by Meg Cabot
“Oh, that’s right,” I said, dropping the weight ball I’d been holding on Patrick’s foot. “You mentioned that earlier.”
“OW,” Patrick cried in mock pain. It had only been a four-pound ball, so I knew he was faking it.
“So will we see you here in class next week, then?” I asked Ryan. “Have we converted you?”
He grinned. He was still sweating so profusely that he had to reach up with one of the towels we provided and wipe his face and head, leaving his dark hair tousled more than ever. With the grin and the tousled hair, he was so good-looking that it was all I could do to keep from throwing myself at him and humping his leg.
“You know what?” he said. “I think so. This class was really neat.”
Neat. A part of me died inside. In a good way.
“Maybe you could bring Chrissie next time,” I said, unable to help myself. “You know, since you liked it so much.”
“Really?” Ryan looked happily surprised. “That would be okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Even as I asked, I was internally kicking myself. Why couldn’t I keep my big mouth shut? I didn’t want to meet his stupid partner slash girlfriend, who was probably some ubertall skinny blonde super cop. I didn’t need to invite that kind of competition. Of course, I was blonde, too, but not a natural blonde, and nowhere near tall or skinny. “We always welcome new members.”
“That’d be super, actually,” Ryan said. “Chrissie and I go everywhere together. Well, almost everywhere.”
“Great.” I kept a smile frozen on my face. Yeah, great. Just great. What is wrong with you, Rob? “So I guess I’ll see you both here next week.”
“You will,” he said. His grin widened, revealing teeth so white and even, he could have been in an ad to promote milk as part of a healthy diet. Or the star of his own rom-com. “You know, you were right about this class. It was really hard—I thought I was going to die, actually, at one point. But I feel better already. Looser, you know? Lighter, in a way.”
“Oh, really?” I couldn’t help smiling back at him—for real, this time—even though I was still a little weirded out about the Chrissie thing. I always loved hearing that I’d helped someone. It was the best part of my job. “That’s good. That’s how I was hoping you’d feel. Not the part about dying, of course.”
He laughed. “I don’t know how you ladies do it. You’re all so tiny, but you were doing those exercises and holding those poses like they were nothing.”
I grinned at him. Tiny? Was he kidding? “How tall do you think I am?”
He said, without hesitation, “Five four.”
“Right.” I’d expected him, a cop trained to observe, to get that right. “And how much do you think I weigh?”
“One ten, one fifteen.” Again, no hesitation. And he wasn’t trying to flatter me, either. He wasn’t trained for that.
“Wrong,” I said. “One fifty-five.”
He looked stunned. “No shit. I mean, excuse me—no way do you weigh that much.”
“I assure you,” I said, “I do.” I flexed one of my own biceps. “All muscle, baby. We ladies may look tiny, but we’re made of muscle, and muscle is leaner and denser than fat. That’s what bridal boot camp is all about. Turning mush into metal. And everyone’s got some mush they need toughening up somewhere. Even you.”
He lowered his gaze as if I’d touched a sensitive spot. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Bye, Roberta.”
“Bye.” I waved as he disappeared into the men’s locker room, wondering what I’d said wrong.
Chapter Two
I was still wondering after I’d showered and changed. I’d lingered in the laundry room, washing towels, until I was sure he was gone before I bounced into reception, where Jenna was manning the desk.
“Sheriff’s deputy, huh?” She grinned at me.
Word travels like wildfire around a gym. It’s even worse in a gym on a small island.
“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “He’s got a partner.”
“Partner partner?” she asked. “Or life partner?”
“I don’t know. Possibly both. Her name is Chrissie. They go almost everywhere together, and he’s real protective of her.”
She rotated the screen of the computer monitor she’d been gazing at toward me. “I googled him already. No partner listed on the sheriff’s website. I don’t see any Chrissies who work there, either. Or Christines, or whatever.”
“Dammit, Jen.” This is the problem with being best friends with your coworker, and co–business owner. “Just for once I’d like to have a crush on a guy without you cyber-stalking him.”
“In this day and age, you can’t be too careful,” Jenna said, turning the screen back toward herself. “Remember what happened with Pete.”
“As if I could forget.”
Pete had, of course, turned out to be a disaster. A church-going charter boat captain, Pete had looked like total rom-com material—Jenna had cyber-stalked him, too, and given him her seal of approval . . . which, coming from a happily married mother of two like Jenna actually meant something.
But things had turned sour when I’d begun to notice money missing out of the gym’s petty cash, then out of my personal accounts. A few months and many accusations later, Pete was gone from the island, along with most of my savings, my laptop, my grandmother’s pearl brooch, and an exotic dancer named Katarina.
That memory caused me to ask, “Does it say anything on there about an incident Ryan was involved in not too long ago?”
“What kind?” Jenna squinted as her fingers flew over the keyboard.
“I don’t know. But he said that’s why he’s here. The sheriff is making him take yoga as part of his disciplinary action.”
Jenna let out a bark of laughter. “God, I’d love it if someone forced me to do yoga as some sort of disciplinary action.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not a six foot four cop with anger issues.”
“Sheriff’s deputy.”
“Whatever. Find anything? He said it involved his partner, Chrissie.”
“It must not have been worthy of local press coverage,” Jenna said, still squinting at the screen, “because nothing’s coming up.”
“Are you sure? It sounded kind of serious. He pulled his Taser on a guy outside the Circle K—”
“No, nada. Aw, but here.” She swung the monitor toward me again. “Here’s an article about how he gives free ukulele lessons to kids at the Mermaid Café every Wednesday night—”
I stared. “Excuse me?”
“Ukulele lessons. See? Look at this photo of him with the little kids! Oh my God, it’s so cute I think I just grew a third ovary . . .”
I bent over the desk so I could see the photo more clearly. Jenna was right. The photo was in a section of The Little Bridge Island Gazette called Cheers and Jeers, and the caption read: “Cheers to Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Martinez, who sacrifices two hours from his busy schedule every week to give free ukulele lessons to the island’s younger population at the Mermaid Café. Join him every Wednesday night from six to eight. Open to the public.”
In the photo, Ryan was sitting on a table at the café, wearing a Cuban guayabera wedding shirt and a faded pair of chinos while holding a ukulele that looked ridiculously small against his enormous frame. He was surrounded by kids, all looking up at him enthusiastically, each holding a ukulele of their own.
“Oh my God,” I said, backing away from the desk. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Stop it.” Jenna was still smiling. “I think it’s sweet.”
“Exactly. Too sweet. There must be something wrong with him.”
“There is something wrong with him. You just told me he got busted for having almost tased an innocent civilian.”
“Yeah, and now this?”
“What’s wrong with this?” Jenna shook her head at the computer screen. “You’ve let Pete get into your head. You think everyone who does anything nice must have a secret dark side.”
; “Because everyone does.”
“You don’t. I don’t. Javier doesn’t.” Javier was Jenna’s husband of twelve years.
“Yeah, well, most men do.”
“No, they don’t, Rob. Only some of them, just like only some women do. Promise me you’ll give this guy a chance.”
“Give him a chance how? I already let him be in my class, with, I might add, the mayor’s wife, despite the fact that for all we know he could be a raving psycho.”
“Not that kind of chance. Go to ukulele night.”
“What?” My voice cracked. “No way.”
“It says it’s open to the public.”
“Yeah, it also says there’ll be children there. You know how I feel about children. They’re sticky-fingered germ factories. Except yours, of course.”
“Rob, I know you like to act tough, but I also know that deep down inside, you’re a big softie who cries at weddings and is obsessed with rom-coms.”
“Ugh,” I said, and swung away from the desk to head for the water cooler. “I do not cry at weddings. And I should never have told you that thing about rom-coms. Now I have to kill you. Anyway, I teach yoga on Wednesday nights. You know that.”
“I’ll teach the class for you.”
“Oh, just like that, huh?”
“Just like that. In fact, if you go, I’ll teach every Wednesday yoga class for you for a month . . . but give you the money.”
I stared at her. “No way.”
“Way.”
“Oh, come on, Jen. Even if I did go to his stupid ukulele thing and things worked out, what would be the point? You know we can’t date clients.”
“He’s hardly a client, Rob. He’s taken one class.”
“It’s still unethical.”
“How? It’s not like you’re his personal trainer.”
I leaned down to fill my water bottle from the cooler. “I don’t think you heard the part where I said no way. Besides, he made a point of not mentioning to me what it is he does Wednesday nights. Patrick thought he was in AA.”
“Probably because unlike most of the guys we get in here, he didn’t want to brag about himself, which is a refreshing change. Why can’t you just go? What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Uh, I could fall in love with him and he could turn out to be a two-timing jerk who steals my stuff and breaks my heart?”
“Or he could turn out to be really sweet and you two could have a great time together.”
I switched off the water with a disgusted snort. “Please.”
“Good things do happen to people, Robbie.”
“In movies. Not to me.”
“Is this about your parents?”
I felt myself flush. And I do not flush. “Don’t drag them into this.”
“How can I not when I know they’re what this is about?”
“This is not about them.”
“Rob, you had parents who wouldn’t take care of themselves, which is how you ended up in a helping profession, then had a run of bad luck in the romance department—”
“You’re calling what Pete did to me bad luck?”
“Yes. But you, more than anyone, are due for a break, and maybe this guy is it. You’re never going to know if you don’t take a risk. That’s what all those women, and men, in that class you teach every year are doing—taking a risk on love. Why can’t you?”
I stared at her like she was crazy. “Are you talking about bridal boot camp?”
“Exactly. How come you’re so good at encouraging everyone else in the world to go for their goals except yourself?”
I stared at her some more, genuinely stunned. “Because . . . because . . .” I sputtered. “Because I know the truth—that there’s no such thing as happily ever after. That’s fiction. Look at my parents!”
“Look at me,” Jenna pointed out in a gentle voice. “And Javier.”
“Fine.” I folded my arms. “Except for you two.”
“And all those other couples who’ve been through your class.”
“Okay, right,” I admitted, reluctantly. “Maybe for them, too.”
“So why not,” she asked softly, “for you?”
I glared at her. “Because I’m just not that lucky.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it. You have to try to succeed, as you well know, and you won’t even try. You know, I’ll bet if you did, by next summer, when you do bridal boot camp again, you’ll be in it. Not running it, but as a bride-to-be.”
“Oh my God,” I said, rolling my eyes to disguise how uncomfortable she was making me. “Now I’m gonna puke.”
“Just go to ukulele night. Promise me!”
“Fine,” I snapped. “You’ll really take all of my Wednesday yoga classes if I do it? For a month?”
“All of them.”
“It’s a deal.” I headed for the door. “Your funeral. Good night, Jen.”
Chapter Three
So that’s why when Wednesday night rolled around, I found myself at the Mermaid Café.
Not because of anything Jenna had said, of course. Only because I had nothing else to do at that particular moment, since she’d insisted—insisted—on teaching the Wednesday-night yoga class for me. For a month.
The fact that I’d flat-ironed my hair and paired a new sundress with my sexiest bra had nothing to do with anything she’d said, either.
Or so I told myself.
I heard not the faintest hint of ukulele music when I walked in . . . but I saw plenty of kids running around, giant grins on their faces, putting their sticky hands all over everything.
And I saw tons of the instruments lying around on the Mermaid’s many teal-colored Formica tables. A dockside diner (though by the plethora of mermaid Barbies hanging from the ceiling, many tourists mistook it for a dive bar and steered clear, which was fine by me), the Mermaid catered to a diverse clientele. I recognized most of the ones in attendance for ukulele night . . .
Including Ryan Martinez, who was looking sizzling hot in a white guayabera of paper-thin linen, through which I could see the faintest hint of crisply curling dark chest hair.
What was I doing here? I was dead meat.
I was listening to the warning bells going off in my head and turning on my heel to leave when I heard someone call out my name.
“Roberta!”
Crap. He’d spotted me.
I spun back around, trying to smile but feeling uncomfortable, not only because I’d spotted a number of my clients in the crowd, all of whom were watching my interaction with Ryan with intense interest, but also because I suspected his partner, Chrissie, might be there somewhere (he’d said they went almost everywhere together).
The problem was, I couldn’t figure out which one she could be. None of the women I saw appeared to be of the ubertall skinny blonde super cop variety. Most looked like ordinary moms, dressed for the hot weather in blousy tops and yoga pants, except for Bree, the pretty but sad-eyed little waitress who took my afternoon spin class every Tuesday and Thursday.
“Oh, hey,” I said, extending my right hand toward Ryan. “How’s it going? How funny to run into you like this—”
He looked down at my hand like it was something foreign. “What’s this?” he asked, and knocked my hand away with one of his big bear paws. “I thought we were friends. Friends don’t shake hands. Friends hug.”
And before I knew it, I was swept up into an embrace that was at once as careful not to crush me as it was emphatic that we were, indeed, friends. Friends? I had not come here to be friends. But that’s apparently what we were now.
When he thrust me away from him again, he said, with total sincerity, “You saved me.”
I blinked at him. “I what?”
“You saved me. You really did. Hey, guys.” He swung me around by my shoulders to face a group of young men, each as muscular as he was. “This is that trainer I was telling you about, Roberta.”
The guys all lowered their bottles of beer and looked at me with a degr
ee of interest I decided to find flattering. My only other choice was to be completely freaked out by it, and I don’t freak out.
“Oh, cool,” one of them said. Another said, “Hi, Roberta.”
“Um,” I said. “Hi. But I really didn’t do anything—”
“Are you kidding?” Ryan was flabbergasted. And still holding my shoulders with one of those heart-meltingly masculine arms. “You have no idea how much better I’ve felt since your class. All the guys have seen a difference in me. Even Sheriff Hartwell noticed.”
“It’s true,” one of his friends said. “He hasn’t been nearly as much of an asshole.”
“He means Martinez, not Hartwell. Hartwell’s always an asshole,” another one of them joked.
“I really didn’t do anything,” I repeated, taken aback. “Ryan’s the one who did all the work.”
“Are you kidding?” Ryan said again, spinning me back toward him. “You taught me to breathe.”
I was about to repeat for a third time that this wasn’t true when I remembered that this was exactly what I’d assured him he’d learn in the class—how to lower his stress, and how to breathe. It was the unstated goal of bridal boot camp, though most people took it to lose weight.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s great. Maybe I’ll see you there next week.”
“Damned right you will,” Ryan said. “We’re all going to be there. If that hurricane doesn’t head in this direction.” There was a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic that forecasters were giving a strong chance of heading toward Florida. “Won’t we, guys?”
The five guys in front of me nodded in unison, grinning. I was sure they were kidding . . . until I looked into their faces, and then I was sure they were not. They seemed as sincere as Ryan.
“Long as I don’t have to wear a wedding veil,” the tallest one said. He appeared to be the jokester of the group.
“You don’t,” I assured him. “Although can I just say you’d all look really good in white?”
