Keeping the Pieces

by Brenda Lowder

  “It will be.” Emma picked up her water glass and motioned for Derek to do the same.

  Clinking glasses, they toasted their perfect plan.

  Chapter Six

  Walking from his car to his job at Fitness Lifeline after lunch, Derek was still thinking about his new partner.

  Strangest lunch meeting ever.

  Emma was organized, he had to give her that. Though he had his doubts as to whether this three-pronged plan of hers was really going to work.

  He agreed with the general concept. He and Emma had hatched the plan before they’d even spoken about it. She just got it. They were in sync. All that physical flirting in front of Honey and Cam had been intuitive. And it had worked. Honey was jealous as hell. She hadn’t even shown for training sessions since the party. She was supposed to come in today, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Why had that impromptu scene worked so well? Had Emma done any acting in college? She was a damn fine actress.

  Honey must really care. He knew she did, felt it when they were together, though she seemed incapable of giving in to it. Why had she gotten engaged after that night in Derek’s car? She’d kissed him. They’d gotten so close in recent weeks, and she’d been instrumental in planning his future. So why wasn’t she in it?

  He didn’t know, but this engagement wouldn’t last.

  It wouldn’t take charts and plans and a three-pronged attack to break up Honey and Cam. A little jealousy rubbed into their faces would end this fake engagement. Emma didn’t need to complicate things with charts and rules. This plan was going to work so well they wouldn’t even need the plan.

  You couldn’t argue with fate. And Honey was Derek’s. He’d known it from the first moment he’d seen her two years ago.

  She’d conducted interviews of gym personnel to see who she wanted to work with, if any. There were ten trainers at Fitness Lifeline, but the manager, Bobby, recommended Derek as the most serious, hard-core trainer in the place. He took on only the most dedicated clients: the marathon athletes, the perpetual race runners, the competitive lifters.

  But Honey always got the best, so she got him.

  Derek had feared she’d act like a spoiled socialite and complain if she broke a nail or take personal calls during her sessions. But that first day, and all the others, she’d shown up ready to work. She never complained once, not even when he’d made her do fifty burpees, after which she’d thrown up in the janitor’s mop bucket. He thought she’d quit for sure, but she lifted her chin and did five more just to prove to herself she could.

  During their time together, Derek had found himself opening up to her, sharing things about himself he’d never told anyone before. He’d always wanted to be an engineer, but when his hard-working car mechanic father had a heart attack at forty-three, he’d quit his first semester at Georgia Tech to come home to help support his mother and three younger brothers.

  When his mother died of cancer less than a year later, Derek was glad he’d had that time with her—and glad he was there for his brothers when he became their legal guardian at only nineteen.

  With his younger brothers relying on him, Derek didn’t consider going back to school. He was interested in health and fitness—both of his parents had been betrayed by their bodies—so he went to his local gym and, after a few months of training, got certified as a personal trainer.

  Fifteen years later he was the most successful personal trainer at the best gym in Atlanta. It had taken student loans, scholarships, and grants, but the two brothers closest to him in age had graduated from the University of Georgia in the last few years, and his youngest brother was in college now. His heart almost burst with pride at what they’d been able to do. He knew their parents were smiling down on them, beside themselves with joy at the job he’d done raising his brothers to be good men.

  But there was a gnawing voice inside reminding him that his mother had wanted all her sons to go to college.

  How could he go back to school at thirty-four? Yes, he knew other people did, but he couldn’t see himself sitting in a classroom with younger, smarter guys looking down on him when he’d worked hard to become the well-respected, successful man he was. His life was good enough.

  Until Honey. She wanted the best for herself, but she also expected it in other people. When she learned Derek had never gotten his degree, and it had been his mother’s greatest wish, she talked him into applying. He could take many of his classes online, and the ones he couldn’t were easy to schedule around his training sessions.

  Honey had even helped him study. After a night workout, they’d take over one of the small offices that were used for signing clients and doing body measurements, and Honey would help him prepare for his tests. He’d thought for a while that if she ever wanted to give up on modeling, she’d make a good life coach.

  The first time they kissed, she and Cam were on a break. Derek had let himself think it was the start of something between them, but the next day she told him she and the entitled oaf had gotten back together. She’d complain about Cam, though, and if they weren’t broken up, they were always about to be. Derek stopped keeping track and took the kisses as they came. He told himself he was just enjoying the flirtations of a beautiful woman, but his heart felt more.

  Derek’s mind returned to the here and now when Honey strode past the glass wall of the personal training room.

  “Hey, you!” she called out as she entered the space, on time as if it were a normal day and not more than a week and a half past when she should have shown up. She smiled, but there was a tinge of wariness in her blue eyes that said she wasn’t going to acknowledge her absence. He’d let her get away with it. For now.

  They were alone with only the large window that looked out onto the main floor between them and the rest of the general gym population. Muffled conversations and the clink of weights could be heard through the propped-open glass door.

  He smiled wryly and planted his hands on his hips. “Good morning, Miss. Or should I say Mrs.?” He glanced at her left hand pointedly, but she wasn’t wearing the giant rock.

  She shifted her water bottle from one hand to the other. “Not Mrs. Not yet.”

  “Were you going to tell me before I got the invitation in the mail? Or won’t I make the guest list?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

  She took a deep breath, and her eyes shone. “I’m sorry you had to find out that way. I…I didn’t know how to tell you.” She put a hand on his arm, her eyes wide, watchful for his reaction.

  He shook her hand off and wished he could shake her from his mind as easily. “No problem.” His jaw clenched around the lie. It was a problem. He fell back on his professionalism. “But now we’ve gotta work.” He cleared his throat and clapped his hands together. “Every bride-to-be knows how she wants to look in her wedding dress. You must have an agenda.”

  “The dress is tight.” Honey tapped one of her perfectly polished fingernails against her teeth. “And sleeveless, so my arms have got to look good in it.”

  Derek’s stomach clenched. She’d already bought a wedding dress? Didn’t those take a while to pick out? Had she been planning her wedding to Cam at the same time she was kissing him? Must have been.

  He nodded and tried to keep his emotions from showing on his face. “Got it. Arms are the priority.” He crossed his own arms, his biceps bulging in the tight, sweat-wicking shirt. “When’s the big day?”

  She took a swig of water from her bottle before answering. “June. The twenty-third. I’ve always wanted to get married in June. You know what they say, ‘If you marry in June, you’re a bride all your life.’” She blushed and looked away as if only now remembering he might have feelings about the situation.

  His lips tightened, but he widened his stance and put his hands on his hips. He nodded to her. “Okay. We’ve got our work cut out for us. Let’s get started.”

  Derek limited the conversation to the exercises and rep counting during the session. Let her think he didn’t care. He wouldn
’t pine for her. And he sure as hell wouldn’t show his feelings and give her all the power.

  And if she cared about him…well, then that would work.

  If she were truly in love with Cam, then nothing he did would make a difference and she and Cam would live their happy little blond lives together forever after.

  “So how do you know Cam’s friend Emma?” Honey asked as she huffed her way through her second set of bicep curls.

  Derek repressed an internal grin. Hell, yeah, Honey was jealous. Jealous of sweet, sultry Emma, who was as sick with love for Cam as Derek was for Honey.

  “I met her here, maybe six months ago, and we just really connected.”

  She tilted her head, giving him a look. He could read her mind. She was wondering how he could become interested in Emma while in the midst of wooing her. Let her wonder. He continued. “But then there was all that stuff with you…until Emma and I reconnected at the party. I guess you could call it perfect timing.”

  He cleared his throat, deciding to double down. “Thanks for that, by the way. If you hadn’t invited me to the party, I don’t know that I would’ve seen her again. And now, well—” He let a smile break across his face. “Now I couldn’t be happier.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him and tightened her grip on the weight, her knuckles turning white. Again he found himself repressing a smirk. She took a deep breath. “You two looked pretty close for having just met up again.”

  He crossed his arms and allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. The fish was circling the baited hook.

  “Emma’s a beautiful woman.” He picked up a medicine ball from the shelf and tried not to let on he was waiting for her to react. The color rose in her cheeks, and the corners of her mouth turned down. No woman liked being told another woman was beautiful.

  But Honey was too gracious to challenge him. Instead she took a deep, steadying breath and let it out. “She really is beautiful. I’ve always thought so.”

  She took the medicine ball from him and, without his direction, held it out in front of her with arms extended. She started in on squats.

  He blinked. He’d been hoping for a bit more jealousy. He rubbed his nose and thought about expounding on some of Emma’s virtues to see if he could coax some sort of negative outburst from her, but she spoke before he could.

  “Emma is really beautiful,” she said again. “She downplays it, though. It’s almost like she doesn’t want people to know. I’m a little surprised that she and Cam never got together.”

  Finished with her reps, she set the ball down and looked at him speculatively. “I’d thought maybe she played for the other team, but since she’s with you…” she trailed off, and he was quick to step in and reassure her.

  “No. No, she plays for this team.” He gestured vaguely to himself. “My team. She likes men. She likes me.”

  Honey stared at him a second too long.

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  She turned her back on him and pretended she hadn’t just said that.

  Derek inserted the pull-down bar on the machine near the door so she could work triceps.

  She turned back and faced Derek with her hands on her hips. “So you and Emma are what? Going out now? Dating?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Meeting up. Picking up where we left off. And the time we’ve spent together…” He stared off into the distance and let a slow smile stretch across his face. “She’s the kind of girl I could get serious about.” Serious. He savored the word and draped an arm across the machine. He met her gaze head-on.

  “That’s quite a jump. For you.” She put her hand on his arm. He didn’t shake her off this time. “You always told me all these girls who are all over you,” she gestured out to the main room of the gym, “didn’t mean anything. You wanted a real woman. Someone better than all of them. A soulmate.”

  “I do. And maybe I’ve found one.” He smiled, pretending to conjure thoughts of Emma, but instead reveling in the feel of her warm hand on his arm, tethering him to this moment, to her. “You’ve still got another set.” He jerked his chin to indicate the machine.

  She let go of him and grabbed hold of the bar on one end, tilting it dangerously close to his face on the other. “You’re lucky.” Did he imagine the wistfulness in her voice? “Love doesn’t just happen like that. Practically overnight.” She evened her hands out, leveling the bar. “I’d thought there was something—almost—between us. You and me.”

  He grimaced. “But then you got engaged to Cameron.”

  “Yes.” She let the word hang in the air.

  What would be her excuse? Cam’s money? His social position? Pressure from her mother, who’d wanted them to get together since college?

  Whatever excuse she used to justify breaking his heart didn’t matter. But somehow he couldn’t keep himself from asking.

  “Why?”

  “I love him.”

  It was too fast, too easy. He waited. After a moment she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t name. She was somehow adrift, something he’d never have pictured her being.

  She rested her arms on the machine and gazed at him squarely. “Do you know how many friends’ baby showers I’ve been to in the last year?”

  He blinked at her question, not understanding the tectonic shift in topics. Fortunately she didn’t wait for him to answer.

  “Seven.”

  At his incredulous look, she nodded.

  “It’s getting so I don’t have any friends who aren’t married or having kids.” She shook her head as she got up and grabbed a kettlebell weight. She transferred it from one hand to the other and then started doing swings from the center. “I haven’t done anything real since college.”

  After a few swings she set the weight down and walked to the platform to retrieve her water bottle. “So I’m doing it now.”

  At Derek’s raised eyebrow, she clarified. “I’m moving on with my life.”

  He nodded. “I understand.” He looked down at the floor, an ounce of self-preservation kicking in. “When you really feel for someone, there’s no going back. You can only go forward. That’s how I feel about Emma too. She’s my future.”

  Honey returned to the triceps machine and inclined her head. She looked unconvinced. As if what she and Cameron had was real and what Derek and Emma had was dismissible. Fake. His mounting frustration didn’t care that it really was. He decided to up the ante.

  “I think I love her.”

  Surprise crossed Honey’s face. He tried to project sincerity. Jaws of guilt threatened to jump up and bite him for lying to Honey, but it was unfair—her hauling off and getting engaged like she did. Without warning. Without a hint. Without considering his feelings for a second. And apparently for the sole reason of keeping pace with her friends.

  He wanted her to feel what he’d been feeling. Make it fair. Make it even.

  Yeah, he had feelings too. Big ones.

  “Congratulations.” Her voice was calm, controlled despite the wounded look in her eyes. She lowered the weight bar gently so the lifted weights came to rest without a sound on the stack below. “You know, I just remembered I have to head out early today. I have a meeting. And I’m late.”

  She grabbed her towel and water bottle and left the training room without looking back.

  Chapter Seven

  Sorry, Honey, what? I’m having trouble understanding what you’re saying.” Cam glanced at Emma and hunkered down over the phone, putting his hand over his other ear, presumably to block the ambient office noise. “Emma and Derek, what?” He glanced at Emma, looked away, and then got up and walked out into the hall.

  Emma and Cam had been working on plans for the guava juice display. It had been going well, too, just like old times, until Honey called and interrupted them. Of course he always took her calls.

  Emma leaned as far left as she could in her leather rolling chair and managed to see half of Cam’s back through her open office door. Why was Honey calling to talk about Derek and h
er? Surely Honey and Cam had already discussed the scene on the boat. That was almost two weeks ago. She wasn’t calling Cam just to talk about it again, was she?

  Cam cast her a furtive look from the hallway before ambling back into the room. “I will. I’ll ask her.” A deep sigh. “Okay, bye. Yeah, me too. Yes, I’ll say it. Love you. Bye.” Cam jabbed the phone with a thick finger and stuck it in his suit jacket pocket. He collapsed heavily into the chair across from Emma’s desk and scrubbed his face with his hands.

  After a few seconds he leaned forward and pierced her with a level look. “You and Derek are getting serious?”

  Emma blinked at him. They were?

  “Yes.” Emma gave Cam a level look she hoped would be enough of a confirmation then turned around to her computer and started typing. She hoped he’d take her word for it.

  “Really? I mean, come on, Emma.” The plaintive note in his voice made her stop typing and turn around. His ice-blue eyes narrowed. “Do you think it’s a good idea? Getting serious with a guy like that?”

  “A guy like what?”

  Cam leaned forward and drummed his fingers on the edge of her desk. It was a casually masculine pose that made her want to kiss him. Emma licked her lips, waiting for his answer. Would he confess his feelings for her? Tell her Honey was a mistake? Take Emma into his arms?

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said at last, leaning back. “He’s not the reliable type.”

  He was objecting to the situation, but not in an emotionally involved way. With his condescending tone, he might as well be her big brother. Emma bristled. Why was he denying the pull between them? When had he started acting like she was some little sister-type he needed to shield from bad boys like Derek? Two weeks ago he had his tongue in her mouth, and ever since had pretended like it hadn’t happened. He didn’t have the right to criticize her life or anyone she chose to spend her time with until he admitted his own importance to it.

  “Oh, Cam, you’re so wrong! He’s very reliable. I could count on him to go the distance all five times last night.” As soon as the words were out, Emma wondered if she’d oversold it. Five times was way too much. She should have said three. Three would have been more believable, right? She’d only ever done it one and a half times in a row. How many times would be enviably hot?