‘Yeah, yeah. Let’s get it over with.’ Trying to show bravado, she flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. With a deep breath, she turned on her heel and yanked open the door. Maybe it would be less painful to do it quickly – like pulling off a bandage.
She remembered too late that that always stung like hell, too. The minute she stepped out into the gym, she felt naked.
‘This way,’ he said with a guiding hand at her waist. ‘We’ll start on the treadmill to warm you up.’
Warm her up? Between his touch and her embarrassment, she was pretty toasty already, thank you very much. Self-consciously, she crossed her arms over her chest and followed him. She glanced around shyly as she stayed on his heels. The gym was busy and, fortunately, everyone seemed to be doing his or her own thing. Nobody was paying much attention to her.
But they were to Jake.
It didn’t take long for Roma to realise that the women on the cardiovascular machines were more interested in his flesh than hers. They were eyeing his muscled arms like fresh meat.
Why, the skinny little nymphets! A wave of flirting followed his movement across the floor. As he passed by, one woman arched her neck and sensuously wiped the sweat off her throat. The next nearly threw her hips out of joint as she exercised on a cross trainer, but the last one was the worst. She raised her hands over her head in a supposed stretch and her tiny boobs lifted in silent invitation. Roma threw them all a glare. Could they get any more obvious? There was flirting, and then there was flaunting. Some of these hoydens were wearing even less than she had on – although none were nearly as well endowed.
‘Ha!’ She had them there. Taking on their silent challenge, she dropped her arms, squared her shoulders, and thrust out her breasts. Jake was hers for the next hour.
So there.
‘Let’s use this machine,’ he threw over his shoulder, oblivious to the byplay going on behind him.
‘Sounds good,’ Roma said, increasing her strut to add fire to the flames. Ms Tiny Boobs scowled, and she smiled back sweetly.
‘Hop up here, and we’ll get started,’ he said.
‘Whatever you say, boss.’
That, finally, got his attention. He glanced back at her and nearly replayed her pratfall from the day before. He stumbled backwards over his own feet, bumped up against the machine, and nearly went down on his butt.
Damn! Jake thought as he quickly righted himself. What had happened with her? Two seconds ago, she’d been all shy and embarrassed. Now, she was practically a billboard sign for sex. Helplessly, his gaze ran over her. ‘Not in strip-down shape’, his ass. With the confident way she held her lush body, he was half-tempted to throw her down on the treadmill and take her right there.
He cleared his throat. Shit. Where was his clipboard?
‘Uh, ready to begin?’ he asked.
She climbed onto the machine, and a bit of her uncertainty returned. ‘What do I do?’
‘Relax, it’s not going to throw you off,’ he said, reading her mind. He looked down at her legs, but that blurred his focus all over again. All he could picture was that stocking creeping up, up, up…He shook his head to make himself snap out of it. ‘You’ll want to stand on the side rails until the belt starts moving.’
She widened her stance, and he quickly scanned the room. Sure enough, half of the men were gawking at her.
The lechers.
‘This is the start button,’ he said, trying to regain command of the situation. ‘Over here are the controls for the speed and the incline.’
Her brow furrowed as she listened. He pushed the start button, and the machine beneath her began to move. A flash of fear went through her big lavender eyes.
‘Easy. Just step onboard and put one foot in front of the other. You can hold onto this handlebar if it helps.’
She latched onto the bar with a death grip. Cautiously, she lifted her right foot and placed it in the centre of the belt. It immediately drifted backwards, and she automatically stepped with her left foot to keep her balance. Just like that, and she was walking. Proud of herself, she grinned at him.
The grin nearly did Jake in. Down boy. She’d asked for his help getting in shape for her reunion. Damned if he wasn’t going to make sure she got everything she wanted.
‘That’s good. Let’s up the pace past grandma speed.’ He jabbed an up arrow and the belt beneath her feet began to move more quickly. Her fingers tightened around the handlebar, and her face went serious again.
‘That’s a good steady pace,’ he said. ‘Once you feel comfortable, you can let go and swing your arms at your sides.’
Her ponytail bobbed as her head snapped towards him. ‘Get real.’
‘Right. We’ll work up to that. How do you feel?’
She nibbled at her lower lip, and he sighed. She wasn’t going to make this easy on him. ‘Good,’ she finally surmised.
‘Think you can go for five minutes? Then we’ll move on to the strength tests.’
She nodded. ‘I can do five.’
Jake shifted his weight uncomfortably. Five minutes was a short length of time, he tried to remind himself. Nothing, really. A pittance. But five minutes of watching her body move? God, when had he become such a masochist? He rubbed the back of his neck. He needed a distraction. ‘So tell me more about this reunion. Why all the hype? I didn’t get this worked up over mine.’
She let out a snort. ‘Why would you?’
‘What do you mean?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t give me that innocent routine. You’re a stud, and you know it. You’ve got your own business, you’ve still got your hair and women pant as you walk by. Just look at you.’
Women panted? He glanced back at the wannabe sirens and couldn’t help but grin. Was that the reason for her sudden transformation? Was she jealous?
She had said she thought he was a stud.
He filed that titbit of info away for future reference and propped his arms against the control panel.
‘You’ve got your own business, too,’ he reminded her. ‘And if you haven’t noticed, you’re creating quite a disturbance for the men in the room.’
She glanced around quickly. ‘I am not.’
‘Are, too.’
Her breath caught, and her mouth rounded into a tight ‘O’. On the sly, she risked a glance down at her chest. ‘Is it that obvious?’
Was she trying to kill him? He was doing his best not to look.
‘You’re fine,’ he said, sneaking a peek. She wouldn’t think so, but no need to tell her that. ‘Explain to me why you’re so nervous about seeing your old friends.’
She looked at him as if he were stupid. ‘I’m not worried about my friends. It’s the enemy.’
The way she said it, you’d think she was gearing up for war. Jake fought not to smile. It couldn’t have been that bad. ‘You’re talking about the girl who picked on you.’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘What did she do to you?’
Roma’s face became shuttered. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Now he was truly intrigued. He looked at the control panel. It was upside down from his direction, but he found the button he wanted. He increased the speed with two pushes.
‘Hey!’
‘Tell me,’ he said.
She began to breathe a little harder as she fought to keep up. ‘No. It’s embarrassing.’
‘It’s what brought you here. You said you want to kick her ass.’ He punched the incline button. Her fingers turned white around the handgrip as the machine gave a low whirr and tilted so she was walking uphill.
‘Whoa! Hey now. Be nice.’
He watched her. Her cheeks were turning pink and her forehead was starting to glisten. ‘Tell me.’
His finger hovered over the controls threateningly.
‘No! Don’t. No more.’
He backed off, and she nibbled at her lower lip. She was considering how much to tell him. He could see the gears turning in her head.
‘Like?’
‘Like spreading lies about me and posting embarrassing pictures in the hallways.’
‘What kind of pictures?’
Her face flared.
He lowered his voice. ‘Tell me or you’re never getting off this machine.’
She winced. She was already starting to huff and puff. Cardio-wise, she had a way to go. ‘You know how I’m kind of clumsy?’ she said.
He nodded. He had the black eye to prove it.
‘I’m graceful compared to what I once was. Back then I was always tripping, running into things, or just plain falling down. One day, Mr Carlton, the science teacher, helped me back to my feet. The next day pictures of the two of us were on every poster board in the school.’
‘What’s so bad about that?’
‘From the angle at which they were taken, it looked like my face was plastered in his crotch.’
Jake was taken aback. He hadn’t expected anything like that. No wonder she wanted to do some ass-kicking. He was quickly getting on-board with the plan himself. ‘She got in trouble, though, right?’
‘There was no proof that she did it.’
OK, now he was pissed. ‘And that was a little thing? What in God’s name was big?’
Roma finally risked letting go of the handlebar and wiped a hand across her red face. She was starting to work up a sweat, but he knew it was the memories that had her most upset. They were getting him worked up, too.
‘She got me after gym class one day,’ she said. ‘While I was in the shower, she stole my clothes out of my locker. I was left in nothing but a towel. Ms Gilliam, our gym teacher, found me in the locker room two hours later. She gave me some old basketball warm-ups to wear home.’
‘My bra and underwear showed up later in Bobby VanDonselaar’s hallway locker.’ She glanced away. ‘He was the class geek. Six-foot five, acne, a bad sinus condition…You get the picture.’
Easy, Jake told himself. He was getting a little too fired up. For her sake, he knew he should drop the whole subject, but he found he couldn’t. ‘Why’d she do it?’ he asked, not understanding.
How would someone be so mean? Especially to someone as bubbly and vivacious as Roma?
Her lips pressed into a straight line. She concentrated on the control panel, and quickly snuck a finger out to decrease the incline. ‘She thought I did something.’
‘And what was that?’ Jake glanced down. Damn, he hadn’t meant to work her this hard on her first day. He needed to watch it.
‘It was just one of those high school things,’ she said between breaths. ‘Mountains are made out of molehills. Every little event is the end of the world.’
The light suddenly dawned.
‘You stole her boyfriend.’
Roma’s head snapped up. ‘I did not!’
Suddenly, her foot got too close to the edge of the belt. Her tennis shoe stuck against the side rail, and she tilted crazily. His hand flashed out and closed around her upper arm. She regained her balance and, after a few stutter steps, got herself under control.
‘I’m right. It was over a guy,’ he said, refusing to be distracted from the topic at hand.
‘I was his math tutor.’
‘But he had a crush on you.’
‘I couldn’t help that.’
‘No, I suppose you couldn’t,’ he said gruffly. She truly didn’t understand what that blonde hair and those big lavender eyes did to a guy. The kid hadn’t stood a chance.
‘I never encouraged him,’ she said with a pout.
‘But your prankster pal thought you did.’
‘She wasn’t my pal.’ Forgetting her nervousness about the treadmill, Roma let go of the handlebar and flung her hands into the air. ‘She called me Aroma – like I smelled or something. I couldn’t help it that her own boyfriend didn’t like her.’
‘Slow down,’ Jake said automatically. He lowered the speed. Neither of them had been watching the time, and she’d gone for nearly ten minutes.
Damn. He didn’t think much of this girl who had terrorised her, but he liked her slimy boyfriend even less. Where had the kid been when all this had been going on? Had he just stood by and let it happen? Irritated, Jake slapped the red stop button on the treadmill. If you asked him, lover boy should be in line for an ass-kicking, too. ‘That’s enough. Let’s move on to the leg press.’
Roma carefully dismounted the treadmill. Jake was unhappy with her, she could tell. He didn’t even look at her as he led her into another area of the gym that held the weight machines. All business, he stopped in front of a daunting device that could have come from a medieval torture chamber.
‘This is a leg press machine,’ he said. ‘Sit down there on the seat, and I’ll adjust it for you.’
She pulled nervously on her ponytail. He was disappointed in her. ‘You think I’m being shallow.’
His blue gaze swung towards her. ‘What?’
‘You think I should forget about what happened in high school. Grow up and move past it.’
‘I never said that.’
‘But you’re thinking it.’
‘Goldie, you don’t have a clue what I’m thinking.’ He grabbed a spare clipboard from a nail on the wall and started a new tracking sheet. ‘Sit down and settle your feet against that big plate.’
‘You’re right,’ she said as she manoeuvred herself into the contraption. ‘I’ll admit it. I’m shallow, petty and pathetic. I’m going to this thing to have fun, but deep down, I want to impress all my old classmates. I want to set them on their ears – show them that clumsy Roma Hanson made something of herself.’
He moved closer and she got a front-row view of his black eye. It made her feel even worse. ‘I’m a terrible person, aren’t I? For all I know, Ellie the Witch might have turned out all right. Wouldn’t that just be a kicker? For me to be such a superficial ninny and her to be a doctor or a missionary or a preacher…Huwhaaa!’
He’d pushed a lever and her knees were suddenly digging into her ribcage.
‘I guarantee you, nobody like that would turn out to be a preacher,’ he said.
‘Air,’ Roma wheezed.
‘Sorry.’ He made an adjustment. ‘Is that better?’
If you called being bent in half like a greeting card ‘better’.
She inhaled deeply. ‘But what do all these self-centred thoughts say about me?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that you’re human?’ He planted his hand against the machine’s solid metal frame. ‘Screw political correctness. Everyone checks out everyone at a high school reunion. It’s what the damn things are for.’
She did a double take. ‘Really?’
‘Hell, the best part is finding out who got fat, who got arrested, who got knocked up, and who turned out gay. You should have seen how people at my reunion were trying to cover up their weaknesses. Dresses were bursting at the seams, and talk about bad comb overs! The point is that everyone was trying to put his or her best foot forwards. It’s just the way people are.’
‘Are you saying I’m normal?’
One of his eyebrows lifted. It made the purple hues in his black eye shine. ‘I don’t know if I’d go that far.’
Roma grimaced apologetically. ‘I’m quasi-normal?’
‘If that’s how you want to put it. Now grip the handles by the seat with your hands and push out with your legs. I need to see how strong you are.’
She assumed the position and pushed. The weight moved easily. ‘I am looking forward to seeing my friends,’ she commented.
‘Well, we’ve got three months to get you ready for them.’ He adjusted the pin in the weight stack. ‘If anyone ever deserved to make a splash at their high school reunion, it’s you. Try again.’
Roma couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t a terrible person after all. Apparently, everyone felt this way – vengeful, self-conscious and anxious. How wonderful! With a smile on her face, she extended h
er legs as he’d instructed. The smile wavered when she felt her legs quiver.
‘Watch your form. I don’t want to see that cute tush coming off the seat.’
He moved the pin down in the weight stack. ‘Cute tush’? Try flabby fanny. She tried again and, this time, found she had to grit her teeth.
‘That’s better, but push through the balls of your feet.’
Did he have to keep moving that darn pin? Beads of sweat had popped out on her forehead, and hot fires were burning in her legs. ‘You mean I’m still supposed to be able to feel them?’
‘Stop curling your toes.’ He squatted down beside her. ‘You should feel it working back here.’
He brushed the back of her thigh, and she nearly kicked the footplate through the opposite wall. Holy cow! What had that been?
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s move on.’
Yes, let’s. Hot shivers were spreading up her leg and settling underneath her. Things were bound to get very embarrassing if she sat here much longer. Clumsily, she uncoiled from her spring-loaded position and started to tag along after him. Something was wrong with her legs, though – something besides the hot handprint he’d left on the back of her thigh. She was walking funny – a bit like John Wayne perhaps. ‘Uh, Jake?’
‘We’ll test your upper body strength on the bench press. Lie down on your back with your head facing the weight stack.’
Self-consciously, Roma climbed on board. Her heart skipped a beat, though, when she rolled over onto her back. With her legs spread to straddle the bench and Jake standing right over her, she felt…Well, never mind.
‘Watch your head. You don’t want to be too far up.’
She slid down.
‘There you go. This machine is easy to use. Grip the handles there and push straight up. You’ll feel the work in your arms and chest.’
Her eyes rounded. He’d better not touch her there!
‘Hey, Jake?’
Roma rolled her head on the bench and saw Tito, the kid with the ice pack from the day before. He grinned at her, but turned his attention back to his boss.
‘You’ve got a phone call. Liz needs to reschedule a session.’
High School Reunion Page 5