Laney could definitely smell the far-off, tempting scent of barbecue. It did not make her want to go running with Vanessa. It made her want to climb desperately over Vanessa's seated body in a determined effort to reach the barbecue and stuff as much of it in her face as possible. It smelled that good.
Unfortunately, that urge was not going to help her become more physically fit, unless Vanessa decided to wrestle her for it. And she didn't want to fight Vanessa for the sake of delicious barbecue -- Vanessa was her new friend. She wanted, so badly, for Vanessa to
like her -- and that already meant overcoming the huge problem that was Laney's general lack of athleticism. She was going to have to jog like a fiend and pretend like she loved it.
This was, clearly, the only way to have friends.
And her personal trainer was insistent that she had to fit running into her regular routine. Obviously everyone just wanted to see Laney running around like an idiot. Well, done.
"It smells amazing," she agreed. "I read somewhere that you burn more calories if you eat right after you exercise, because your metabolism's up." She looked at Vanessa with her perfect, unfairly hot body, and blinked. "You probably don't even have to worry about that kind of stuff, though. My parents are always on about The Great and Terrible Calorie, I don't know."
Laney's mother considered calorie content to be the only line on the Nutrition Facts worth reading. Laney guessed she'd internalized the idea; she'd always stayed skinny not by exercising, but by her mother's strict insistence on calorie monitoring. It was -- depressing, mainly, on days when Laney counted out how many Funyuns she was going to eat and hated herself a little.
She fiddled with the laces on her shoes, double-knotting them. Laney couldn't touch her toes easily like Vanessa could -- she knelt down to adjust her shoes instead.
