I whistled as I waddled. The merry tune was at odds with the slow steps I was taking while carrying the heavy box to the trunk. I was too excited about the stunning, vibrant green herringbone glass tile the box contained.
My pace was a laughable comparison to Ethan’s grumpy determination as he loaded three boxes in the time it took me to carry one. Making teenagers wake up early on the weekend was a crime, so I wouldn’t chastise his mood, and happily accepted his begrudging assistance.
“Mom, why didn’t you have the tile delivered to the house? A PO box delivery for this is a pain.”
He was right. Spending Saturday morning going to the mail store to pick this up was not a fun weekend activity. However, I couldn’t have it delivered to our building because I wasn’t the one who ordered it.
It was a gift from an OnlyStan.
One of the first messages I got on the account was from a user called the.glass.artisan. He offered to send me free tile for the renovation project in exchange for a six-month package. This tile would have normally cost me thousands of dollars to buy, so I was quick to jump on his offer.
I was not so naïve as to give a stranger the address of my actual residence. So, while it was inconvenient to have such a heavy shipment sent to our PO box, it was the safe route.
Thus far, my OnlyStans account had enabled me to get the materials needed to finish the master bathroom and earned enough to pay for half the guest house. And it had only been three weeks.
I couldn't believe people were interested in my pictures, yet for every purchase, I got a little more confident in what I was providing. My heart got lighter the thicker my wallet got. I was doing this! The end was in sight, and I felt as if I was going to float across the finish line.
We finished loading the boxes into the car, and it was time to head back home.
Home.
It had been two weeks since we moved in, but as I had unpacked everything, the reality of living there sank in.
And what a good reality it was.
The apartment felt new from the renovations, and filling it with our things made it feel like a cozy home. The aesthetics and comfort created a symbiosis of peace in the space.
I loved being there.
After pulling into the garage, the rest of our labor began as we hauled the tile into the elevator, and then carted it into my bathroom. Ethan wordlessly moved as he hauled, the sleepiness in his face evident. Once the task was completed, he fell onto the couch, his lanky legs hanging over the end.
“Someone seems tired this morning,” I teased, “were you up too late talking to your future girlfriend, again?”
His forearm was over his eyes, and he groaned loudly in response. Most nights, after he went to his room for bed, I could hear him on the phone with Jessica. The habit made my heart swell. They were sweet, but he also insisted that they were still ‘just friends.’
“Don’t get too cozy. I need your help taking my photography lights to Striations for the photoshoot there today.”
“Mom,” he said, immobile with exhaustion, “I love you so much, but you are abusing your helpful son privilege too early this weekend.”
“I have one word for you,” I said with a devious smile, “PROM.”
My original offer to teach him how to cook carbonara for Jessica had somehow morphed into me making a rooftop dinner for their entire friends’ group. I was now hosting prom dinner for a dozen teenagers and including professional photos for all of them. For free.
Though it was going to be a ton of work, Nyx didn’t attend any school dances, so this was the first time I got to watch one of my sons experiencing this type of thing. I was happy to be a part of it.
Besides—my hopes were, after a fancy night out together, that Ethan and Jessica would finally declare themselves an item. So, I honestly didn’t mind doing extra work to help him make the evening memorable.
Ethan groaned and moved to stand up, “Alright, I will help carry your gear over to the gym, but then I am coming back home to nap.”
I smiled, loving that he thought of the place as home too.
“After this, you are free to do whatever you like until you head over to your dad’s.”
Sleepy teenager in tow, we snagged my equipment from the second floor and walked the short distance to unit four, Striations. A chime announced our arrival and Joon perked up as we walked in.
“Daepyonim! Legs!” he greeted enthusiastically.
“Did you just call me legs?” Ethan asked in grumpy confusion.
“You’re lucky I don’t call you chicken legs with how often you skip leg day,” Joon joked, and then turned to me, “How are you this morning, daepyonim?”
“Oh, I am doing well,” I said, but thumbed toward Ethan, “but someone else needs a nap already.”
“I feel ya,” Joon said affably, “Got my first workout in at 5am this morning. Almost time for lunch and a nap before round two.”
“Lunch?” Ethan said, turning his head to glance at a clock on the wall, “Joon, it’s barely ten.”
“It has been five hours and two thousand burned calories since my breakfast!” Joon said emphatically. “I can’t eat until after the shoot, but I’m going first and celebrating with lunch when it’s done.”
“I should get set up then,” I said, “Don’t want you to starve to death before we get started.”
Joon laughed, took the equipment from my hands, and walked us back to the area of the gym that we’d be setting up in. The corner where the shoot would take place was dark, but that was intentional. To highlight the physique of the trainers, being lit from above would accentuate their definition best.
Ethan’s height was helpful as he set the lights up, not even needing to go up on his tiptoes to touch the ceiling. After a few test shots to ensure the lighting was right, I released him from his faithful servitude.
“Thank you, sweetie,” I said, gratefully, “This was much easier with your help. Now go home and get some rest.”
“What are you tired from?” Joon teased, “None of these bags were heavy.”
“He was up late talking to a girl,” I said with a grin.
“MOM!” Ethan said, wiping his face, “you can’t give Joon that kind of ammunition.”
“A giiiiiiirl!” Joon crooned as he clasped his hands together, “What are you into, Legs? No! Wait! Let me guess—Is she an athlete, like you? Softball girl? Cheerleader? Or maybe—”
“Volleyball,” Ethan said, with a resigned sigh, likely answering to stop Joon’s onslaught.
“Oh! A volleyball player, huh? You must be a booty man,” Joon smiled mischievously, “I wonder if she will still like you when she realizes that she can jump higher than you?”
Ethan looked at the ceiling, as if pleading to a deity to strike Joon from the world.
“I hate you,” he mumbled, and then he turned to trudge toward the weights.
While laughing at Ethan’s stubborn misery, Joon abruptly stripped off his shirt in front of me. I was grateful that he was the first person to shoot that morning. This immediate skin exposure might have felt different had it been someone I didn’t know.
I held up the camera and took a shot as he went to put his shirt in his bag.
Click.
“I wasn’t ready!” Joon protested as he heard the camera shutter.
“Don’t worry,” I said, still looking through the lens, “a couple of relaxed shots before we hit the flexed poses will be useful for my composition options.”
“Ok, daepyonim,” he said, maintaining some relaxed postures, “but I’m trusting you to make me look super hot.”
Joon’s friendly banter put me at ease, letting me feel free to explore angles, and find interesting photo opportunities. As Joon left, two more trainers arrived to go next.
Looking through the lens, I felt in my element.
Once upon a time, I might have felt intimidated by working with such chiseled bodies. Maybe even a bit ashamed that my body was nothing like the models I was working with, sporting their defined abdominals, quads, and backs. However, today I just saw them as normal humans.
Very aesthetic humans, but this was only one of many ways a body could be seen as beautiful.
In the short time since I began my OnlyStans account, I had started re-learning that my body was desirable. It felt silly needing strangers to validate it, but the numbers were also something I couldn’t ignore. My new account was currently in the site’s top twenty trending profiles, and I couldn’t deny the results, no matter how unexpected they were.
Ethan came to bonk his head against mine for a quick goodbye, but I stopped to put down the camera and hug him. I wouldn’t see him until Wednesday and a proper hug was necessary.
“Bye, sweetie,” I said, squeezing his now sweaty torso, “Tell Jessica good luck on the French exam for me. I love you.”
“Je t’aime, maman,” he said as he squeezed me back.
Ethan was fluent in French. We moved to Paris when he was four, so he had been speaking it for most of his life. Enrolling in French class here in America was basically an easy A and a good foreign language for his transcript. After we left France, most of my cursory knowledge went with it, but I knew this phrase.
I love you, mom.
He used French to say it in public when he was a bit embarrassed, but I appreciated the affection in any language he would give it.
The two trainers used the quick break to do some push-ups to enhance their pump as I said goodbye. Once Ethan left, I returned to my task, and we proceeded to finish up the shoot as another set arrived. Three hours and eight incredibly fit trainers later, I was done.
I took a moment to review the images on my camera, my eye assessing the incredible bodies through a lens of professional neutrality. As I stood there, I got distracted by a tune that started playing in the gym. A high energy song that demanded movement from all those that listened to it.
‘Now come and watch me move it—
I promise it’ll make you lose it—'
With a mind of their own, my hips began to sway to the rhythm of the song. Slightly accentuating the emphasis as the bass of the song began to drop.
‘Got the boom. Got the base—
Imma shake it in your face—'
“Oi! Daepyonim,” Joon called from across the gym, “I need you to shut those hips off!”
“If you don’t want hips in your gym, then you better take the scintillating K-pop off the playlist,” I yelled back, not stopping my movement or even taking the time to look up from my camera.
“You’re distracting my spotter,” Joon laughed, “if I die, my death is on your hands.”
A smile crossed my face, and I stopped dancing. Not because I felt ashamed, but because the song had ended. Truthfully, the idea that such a small display could qualify as distracting to someone made me feel good.
I wasn’t even done up fancy like I usually was for my photoshoots. Currently, I was sporting leggings with a zip jacket and had my hair pulled back in a basic ponytail.
Putting away my camera, I began the process of packing up the lights, having to get a large box-jump to reach them without Ethan’s aid. As I was finishing up, Joon came over to see me.
“How did it go?” he asked earnestly.
“It was great!” I said honestly, “Lots of amazing images. I’ll send you a link to a folder in about a week, after I get them all edited.”
“Do you want some help getting the gear back to your place?” Joon asked as he gestured to the various black bags strewn across the floor.
“That would be really helpful,” I said truthfully. The gear wasn’t heavy, just bulky. One more person would make the task much easier.
I grabbed the box-jump I had used to reach the lights, “Let me put this back and I’ll meet you at the door with whatever you can’t carry.”
In the time it took me to totter across the gym to put the box back, Joon had moved all the equipment out of the corner I had been in. Now free of my burden, I headed towards the door to meet him.
Rounding the corner to the entrance, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Joon wasn’t the one waiting for me, holding my bags. In fact, he wasn’t by the door at all.
Instead, Joseph stood there, waiting patiently, with every piece of my equipment hanging from his broad shoulders.
While my face was arranged in shock, his hazel eyes looked at me expectantly. He seemed to already know I was here, that the equipment was mine, and that I had agreed to a set of helping hands.
I felt my face flush because I had a sneaking suspicion that he was the spotter that had been distracted with my brief gyrating hips.
And now he was waiting to walk me home.
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