Love Cursed

by Julia Derek

  “No, I was born in Texas,” he said.

  “Oh. Did you grow up there, too?”

  He smiled. “I grew up in a lot of places.”

  “A lot of places? What’s that supposed to mean? Did your family move a lot when you were a kid?”

  “Kind of. How about you do another set of those chest presses now?”

  “Sure.” I got in position and gave him fifteen presses, pleased with myself that I managed to do the entire set of fifteen with good form. Well, at least I thought I’d used good form.

  “Wow, that was great, Ricki,” Dante said and smiled, confirming it for me.

  “Thanks.” I beamed at him. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

  He gave me a long look—as though he was considering his answer—before saying, “No.”

  “So it’s only you and your parents then?” I knew I was asking a lot of personal questions, but I couldn’t help myself. I really wanted to know. I’m an extremely curious person, sometimes to my detriment.

  “I never knew my parents. Well, at least not my father. But I barely remember my mother I was so small when she disappeared.”

  I felt my mouth drop open involuntarily. “Really? That’s so sad. What happened to them?”

  There was no stopping me now; my curiosity just had to be satisfied.

  “My father was shot and my mother killed herself.”

  My hand flew up to my mouth in an attempt to block the gasp that came out. “Oh, my God! I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried like that.”

  Dante squeezed my shoulder in a friendly manner. “Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t want to tell you, I wouldn’t have said anything. Now give me a set of those side lunges again. And be careful how you’re stepping. We don’t want you to have another injury.”

  I rolled my eyes and my cheeks heated at the memory. “No, we definitely don’t want that…”

  I did the lunges sideways the way he’d shown me earlier, making sure I was stepping with care. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dante had just told me. How did you get over your father being killed and your mother committing suicide? Did you ever really get over it? I was dying to know more details about both situations, but not even I, who was nosier than most and shamelessly so, had the nerve to keep asking. Besides, the way a muscle in Dante’s jaw kept twitching suggested he wasn’t as unperturbed by my digging as he’d claimed.

  I hoped I hadn’t upset him. I sighed inwardly. Me and my big mouth…

  We did the rest of the session mostly in silence, and before I knew it, it was time for me to get stretched.

  “That’s the best part,” I said and smiled at Dante as we walked over to the mats at the end of the big workout space.

  “I thought you liked pushups the best,” he said and nudged me playfully. He told me to lie down, which I did and he grabbed one of my legs to stretch the back of it. As he leaned over me, looking at me with those dark, burning eyes, I instantly struggled to keep naughty thoughts out of my mind. I managed to keep most of them at bay.

  “How do you feel?” he asked me after he was done with the stretches involving my one leg and had switched to the other.

  “I feel good. It was a great workout.” I grinned at him. “I can already feel how my body’s getting tighter.”

  His lips curled into a sexy grin. “I can tell, too. If we can keep up this pace and you watch your diet, you’ll soon look even better than Gisele Bundchen.”

  “Really? That would be so great.” Not that it was possible for me to look as good as a supermodel, but it still felt good to hear Dante say it.

  “If you ask me, you already look better than her,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “That’s not funny.”

  He twisted my body like a pretzel, pushing my shoulder and opposite knee to the floor at the same time. “It wasn’t meant as a joke. I was being serious.”

  I frowned at him. “There’s no way I look better than Gisele Bundchen.”

  “To me you do.” He smiled.

  I contemplated him for a few seconds. It actually looked like he was serious. Either that or he was a great liar. I preferred not to think about the likeliest truth—he was after all a trainer who, like Nina had rightly pointed out, had a vested interest in flattering his clients—and instead changed the subject. My gaze zeroed in on the faint scar below his eye. It was the first time I’d noticed it.

  “What happened to your eye?”

  He looked confused. “What’s wrong with my eye?”

  “You have a scar under your eye.”

  I could feel him flinch. “A mosquito bit me when I was in Mexico on vacation.”

  I stared at the scar. “Really? That must’ve been a bad, bad mosquito bite…”

  “It was.” He let go of me. “Okay, we’re done.”

  He extended a hand to help me to my feet.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It really was a great workout. Can I see you Saturday sometime?”

  “Sure. Could you come sometime in the afternoon? Four or five?”

  “Five would be great.”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you then, Ricki.” He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “Have a great night.”

  Dante

  I needed to do a better job keeping my mouth shut when I trained Ricki. It was never a good idea to share too much personal information with your clients. Especially not if you were a guy like me. Most people were not as cool as Jaime, who himself came from a rough childhood and had had a few run-ins with the law. Besides, the only reason he knew I used to be a gang member was because he’d recognized one of my tattoos as being done by Pedro, the Devils’ tattoo artist. As unlikely as it was, Jaime happened to know Pedro and Pedro’s tattoos were unique.

  There was something about Ricki, though, that made me want to let down my guard and just be real. She was so easy to talk to. Even so, I needed to be more careful about opening up. I wasn’t so sure she’d be as relaxed if she knew what my life had been about. Maybe she could handle the fact that my father had been shot to death and that my mother had killed herself, but not everything else. I was glad she hadn’t asked more questions about my parents. I preferred not to think about them more than I had to; besides, I didn’t really know many details about what had happened to either anyway. The way my mother had died—jumping off a roof—it was possible her death hadn’t even been a suicide but a murder like my father’s. From what I’d been told, she’d been so heartbroken when my father was shot that she’d finally killed herself, leaving me, her five-year-old kid at an orphanage. It seemed like an odd thing for a mother to do, take her own life when she had a son who depended on her. Or maybe that was just me wanting to think my mother hadn’t been so selfish, leaving me to fend for myself more or less. That was not how I wanted to picture her when I thought of her.

  I went to switch the workout cards on my clipboard in preparation for my next client. Right as I pulled out his card from the files in my drawer, my phone sounded. It was my client. He was stuck in a meeting, so he had to cancel his session tonight.

  Great, I thought. Then I might as well go and have a bite. It had been a few hours since I ate last. That was one of the few perks of being a trainer at Crunch—the club had a twenty-four-hour cancellation policy, which meant the client had to pay for the session if they didn’t show up. In other words, I had an hour paid break until it was time to train the next person.

  There was a little Mexican place outside the club that I liked, so I put my clipboard in the drawer and headed for the exit. As I walked out of the club, Ricki came out of the women’s locker room. I smiled at her.

  “That was quick,” I said.

  “Well, I’m not that sweaty, so I’ll shower when I get home instead,” she said.

  I gave her a look like I was shocked. “You’re not sweaty? That means I didn’t do my job!”

  She laughed. “Oh, you did your job all right. Trust me, all my muscles are totally wasted.”

  I squ
eezed her elbow and winked. “Great.”

  We walked out of the club together.

  “Where are you going anyway?” she asked. “I thought you had another client after me.”

  “Yeah, I did, but he just canceled, so I’m going for a bite. Wanna join me? My treat.”

  Asking Ricki to join me was not the smartest thing I’d done, but it was too late now. And I did enjoy her company, so maybe it was actually good. She’d help me relax for a while. If she asked any questions about my background, I’d just change the subject and she’d soon get the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it.

  She lit up. “Sure. I’m kind of hungry. Where are you going?”

  “To this Mexican joint around the corner.”

  “I love Mexican food!” She looked like she suddenly remembered something.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  She gave an embarrassed little smile. “I just realized that I might stink…”

  I threw an arm around her shoulders and gave her a friendly squeeze. “Don’t worry. You smell fine. I probably smell worse than you, having trained people since seven this morning.”

  She sniffed me like a cat. “No, you smell really good.”

  I sniffed her back, but more like a hungry dog. “And so do you. Let’s go.”

  She giggled and we walked over to Cholulita Deli and sat down at one of the rickety tables on the outside patio. The table was so small our legs touched underneath it. Not that I minded. A waiter soon showed up, handed us menus and filled up our water glasses.

  “What’s good here?” Ricki asked and peered at me over her menu.

  I grinned at her. “Everything.”

  “Really? Everything?”

  “Yup. What can I say? I love Mexican food, so there’s very little that’s not gonna sit well with me.” I leaned closer to her. “Do you eat everything?”

  “Normally, yeah, but I’m kind of on a diet. You know, I’m trying to get in shape.”

  “If you wanna watch what you eat, I suggest the ceviche. It’s delish.”

  She stared at me, her light eyes round. “Delish?”

  “Yup. Why, you have a problem with that word or somethin’?”

  Her eyes became normal size again and she giggled that pearly giggle of hers. “No, it was just so unexpected coming from you and everything.”

  I arched a brow. “You mean because I’m a dude? For your information, I’m very comfortable with my sexuality. Half my clientele consists of gay men and some of them are very flamboyant. After a while their vocabulary starts to rub off on you.”

  “I know just what you mean. My friend Nixon—the trainer guy I told you about—is gay, too. Not that he’s all that flamboyant, but once in a while he’ll say a word that’s just so…”

  “Gay?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I guess that would be the best way to call it. Even if it is politically incorrect.”

  “I’m sure they don’t care… Anyway, delish is what my friend, Miguel, calls it. He’s one of the waiters here. He’ll be out soon to say hello. If he’s working.”

  “Oh, okay. That’ll be—”

  “Dan--teee, you handsome bastard!”

  I gave Ricki an apologetic glance and whispered, “Speaking of the devil.”

  Lanky Miguel, his black curls well-groomed as always, sashayed up to our table, leaning forward to give me air kisses.

  “It’s sooo good to see you, sweetie,” Miguel cooed and batted his long-lashed green eyes at me. Our waiter returned to our table then to take our orders, but Miguel shooed him off, telling the other guy that he’d take care of us.

  “It’s great to see you too,” I said to Miguel. “I’m still waiting for you to come and box with me. You’re getting a little chubby, aren’t you, babe?” I pinched his side.

  Miguel squealed and slapped away my hand. Then he shook his index finger in my face. “You bad boy, you. I’m not fat!” Miguel turned to Ricki. “And you must be Dante’s girlfriend?” He extended a hand in her direction. “Hello, I’m Miguel. It’s so nice to meet you.”

  Ricki shook Miguel’s limp hand. “I’m Ricki, but I’m not Dante’s girlfriend. I’m just his client.”

  “Oh,” Miguel said and batted his eyelashes at her. “Well, you must be a very special client… Dante comes here all the time and he never brings any girls”—he threw me a reproachful glance—“or boys to eat with him.”

  “She’s a very special client, yes,” I said, hoping that Miguel would just take our orders now. But it seemed he was on a roll with no intention of stopping any time soon.

  Ricki

  Watching Dante squirm in his seat while delicate, but oh-so-energetic Miguel went on and on was so much fun. Finally, Dante said, “Miguel, if you don’t take our orders soon, we’ll both die from hunger. You don’t want that to happen, right?”

  Miguel pressed his palms to his cheeks and gasped. “No, of course not. I’m so sorry.” He eyed Dante like he wanted to lick him up. “I totally lose my manners when I see you, you handsome devil… What can I get you two?”

  “I think the lady would like the ceviche,” Dante said and glanced at me. I smiled and nodded.

  “Great choice!” Miguel said to me. “It’s delish.”

  Dante laughed. “Yeah, I told her that. I’ll have the steak burrito. And can you please bring us some chips and a side of salsa and guacamole?” Dante turned to me again. “What do you want to drink?”

  “I’ll have a Diet Coke,” I said.

  “I’ll have a Corona,” Dante said to Miguel, then turned back to me. “Are you sure you don’t want some Sangria?”

  Before I could answer, Dante told Miguel to bring me a glass of Sangria. Miguel disappeared with our orders.

  “You just have to try their Sangria,” he said to me. “It’s the best.”

  “But I’m on a diet.” I shook my head in mock disbelief. “I can’t believe that you, my trainer, are encouraging me to have alcohol.”

  He grabbed my hands and looked me deep in the eyes. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Um, sure.” I obviously didn’t have a choice.

  “You don’t need to lose any weight. You look great as you are. Just focus on being strong and healthy and you’ll see how every other part will fall into place.”

  “Thanks,” I said, a little surprised. I hadn’t expected that. Okay, come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t so strange after what he’d said when we’d been stretching earlier.

  Dante’s phone buzzed on the table. “Excuse me, but it may be a client,” he said and grabbed his phone.

  He lit up as he read the text. Grinning that big, charming smile that made me think of a toothpaste commercial, he looked at me. “It must be my lucky day today. My seven o’clock client just canceled also. That means I’m done for the night.”

  Miguel returned with our drinks then.

  Dante held up his beer in a toast. “Cheers, Ricki. I think I’m gonna have some Sangria, too, to celebrate my unexpected night off.”

  It was hard not to get affected by Dante’s exuberance. He truly seemed relieved that he didn’t have to train any more people tonight. Knowing how much he worked, I suddenly felt guilty. Maybe he didn’t really have time to train me but had only continued with me, checked up on me all the time because he felt bad I’d tripped and hurt myself under his watch. And because he was a truly nice guy.

  The big grin on Dante’s face died. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Do you really have time to train me?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “Of course I have time to train you. What makes you think I don’t?”

  “Because you seem so incredibly busy. I hope I haven’t guilted you into training me.”

  He took my hands again. I kind of liked that he did that, I had to admit. Especially the way he looked me deep in the eyes at the same time. “Ricki. Trust me, you haven’t guilted me into doing anything. I wouldn’t train you if I didn’t want to train you.”

&nb
sp; “Okay, good,” I said and smiled. I grabbed my glass of Sangria and raised it. “Well, cheers then. I’m glad you’re getting an unexpected night off.”

  He raised his beer and we both had a sip of our drinks while holding each other’s gazes. A warm feeling spread in my stomach and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this good. The Sangria really was incredible. I had soon finished the glass, so Dante ordered another for me.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll drive you home if you get a little drunk. Two beers won’t even get me tipsy.”

  “But how am I gonna get my car home then?” I asked.

  “I’ll be driving you in your car.”

  “But I live all the way in West L.A. What about your car? Are you just gonna leave it here?”

  “I don’t have a car, querida. I have a Harley.”

  “You have motorcycle?” It made perfect sense; I couldn’t picture Dante on anything else but on something like a Harley. Could this guy get any hotter?

  “Yup.”

  “So you’re just gonna leave your Harley here then?”

  “I guess that’s what I’ll have to do. Unless you have an SUV or a truck or something that we can tie it to.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. All I have is a little red Honda.”

  “Yeah, my bike won’t fit on that one. Well, that’s okay. I don’t live too far from West L.A.”

  “Where do you live?”

  Dante smirked. “Here in West Hollywood.”

  I stared at him. “What? That’s not pretty close.”

  Dante gave me one of his dazzling smiles. “Don’t worry so much, Ricki. I’ll figure out how to get back. Let’s just enjoy ourselves now. This is such a rare moment for me and I want to make the most of it. Please help me.”

  He looked at me with pleading eyes. How could I say no to that? Besides, I didn’t really have any plans tonight anyway, only lie on my couch and finish a book I was reading. But that could wait.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll have another Sangria then.”

  It turned out I had two additional glasses, so by the time we were leaving I was more than a little tipsy. Dante and I walked down to where my car was parked in the parking complex.