I watched her, and she caught me watching, and she smiled. That smile. The one she used when she wanted something.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing."

Giulia laughed. "You two are cute."

"We're not cute," Elina said. "We're practical."

"Same thing, after a while."

The doorbell rang. Elina was up before I could move, padding to the door in her bare feet. I heard her open it, heard a man's voice, low and warm. Then she came back in with him, and I understood why she'd never described him.

Luca was tall. Not lanky tall, not awkward tall. Broad-shouldered, with dark hair cut close on the sides and a jaw that looked like it had been designed by someone with a very specific vision. He wore a black t-shirt that fit him the way t-shirts are supposed to fit, and when he shook my hand, his grip was firm without being aggressive.

"Marco, right? Elina's told me about you."

"All good things, I hope."

"She said you're a writer."

"Copywriter. It's less glamorous than it sounds."

"Still. Words are words." He turned to Elina and Giulia. "Ready to work?"

They were ready. They'd been ready for twenty minutes, waiting on the mats like students before a lecture. Luca dropped his bag by the couch and started explaining the session. Core stability. Hip mobility. Something about activating the posterior chain. I stopped listening after the first minute and just watched.

He was good with them. Patient. He corrected Giulia's form with a hand on her lower back, a light touch, professional. When he adjusted Elina's hip position, though, his hand stayed a second longer than it needed to. I noticed. I noticed everything.

I told myself I was being paranoid. This was his job. He touched people for a living. That's what trainers did.

But Elina's face when he touched her. That was the thing. She didn't flinch. She didn't look at me. She just closed her eyes, briefly, and breathed out.

I got up to make coffee. In the kitchen, I could still hear them, the low murmur of instruction, the occasional laugh. Giulia said something I couldn't make out, and Luca laughed, and Elina laughed too, a sound I knew as well as my own name. It was her real laugh, not the polite one she used with strangers. The one she used with me.

When I came back with my mug, they were doing a partnered stretch. Luca was kneeling behind Elina, guiding her arms back, opening her chest. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her eyes were closed again.

"Good," he said. "Just like that. Breathe into it."

I sat down. I drank my coffee. I watched my girlfriend breathe into a stretch while another man held her.

And here's the thing I keep coming back to, the thing I still can't explain to myself: I wasn't angry. I wasn't jealous, not in the way I expected to be. What I felt was something else. A kind of attention I hadn't felt in months. A sharpness. Like someone had turned up the contrast on the whole room.

Elina opened her eyes and looked at me. Just for a second. And in that second, I swear she knew exactly what I was feeling. She didn't smile. She didn't look away. She just held my gaze, and then Luca moved her into the next position, and the moment passed.

Giulia caught my eye and raised an eyebrow. Not a question. A confirmation. Like she'd been waiting for me to catch up.

The session lasted another forty minutes. I watched all of it. I watched the way Luca's hands moved, the way Elina responded, the way Giulia watched the two of them with an expression I couldn't read. When it was over, Luca packed his bag and shook my hand again.

"Good to meet you, Marco. Take care of that back of yours. Writers get terrible posture."

"I'll try."

Elina walked him to the door. I heard them talking in the hallway, voices low, too quiet to make out. When she came back, her cheeks were flushed. From the workout, probably. Probably.

"He's nice," I said.

"He's good at what he does."

"That's what I said."

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she picked up her water bottle and drank, and the conversation was over.

Giulia was packing her bag. "Same time Thursday?"

"Same time," Elina said.

I walked Giulia to the door. She paused on the threshold and looked back at me. "You're handling this well," she said.

"Handling what?"

She smiled. That same smile from before. "Goodnight, Marco."

I closed the door. Elina was in the shower. I stood in the living room, surrounded by yoga mats and the smell of someone else's sweat, and I tried to figure out what had just happened.

The photo. The not replying. The hand on her hip. The look she gave me while another man held her.

I should have been upset. I should have said something. But I didn't. I sat down on the couch, in the spot where she'd been sitting, and I waited for her to come out.

She took a long time in the shower.