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Beth lifted her biscuit. “I vote for that.”
“You don’t get a vote.”
“I feel like I should.”
Carly looked at Lauren, still on the mat, still waiting. The grin had gone. So had the swagger. What was left was just Lauren, which was somehow harder to argue with.
“Fine,” Carly said. “One take.”
“Rolling,” Beth said.
This time, Lauren didn’t stand still. She picked up the resistance band, turned it over in her hands, and looked straight down the lens.
“Right. If you’re anything like most people I work with, you either skip your warm-up completely or you do three half-hearted leg swings while telling yourself that counts. I’m not judging. I’ve done it. I still do it when I think nobody’s looking.”
Beth smiled.
“So this is for normal people,” Lauren went on. “People with jobs, kids, old injuries, tight hips, dodgy knees, or absolutely no idea what they’re meant to do when they walk into a gym. Three movements. No nonsense. You don’t need fancy kit, you don’t need to be fit already, and if you feel self-conscious, good news: everyone else is too busy worrying about themselves to care.”
She looped the band round her hands.
“That’s what this relaunch is about, by the way. Making it easier to walk in and know where to start. So if you’re coming next week, come and ask questions. Ask me, ask Carly, ask Beth if you can find her not eating biscuits—”
“Rude,” said Beth, from behind the camera.
“—and if you’re not coming because gyms feel intimidating, you’re exactly who should come. Nobody’s going to throw you under a barbell on day one. Unless you ask nicely.”
Carly should have stopped her. It was too long, too loose, and that barbell joke was nowhere near the wording she’d have chosen for a campaign built on trust.
She didn’t stop her. Beth was still smiling, and Carly could picture someone watching one of their videos and thinking, Fine. Maybe I could walk in there.
Lauren moved into the first demonstration, talking as she went. Clear, practical, warm without being soppy. What you should feel, what you shouldn’t force, how to make it easier if you were new or stiff or nervous.
At some point, Carly stopped watching for mistakes and was simply watching. That was a different activity altogether, and not one she had any business doing with Beth in the room.
Same woman, same mat, same lights as the takes that had died on their feet. The only thing missing was Carly’s voice.
When Beth finally stopped recording, the roof had gone quiet.
Beth looked at Carly. “Well?”
“That was usable.”
Beth groaned. “Usable?”
Lauren wiped her hands down her shorts, the easy smile flicking back on. “High praise. I’ll put it on my CV.”
Carly could see it now: Lauren had been handed a compliment and shoved it out of the way before it could count.
It was familiar enough to be uncomfortable.
“That was good,” Carly said.
Lauren’s mouth opened, a comeback already loading.
Carly got in first. “Not because it was funny. Because it was clear. You made it sound like people could actually come here.”
Lauren looked at her then. Properly.
