Love Cursed

by Julia Derek

  So when my cell rang Sunday afternoon and I saw that it was from him, a smile spread across my face as I pressed the Talk button.

  “Hi Ricki, how are you doing today?” he asked in that amazing voice of his. My smile grew wider.

  “Not too bad,” I replied. “My friend came over with a pair of crutches, so now I’m ready for the week. I’ll be putting zero pressure on my foot, just like you wanted me to.”

  “That’s great. That means it’ll heal in no time. How does it look? Swollen still?”

  “No, actually, it doesn’t seem swollen at all.”

  “Really? Fantastic!” I could tell that he was smiling as much as I was. “Then you should start moving it around in circles. Slowly, a few circles in each direction. That way you get the blood moving and it’ll heal even faster.”

  I did as he told me, a couple of times in each direction. It hurt, but not so much that I couldn’t do it. It actually felt like it was getting better already just by me moving it.

  “It’s feeling better already,” I said.

  “Good. You should do that a few times every day, and you’ll see how you’ll be back up and walking sooner than you know. Are you still seeing the physical therapist tomorrow?”

  “Yup, I’ll see him on my lunch hour.”

  “That’s great. He’ll be able to speed up your healing even more.”

  I was suddenly filled with a strong sense of gratitude. “Thanks, Dante. It’s so incredibly nice of you to check in on me like this every day and find me that PT. I really, really appreciate it. How was your day? Did you have a good one? Were you with your girlfriend?” The last question was out of my mouth before I’d been able to think twice about it. Crap, why did I say that? Now he’ll think I’m hitting on him by trying to find out if he’s single.

  “Not too bad,” he said in a light voice. “Just finished training a client. I’m so busy I really don’t have time for much fun. Thanks for asking.”

  Hmm. He had totally dodged the girlfriend question. Did he not want to tell me he had one or what? I mean, if he didn’t have a girlfriend, why not just say that? Or was it possible he hadn’t heard what I’d asked him? I shrugged and decided that it didn’t really matter. “Oh, wow,” I said instead. “So you work on weekends, too?”

  “Yup. Every day. I have a lot of clients that need to get in shape.” He laughed.

  Okay, I thought and relaxed. So he definitely isn’t calling me because he desperately needs more clients then, just like Nixon and I thought. He obviously has more than he can handle. He’s just a really nice guy.

  “I can imagine,” I said. “Everyone in L.A. wants to look hot, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s true. They sure do. I kinda wish they worked as hard on their insides as they do on their outsides. Some of them seem to think that how they look is the only thing that matters in life. It’s so sad.”

  I was taken aback by Dante’s words. And not in a bad way. They had just been so unexpected. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I just think it’s unhealthy to be too obsessed with the way you look, is all.”

  “You’re right about that. It’s good to want to take care of yourself, but not to the point that some people do. Not at the expense of your health.”

  “Yeah, and what’s so scary is that it’s easier to get caught up in it than one would think. I’ve seen it happen to lots of people. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen to you, Ricki.”

  I giggled. “Well, I don’t think that’ll happen. I love ice cream and dessert and burgers and fries and lasagna and cheese and bread and—” I caught myself. “Well, food in general a little too much.”

  Dante chuckled. “That’s good. I prefer girls who like to eat. Those girls are the most fun to be with.”

  A tense silence followed, during which I wondered what exactly he could have meant by those words. Is he saying that he likes me then? As a girl? I’d barely finished thinking those thoughts until I almost slapped myself, reminding myself that I was just having a little chat with my trainer, not some guy I had started dating. He was only being friendly, which, in his eyes, might even include some light, meaningless flirting. Get a grip, Ricki.

  “Well,” Dante said and I could have sworn I heard what sounded like embarrassment in his voice. “So, you promise me that you’ll be doing foot circles every other hour from now on then?”

  “Definitely,” I replied, sounding a little more cheerful than I would have wanted.

  “I should get going. I have another client in half an hour and I need to eat before that.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. You don’t want to faint from low blood sugar while training someone, right? You might sprain an ankle if you’re not careful.”

  Dante chuckled. “Yeah, that would not be good.”

  He wished me good luck my first day on crutches—after making sure I actually knew how to use them first. Nixon had spent almost an hour coaching me, so I was good in that department. Then we hung up.

  As I put away my phone to head to the bathroom, using the crutches, I realized I was feeling a lot better than before Dante had called. And that was only because it was nice that my trainer cared so much about me, not because of any other reason. Heck, it was normal to feel great when people were as nice to you as Dante was to me, right?

  Definitely, I told myself and ambled over to the bathroom, barely noticing how the crutches were hurting me. An hour earlier they had bothered my armpits so much I’d only been able to take two steps at a time before I needed a break. Now I felt like I could walk on them forever.

  Dante

  Okay, the next time I talk to this broad, I need to pay more attention, I thought as I put my phone back into my pocket. If I kept those flirty comments coming, she might freak out and not want to train with me. Worse, she might complain to management that I was sexually harassing her and get me fired. Considering that corporate seemed to be looking for a reason to get rid of me, such a complaint would instantly finish me. I heard that last thing I’d said in my mind: “Those girls are the most fun to be with.”

  De puta madre. I grimaced. What the hell is wrong with me?

  Not only had the words themselves sounded suggestive, but the way I’d said them had made them seem a lot… sexier. I snorted, annoyed with myself.

  Normally, I never made these kinds of mistakes. But it was just something about talking to this chick over the phone that had made me relax—the things she said, the way she said them, her cute giggle—that made it easier to slip up. Talking to her was so nice I could barely remember what a pain in the ass she’d been in person. It was like she’d turned into someone else. Or hopefully this was what she was really like when you got to know her—easygoing and so sweet.

  The only thing that had bothered me in our conversation today was when she asked if I’d spent the day with my girlfriend. But that was unfair. She didn’t know what a sore spot that subject was with me. She didn’t know that my girlfriend had been murdered and that I would never again have another. Besides, it had been easy enough to skirt the issue.

  I thought about what I might say or do if Ricki asked me another time—face-to-face. I sucked in a breath to stop the wave of anxiety that suddenly rolled through me at the thought. It would be a struggle for me to just say, “No, I don’t,” like a normal person. At least it would be tough if she kept pushing, wanting to know how come, like the girl I’d brought home had done. I knew the girl hadn’t meant anything by it, only tried to be cute, but I’d still lost it and told her to get the fuck out of my place. I couldn’t tell Ricki to get the hell out of my face during a session.

  Well, since I doubted she was interested in me in that way, she probably wouldn’t push it, so why did I worry? Even though I enjoyed talking to her on the phone, I wasn’t interested in her in that way, either. Not only were we way too different, but she was not my type. I preferred more exotic women, women like Gabi, who had brown hair and dark eyes and who knew how to do a lunge without tripping. B
esides, if Ricki ever found out I used to be a gang member, she’d dump me anyway. Girls like her didn’t touch guys like me. Few regular chicks wanted to date a former gangbanger. I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t want my daughter to date someone like me, either.

  I stood up and stretched. I hadn’t lied when I told Ricki I’d been busy with clients and that I had another one in a little while. The last couple of days had been crazy. It had turned out Tonya was right; so far, it had been easy to add new clients to my roster. If it kept up that way, maybe I wouldn’t need to train Ricki after all. Well, it was too early to tell, so I’d better keep calling her to be on the safe side.

  I walked to Crunch’s juice bar and had a smoothie. That would hold me over until dinner. When I was done, I sat on one of the stools at the juice bar and thought about texting one of my clients to confirm that we were training tomorrow. But before I could find her number on my phone, Gabi showed up, her hair down for once. The way the honey brown waves framed her face made her look even hotter than normal. I hadn’t seen her since she took Ricki home.

  “Hey Dante.” She flashed me a gorgeous smile and slid onto a stool next to me.

  “Hey chica,” I said and opened my arms so she could give me the hug she so often gave me when we ran into each other. Ever since she’d started her training at the Los Angeles Police Academy to become a cop, I only saw her once a week or so instead of every day like before.

  As she released her arms from me, her brows furrowed with annoyance. “I heard management wants you to work harder to keep your job. That’s so effed up. As if you’re not already working hard as it is.”

  I smiled and patted her cheek. She really was a nice girl. “Yeah, but the good news is, I’m also making tons of dough.”

  She rolled her big brown eyes, as though she couldn’t believe I was so relaxed about it all. “It’s good that you think about it that way. If they pulled the same thing on me, I would’ve been so pissed.” In addition to being a group ex instructor, Gabi trained the occasional client.

  I nudged her. “Well, since you’re from Brentwood and your parents are upstanding citizens, I don’t think you have anything to worry about, baby. You’re the kind of person the guys on the board want at Crunch.”

  She and I may both be of Latin heritage—well, I was half Mexican, half Irish—but we were from vastly different socio-economic classes. While I had only known my mother for the first five years of my life and spent the next eight in foster homes, she was one of two siblings born to an entertainment lawyer and a casting director. They lived in one of L.A.’s most affluent neighborhoods. Gabi was the only one at Crunch besides Tonya who knew that I used to belong to a gang; the rest of the staff had their suspicions, but I was always careful not to confirm them. Better to keep them in the dark, just as we did with the club’s members. Gabi never stopped reminding me how impressive she thought it was that I’d managed to get out of the gang.

  “How did you find out anyway?” I asked her. I doubted Tonya had filled her in.

  Gabi ordered a smoothie from the girl behind the bar counter. “My dad knows the guy on the board who started it all. His name’s Mr. Winkle.”

  I chuckled. “Is that the jerkoff’s name? Mr. Winkle? Poor bastard.”

  “I know, right? Yeah, so my dad ran into him at some benefit the other night and Mr. Winkle was complaining about how Crunch was going downhill, hiring more and more lowlifes. Sometime during that conversation Mr. Winkle mentioned you and how the board had decided to deal with the situation since they can’t fire you and risk a lawsuit.”

  I raised a brow. “They actually think I’d sue them if they fired me?”

  “Yeah, apparently they were just sued by one of the cleaning staff they fired. So now they’re hoping you’ll quit of your own accord instead.”

  “Got it. Well, too bad for them I won’t.”

  Gabi had a long, indignant sip of her smoothie. “Of course you won’t!” She tsk’d. “It’s so unfair of them to treat you like this only because you weren’t as lucky as some of us who were born into the right circumstances. My dad even tried to tell Mr. Winklito”—she grinned big—“that as long as you behaved and none of the members complained about you, the club didn’t have anything to worry about. But from what I understand it was like talking to a deaf person.”

  I squeezed Gabi’s arm affectionately. “It’s no big deal, Gab. I really don’t mind working more. As I said, I’m making a lot of extra cash. I’ll use it as a down payment for my own gym later. It’s gonna be an awesome gym. You’ll be the first one I’ll hire.” I winked at her. “I’ll pay you twice as much as Crunch does.”

  “Ha, ha, yeah, that would be great. I’m sure you’d be an awesome boss. But I’ll soon be a cop, remember, so I can’t work for you.”

  “Ah. Right. I keep forgetting that.” It wasn’t strange; everyone who found out that Gabi had decided to become a cop seemed to forget that. It just wasn’t the career move one expected to hear when they met a girl like Gabi.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re taking it so well,” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s cool. Now stop worrying about me.” I gave her a half smile to take the edge off my words. Gabi might know my background, but I wasn’t about to tell her that the board making me work harder was actually a blessing in disguise so I could afford to keep Jose safe. The less she knew about my life, the better. I got to my feet.

  “I should get going, doll,” I said and kissed her on the cheek. “Work’s calling.”

  She nodded and smiled at me. “Yeah, I bet it is… Go kick their asses!”

  I waved to her and left, walking up to the second floor where the fitness desk was and where I’d be meeting my next client.

  He, a skinny gay dude who wanted nothing more than to get hugely muscular, hadn’t arrived yet. I walked in place as I waited for him. I didn’t think it would take long before he came, though, so I’d better hang out right where I was. I pulled out my phone to make sure he hadn’t texted or tried to call me to let me know he wasn’t coming or something. He hadn’t, but as I was about to return my phone, an incoming text made my phone vibrate. I glanced at the number and it took a few seconds before I realized who’d just texted me.

  Ricki.

  Thanks again for being so nice and checking up on me. It really makes a big difference to me:)

  I couldn’t help but smile then. Yeah, this chick was definitely a lot nicer than what I had first thought. I could only hope she kept it up when we trained again.

  Ricki

  Returning to work on Monday wasn’t fun. Not that I needed to run around much doing my job, so the fact that I had to use crutches any time I had to go somewhere wasn’t the problem. Yes, it was annoying, but I was getting used to them and in a few days I’d be able to toss them anyway. My ankle was healing remarkably fast. I could already put most of my body weight on my hurt foot without feeling like dying from the pain, a huge improvement from only two days ago. It was also fortunate. It meant I could drive and not be dependent on people taking me around or be forced to use L.A.’s unreliable, slow-moving public transportation system.

  Still, stumbling around on crutches was not how I’d envisioned myself looking the first time Aidan saw me again. We hadn’t spoken, not to mention faced each other since he’d broken up with me, and he’d soon stopped texting to apologize for leading me on. But I didn’t doubt he’d come up to me today and apologize in person to make sure we were good. He was that kind of a guy, someone who needed to be on good terms with everyone. I honestly had no idea what difference it would make if I had forgiven him or not. Just because we worked in the same office, it didn’t mean we had to talk to each other. Ever. We could resort to how it had been before I’d made the unfortunate decision to start dating this selfish guy—do our jobs and pretend like the other was just a piece of furniture in a far off corner. That’s how it had felt for months, pretty much since the day Aidan joined the company. At least I had felt like I was just an inconspic
uous couch to Aidan the way he had ignored me, which, in turn, made me act like he was one, too, despite secretly dreaming of dating that hot couch.

  Just about everyone in the office looked up from their cubicles as I made my way to my desk at the end of the big open space. Then, as I had feared, Patty, Invisible People’s blond administrative assistant and the chattiest person on this planet, ran up to me to get all the details of why I was suddenly on crutches. Well, that’s what I assumed she wanted.

  “Dang, girl!” she shrieked. “What happened to you? Did you break your foot?”

  Could she be any louder? I made myself smile, even though I wanted to frown hard while shushing her. If Aidan hadn’t noticed me before, surely he had now… “No, I just fell and sprained my ankle a little. It’s not as serious as it looks. I’m only on crutches to avoid putting pressure on the ankle. The less pressure I put on it, the sooner it’ll heal.”

  “Oh,” Patty said and nodded exaggeratedly, as though what I’d just told her was the most interesting piece of information she’d ever heard. She hated her job and took every chance there was to avoid doing it, this being one of them. She wouldn’t return to her desk until she had wasted a minimum of five minutes discussing my affliction. “Well, thank God it’s not broken. How did you sprain it? Did you fall off a bike or something?”

  “Um, no.”

  “So, then how did it happen?” She tilted her head as she waited for my answer.

  I sighed inwardly. Patty wasn’t a bad person, just someone who was born with poor social skills. Asking too many questions in a voice that was so loud it could give you a headache was one of them. She would keep asking until I gave her an answer, so I better come up with a good one fast. I wasn’t about to tell her I’d tripped while doing a friggin’ lunge, that much I knew.