***
Avery had asked to meet up at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks, just down the street from where Cheyenne’s gym was.
On another day, Cheyenne would have (and had, plenty of times) said no to such a request. But today was going to be a cheat day. And as much as she wanted to finally grab herself a nice greasy burger (no matter what Riley might have said about it after the fact!) Cheyenne figured that a Grande Caramel Frappuccino was as good of a treat as any—especially if it meant that she and Avery could sit down for the first time in weeks and not have a fight.
“Did you… have a good workout?” Avery ventured blindly, “Get your pumped maxed or whatever?”
“Mostly just whatever.” Cheyenne snorted, “Enough whatever that I probably shouldn’t have gotten the Venti.”
“Hey, it’s just a few extra calories.” Avery offered a weak smile, “I think you’ve earned a treat.”
Cheyenne chuckled at that. It wasn’t often that she and Avery agreed on much of anything these days. But she had felt that, after everything, an extra inch of squishy iced coffee and some artificial flavors wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Honestly, it felt like the greatest fucking thing in the world right now. She was still so exhausted. This was the last day of the week in her routine—her two days of rest were about to be upon her, and she wasn’t about to lift a finger if she could help it. Off from work, off from the gym, and laying at home in her pajamas…
“So… about the other day.”
“Yeah, about that.”
A collective gasp for breath, an audible steeling of the nerves.
“I’m sorry if I came across as a bitch”
They had both said it at the same time. Considering how long that they had been friends, neither was surprised to learn that the other one was on the same plane. These past few weeks and months had been filled with arguments and apologies as Cheyenne tried her best to slim down to a manageable weight. And while Avery and Brooke had proven themselves resistant (if not at times obstructive) to that goal, both of them had clearly had enough of the fighting for now.
“Jinx, you owe me a Coke!”
“Oh, fuck you.”
Avery stuck out her tongue before taking a big slurp of her Frappuccino. Cheyenne kicked her friend softly in the fat shin with her sneaker.
“It tell you what—how about instead of a Coke, I buy you one of those for the road?” Avery pointed at the half-empty Venti cup, “You know those things go to shit the closer you get to the bottom.”
In the time that Cheyenne had been under Riley’s wing, nearly thirteen months and counting, she had undergone a lot of work in refusing (what her trainer called) “toxic reinforcement”. The kind of behavior that gets you thinking about how good of a job you’ve done with your workout, so you don’t think twice about a big reward for yourself. Things like extra slices of cake, a soda, maybe a beer, those were all well and good in moderation. But Cheyenne’s problem for years had been that she didn’t know when to stop.
But it had been a long time since she and Avery had sat down and had a conversation that didn’t end in a fight. She didn’t want to push her luck.
“How about an iced coffee instead?” Cheyenne placed her cup down, “A tall iced coffee.”
“With hazelnut syrup?”
“…Okay, fine.” She relented, “But if Riley asks, it was just an iced coffee.”
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