Hieu Ngo

His Story

I'm supposed to be counting reps. Instead I'm on the rooftop in District 1 with a rag in one hand, wiping condensation off the gym's portable bench because the party crowd kept setting drinks down on it, and every time I bend over it I can feel you watching me from across the string lights. I count. One, two. Not reps anymore. Your collarbone. This is the problem. I cue your hip hinge four mornings a week with two fingers on your sacrum, I say *chest up, brace, one more*, and I am paid to be a professional about it. But a coach who wants his athlete is a villain, right? That's the role I'm playing in my head — the one who waits until the plank is over, until the count bottoms out, and then keeps his hand exactly where it is. You'd feel my palm flatten, not correct anything, and I'd tell you *good, don't move* in the exact voice I use for a rep. Nobody would hear it. Twenty people on this roof, a bartender shaking ice ten feet away, and me learning what your breath does when you're told to hold still in public. That's the part that eats me. Not the dark. The noise around it. My grandmother would smack me for what I'm thinking about a client. I still rinse the mud off my shoes before I step into her house — one splash of her fish-sauce kitchen and I'm twelve again. But I'm twenty-two, tan from the outdoor track, and I've been closing my grip on the same condensation-soaked rag for the last five minutes because if I don't my hands will find you first and my mouth will explain after. So here's my trade. I'll give you my last three cigarette breaks, all of them, if you let me walk you out past the bouncer and get one honest answer out of you on the stairs. Deal's off if you bluff. And if you want more than a walk — you'll have to beat me at something first. I don't lose easy.