A Cursed Moon: A Weird Girls Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet Eclipse) by Cecy Robson

would’ve found his body ditched in the alley. I knew it because damn it all, I was thinking it, too.
    When I met Dan, I was working at a gym in Palo Alto as a personal trainer. Cake job; I didn’t even need to work out. My beast gave the false appearance that I survived on protein shakes and spent every waking moment lifting. All I had to do was pretend like I could make some skinny ass wimp look like me by convincing him to buy the shit the gym sold to build bulk . . . along with locking him into a six month membership. The first wimp sent my way was Dan.
    We tried squats first, just to loosen his spaghetti limbs. He face planted within the first four and cracked his glasses. A few of the meatheads watching laughed. I didn’t, and half-expected him to bolt from the humiliation. I would have. Instead the little turd wiped the blood from his nose and fixed his glasses. “Um. What’s next?” he asked me.
    “A trip to the emergency room,” I answered him honestly.
    He ignored me and moved toward the weights. I followed and maneuvered him back to the rowing machine where I’d thought he wouldn’t get hurt. Hell, the motions were too much for him. He flailed around as if drowning. Hands-down the most uncoordinated piece of work I’d ever seen. Somehow he managed to belt himself in the schnoz with his knee. I yanked him up by his now bloody shirt and tossed him a towel . . . which he of course, didn’t catch.
    The others laughed. They stopped laughing at the sight of my glare. I crossed my arms and loomed over Dan. He blinked up at me with his shattered lenses. Damn. He probably saw twelve of me. “Why are you here?”
    He glanced around. “To get in shape.”
    I didn’t need to take a whiff to know he was lying. “Sure you are. Why are you here?” I asked again.
    He lowered the towel from his battered nose. “I want to look better so I can meet women.”
    I nodded. “You want to get laid.”
    His face heated and he backed away, pointing to the display cabinet. “Will this, uh, help? You know, build more muscle?”
    “Nope. It’ll just make you crap out your left lung.” I motioned around. “None of this shit is going to help you. You can’t squat worth a crap and anything above fifty pounds might kill you. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your cash. Get the hell out of here and find some nice librarian to bang.”
    The gym fell silent. Funny thing about your first week of work, the boss was always watching. She stormed out in the middle of some pilates class and fired me on the spot. Fine by me. She was a lousy lay and her place smelled like moldy jock straps. Dan chased me to my car after I yanked off my official gym T-shirt and tossed it on the floor on my way out. “Sir, wait!”
    I opened the door to my POS Camaro and slipped inside, slamming the door so the rusted lock would catch. The engine coughed, sputtered, and finally caught. I sighed when I realized Dan was lurking by my door, his glasses just barely hanging onto his face. I rolled down the window. “The name’s Bren. You call me ‘sir’ again and I’ll beat your ass.”
    Dan’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry. I didn’t mean . . . you were honest in there.” He hooked a thumb behind him toward the gym as if I didn’t know where he’d meant. He lowered his head. “You also didn’t laugh when the others did. That was, you know, cool.”
    Blood smudged his nose. The afro on the top of his head was more Bozo than Tito. And his thin frame was one false move away from shattering. He looked like a clown that had been run out of the circus school for embarrassing the profession.
    And he was thanking me for being nice.
    It wasn’t hard to tell he’d been dumped on. And hell, couldn’t I relate? I huffed. “Get in.”
    “Huh?”
    I jerked my head and grinned, something telling me I was in for one hell of a time. “I said get in, Stan.”
    “It’s Dan . . . Dan Matagrano.” He walked slowly around the car and climbed