If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first. - Mark Twain
Felicia - July 14th: Before dawn
I'm going to do this.
Felicia was up before sunrise, too filled with anxiety and giddiness to go back to sleep. She had to follow through on her best friend's bet.
Just go to the kitchen. No way will he be up yet.
She spurred herself to go get a morning snack from the pantry. She liked to eat something a couple of hours before she hit the treadmill, and perhaps it would be a little low-risk exposure to calm her racing heart.
Don't think I can run without the sports bra.
She'd have to walk for longer than she'd like to get her exercise in.
Why did I tell Bethany I liked to be naked?
Felicia tutted to herself as she slid on her tennis shoes. The air conditioning made the floor a little cold for her feet.
If I hadn't, she wouldn't have bet me a thousand dollars, and I couldn't have done this on National Nude Day.
Her best friend would appear later to check up on her.
And there wouldn't be naked sunbathing with a friend.
The money would make it easier to subsist on her scholarship. Bethany wouldn't miss the thousand; it would be like losing pocket change in the couch cushions for her. She tied her ponytail up with a bow to match her running shoes.
Her biggest obstacle would be Grant being home.
Hopefully, he'll end up at Tyler's playing video games like he does most weekends. I can hide in my room until then, right?
Felicia had let Bethany put up cameras around the house on the condition that they weren't on the internet. Bethany had to have some way to check that Felicia had adhered to her part of the bet. She couldn't cover up once the clock struck midnight, or she would forfeit the win.
"Alright! Pop-Tarts!" Felicia cheered aloud before her revving heart caused her to blush as she pulled the last foil packet from the pantry. She was being too loud, but Grant hadn't eaten everything yet. He was on a scholarship to play linebacker at a major college and claimed that his nutrition only took a break when he was at home. It meant that he devoured anything slightly junky that she'd hidden from her family. Felicia leaned over the countertop and scrolled through social media while munching on the sweet maple and brown sugar treat. She looked up and gave the apparent camera in the front room a wave. "Hi, Bethers!"
Felicia couldn't help parading around her house and visiting places where she couldn't typically indulge in her nudity. She was careful not to make too much noise as she put on her headphones to see the video her friends had posted from Mexico last night. They looked like they were having a lot of fun. She smiled, wishing to be on a beach with them or her parents instead of worrying about her summer job. She didn't want to fret about working while in school, but wanted to have enough spending money to get through the year.
When she turned around to grab something to wash down her breakfast treat from the fridge, Grant was standing slack-jawed in the entry from the front door. He was staring at her in his sweat-soaked pair of shorts.
Since Bethany bet Felicia that she couldn't do this, she'd been thinking of this moment, equally fantasizing and fearing what would happen if Grant didn't follow his routine. Nothing would stop her from winning those thousand dollars, not even her stepbrother being home.
"What are you doing?" Grant asked with a bewildered look in his brown eyes. The boy was in incredible shape, and the sweat highlighting his muscles made Felicia think indecent things about him. His dark, warm skin was inviting.
"It's National Nude Day." Felicia shrugged as she took out her headphones and went back to fetch a morning cold brew from the fridge, though she doubted she needed a kick of caffeine now to wake up.
Grant - July 14th - Earlier in the morning
The alarm was too intense for a Sunday morning as it roused Grant from sleep. "Eat the frog." He said with a yawn. It was a mantra to do the one thing he hated most but needed to accomplish in the day before anything else. Grant shook his head and shuffled over to find his running shorts before his better senses could argue against it. He would have to grab a pair of clean boxer briefs from his dresser, but the shorts were reusable before washing.
The longer he waited to do cardio, the hotter it would be. "Had to get a football scholarship, didn't you?" He groaned at his naked reflection in the mirror. Even his typical morning wood knew better than to stay up, drooping even before he went down the hall to relieve his bladder. Grant would be a starter as a junior and needed to ensure that a highly recruited freshman didn't take his spot.
Grant had to return to college the next week, but he would enjoy his one-week vacation after eating the proverbial frog. Most of his family was gone for the week. His mom and stepdad had taken his half-brother and half-sister on vacation to Hawaii. That left the spacious house to Grant and his twin sister Felicia. They were twins because they shared the same birthday, only a year apart. Having distinct sets of parents also didn't prevent the nickname for the pair. Felicia was a petite strawberry blonde with killer blue eyes, while he had a much darker complexion and stood an entire foot taller than her.
His mother was black, and his father was a tall basketball player on a scholarship from the Philippines. Grant resulted from a late college accident at a fraternity party after the team made the tournament. A broken condom and missed birth control produced Grant without a genuine relationship developing between the pair. His father wasn't completely absent, but only made it to the States from Manilla twice a year. He had his own family back home, but didn't hide Grant's existence from them. The man had done his best to ensure he took care of his fiscal role in Grant's upbringing, even if he couldn't be present as often as he'd like.
Felicia and her father had been in Grant's life for as long as he could remember. His mother had married the jovial redhead Scotsman when Grant turned three. They met as the only single parents taking their kids to the same daycare. A romance developed after they started exchanging babysitting time so the pair could go to job interviews or exams. Grant was thankful that the man he called dad hadn't taken Felicia back home to Scotland after her mother died, as he had been a fantastic role model and loving dad. Felicia wasn't bad either now that she'd grown out of her bratty years.
Felicia's mother didn't survive her daughter's birth. She had a fatal heart attack a few minutes after Felicia cried for the first time. Felicia was scared that the issue was genetic, but every checkup she'd been to had come back healthy. Thinking that she had a timer counting down on her life, Felicia had been a bit of a wild child before she got to college. Bethany, her best friend, seemed to curtail her tendencies. Oddly, the daring woman seemed to restrain his stepsister, but maybe she was better at hiding the crazy.
The house was dead silent as Grant crept out the front door wearing only a pair of silvery shorts that reflected the headlights of passing cars. His chestnut, Blasian skin could blend into the darkness too well. It was early enough that the sun would just be peaking over the horizon by the time he finished his 10k route. Grant hadn't done the best job of keeping up with a training regimen the previous summer and faded toward the end of games at the start of the last football season. He intended to push himself harder to avoid that.
The early morning air was soupy as he ran, causing sweat to pour. Grant had to slow his pace slightly to keep his heart rate in the perfect band as he ran through a local park. A podcast buzzed in his ears to distract him from his least favorite daily task.
Eat the Frog.
Grant reminded himself when his body yelled at him to stop running. Mark Twain may have coined the phrase, but his coach referred to another productivity book from much more recently.
When Grant had finished his long run, he was surprised to see that his 10k pace was only thirty seconds off his typical, despite the stifling humidity. Walking down the wooded path, Grant stretched his legs to keep limber after the run. In his experience, stretching after a run was more important than before to stave off aches, strains, and cramps.
Must have left the light on when I left.
Grant shook his head when he saw the glow from the front room bleeding through the closed curtains as he walked around the col-de-sac to cool down. There was no way that his sister would be awake already, not on a day off. She often had to work until past closed to get the store cleaned up.
