But the traffic was so bad that, by the time I got to turn the car, I was feeling guilty about just leaving Adam standing there. So I decided that I would go in, meet him, tell him that I couldn't meet him--if you follow me--and go right back home again.
And then I couldn't find a parking space. I practically had to get a bus from where I parked the car to where I had to meet Adam.
So I was very late meeting him.
I was running along the road when I saw him standing outside the shop where we had arranged to meet. He was looking up and down the street with an anxious expression on his face, totally oblivious to all the admiring stares he was getting from passing women.
Every time I saw him I got a shock.
I'd forgotten how handsome he is. This tall beautiful man with the long muscley legs is waiting for me, I thought, feeling a bit overwhelmed.
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Why?
"Claire!" he said, looking delighted to see me. "I thought you weren't coming."
"I'm not," I mumbled.
"So have you just sent a hologram of yourself along or what?" he asked, smiling.
"No, I mean, Adam...look, I'm not sure if this is a good idea," I stuttered. "Like, you know..." I trailed off miserably.
"What isn't a good idea?" he asked gently as he steered me out of the path of oncoming pedestrians.
"Meeting you and that...you know, I'm married and all that," I said, not meeting his eyes.
Then I looked up at him and I couldn't believe how hurt he looked.
"I know you're married," he said quietly as he looked down into my eyes. "I wouldn't dare make any assumptions. I don't want to make any moves on you--I want to be your friend."
I was mortified. Absolutely mortified. What on earth made me say that to him? All right, so I was feeling guilty about meeting him. But wasn't that my problem? Why should I attribute any improper motives to him just because I had some myself?
Oh God! Or did I have some improper motives myself?
"Look, you'd better go home," said Adam.
He wasn't being cold and angry, but it was as if he didn't want me to touch him or anything.
"No!" I said.
Jesus, would I ever make up my mind!
"No," I said, not quite so frantically. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said what I said. I was being silly and overreacting."
We were attracting all kinds of curious and interested looks from the shoppers as they passed in and out of the doorway.
"Great," I overheard one young woman saying gleefully to her compan- ion. "There's nothing I love more than seeing other people arguing."
Her voice floated back to me from up the street. "It makes me feel like I'm not the only person in the world who's miserable."
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Oh don't worry, I thought, you're not. Adam stared at me and sighed in exasperation.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing," I said. "Can we forget that this happened and just go to the gym like we had planned?"
"All right," he said. But not in a very friendly way.
"Ah, be nice to her. Give her a kiss," called out a scruffy old man who had several opened bottles of Guinness sticking out of his torn overcoat pocket and who had been watching the proceedings with great interest. "She's sorry. Aren't you, love?"
"Come on," I mumbled to Adam.
I didn't want a crowd to start forming.
"Give her a smack," shouted the old man, who seemed to have suddenly turned a bit nasty. "It's the only language they understand!"
We hurried up the road; the old man's cries got a bit fainter.
"Jesus," I said in relief as we rounded a corner and we couldn't hear him anymore. Adam smiled briefly, but things still felt tense and uncomfortable.
We got to the gym and he tersely signed me in. I went off to the women's changing rooms and eventually sidled out, as self-conscious as a virgin bride in my leotard and leggings, hugging the wall for fear that anyone would catch a twenty-twenty, full-on, four-square view of my butt.
But I needn't have bothered. He barely glanced at me.
"The bikes are over there" he said, pointing. "And the free weights are in this room here. The rest of the machines are over that way."
And he left me to get on with things.
"That's lovely," I thought resentfully. "I could be pulling muscles left, right and center and he doesn't give a damn." I stood for a moment waiting for him to come back and show me how to do things.
To be perfectly honest, I suppose that I had entertained all kinds of thoughts, albeit guilty ones, about him bending over me as I lay flat on my back on the bench press, to adjust the weight or something. And for us to suddenly realize that we were close enough to kiss.
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That kind of romantic stuff.
But Adam ignored me completely, so I reluctantly decided that I might as well get a grip on my runaway imagination and do a bit of exercise.
I did my warm-ups and my stretches.
And before I knew it, I realized that I was enjoying myself.
"I'm not actually happy," I assured myself. "It's the artificial high that people get from exercise. Pheromones or something. No, it's endorphins, isn't it?"
Good God, I was turning into Helen.
I stole a glance at Adam.
(Whoops! That was very Romantic Novelish. People are always "stealing" glances in them.)
All right then, I stole nothing.
Not guilty of any kind of larceny.
Although I did know a guy in a pub who would have taken a couple of boxes of glances off my hands for a decent price. No questions asked.
But I did look at Adam when he didn't know that I was.
He pushed and lifted vast quantities of weights.
He looked wonderful.
Very grim and serious-looking and handsome.
A man who took his body seriously.
And with good reason.
Although he was just wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt he was pretty spectacular-looking.
Beautiful strong arms, with a glistening of sweat on them.
And a really lovely butt.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.
But he did.
After about an hour or so I decided that I had had enough.
"Okay." He smiled. "Go and have a shower and I'll meet you in the caf�."
He was already sitting in the caf� when I emerged, having spent far too long doing my makeup.