by Amy Brent
I immediately clenched my teeth when I saw who she had noticed. He was in line to get a drink, scanning the board as though he were there completely by accident. But I knew it was no accident.
“Jason,” I muttered.
“Shit, it’s really him, isn’t it?” Brittany asked. “What do you want to do? Should we make a run for it while he’s ordering?”
“No. I do not want to run from my ex-boyfriend,” I said, holding tight to my coffee mug. “God, what an asshole. I can’t believe he’s back.” I shook my head. “This really has been the worst day ever.”
I had thought I had loved Jason once. We were together for nearly two years after our college graduation. It was long enough that I’d pictured a future with him. Long enough that I’d never expected I would be with anyone else for the rest of my life. Then I found out he’d been cheating on me nearly the whole time we’d been together. He told me it was all meaningless, that he didn’t even know their names. Like that made it any better.
The worst part was, once we broke up, Jason was everywhere. He found out where my new place was and showed up there to walk me to work, bringing flowers and begging my forgiveness. I had to get a new cell phone number and everything. I just couldn’t get him to leave me alone. He said that losing me was the worst thing he’d ever had to go through.
Like it had been easy for me to lose him.
I didn’t want to get the police involved. Somewhere deep down, I still clung to the image I had of Jason when I was first dating him, the idea that he was a good guy. I didn’t want to think he was some creepy stalker dude. But he refused to leave me alone, and when my parents found out through Zach that he was calling me and following me nearly constantly, my lawyer dad sat me down in his study for a long talk about what constituted harassment and when a person was justified in getting a restraining order.
We came to the conclusion that I probably could get a restraining order against Jason if I wanted to. The things he was doing were downright weird to say the least. But I stubbornly wanted to handle it on my own. It was about a year ago that things finally died down. I found out through a mutual friend that Jason had moved away, having found a job on the other side of the country. I’d been able to breathe a little easier, but now it seemed he was back.
Not just back, though. He was walking over to our table. I stared at Brittany, not sure what to do. At least we were in public, and at least I had Brittany with me. That was the thing that bothered me most about the whole situation: I just couldn’t predict what he might do.
Would he kidnap me? I doubted it. I didn’t think he seriously wanted to harm me. But he might pin me up against a wall and forcibly kiss me if he had the chance. I didn’t want that.
“Listen, you creep,” Brittany said as he walked up to the table.
“Whoa, now,” Jason said, smiling easily at her. “I thought that was Abigail Foley I saw over here. You look good as ever, sweetheart.”
“She’s not your sweetheart,” Brittany said icily. “I suggest you leave.”
“Or you’ll what?” Jason asked innocently. He turned toward me. “You don’t want me to leave, do you?”
I stared up at him. He looked just as good as ever, I had to admit. Tall, dark, handsome. I had a type, and Jason Dean was definitely it. Too bad he was a terrible person. I wouldn’t make the mistake of falling for his tricks again.
“Honestly, Jason, I think it’s best if you leave,” I told him.
Jason’s eyebrows crept up toward his hairline. “Wow, really?” he asked. “We haven’t seen each other in a year. I know we have a difficult history, but I thought we could put that aside and catch up a little. I want to know all about what you’ve been up to.”
“Then you should know that I’m engaged.” I didn’t know where the words came from. They definitely weren’t true. Then again, what better way to get Jason to quit bugging me than to tell him I was engaged? It would give him a concrete reason for why things couldn’t work out between us and why we could never get back together.
I glanced at Brittany, silently pleading with her to play along. I could see the shock on her face, and the last thing I needed was for her to give the lie away. I gave her a little kick under the table, and she immediately schooled her features before Jason could notice anything strange about her reaction.
“You’re engaged?” Jason asked, looking just as shocked as Brittany had a moment before.
“Yup,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal. “I know I’m not wearing the ring right now; we sent it away to be resized. I’m definitely engaged, though. He’s met my parents and everything.” I stared up at Jason with a challenging look. “I think it would be better if you just left.”
Chapter 2
Ian
I watched as Keira picked up one of the ten-pound weights and did a couple bicep curls before putting it back down on the bench. “Don’t you have anything lighter than this?” she asked. “I don’t know. It just seems really heavy. What if I drop it?”
“You’re not going to drop it,” I said, suppressing the urge to roll my eyes.
Keira was one of my new clients at the gym. She’d been recommended to me by one of her friends, one of my best-paying customers, so I couldn’t exactly get rid of her. As long as she wanted to be here, I had to be here for her. But I was definitely not going to make the mistake of scheduling her for a one-hour session in the future. Forty minutes was all I had the patience for.
“Here, hold it like this,” I said, picking up the weight and putting it back in her hand, curling my fingers around hers. “And make sure you keep that elbow straight, right here, and then you just pull the weight up like this.”
She shouldn’t need me to show her how to do a bicep curl properly. She didn’t need me to, in fact. I knew all the complaining was just a way to get my attention. She wanted me to touch her, to correct her, to praise her, and whatever else.
Whatever else. I snorted. I knew exactly what she wanted. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t going to get it from me.
She was cute. Really cute, actually. And even though she had probably never lifted a weight in her life, she was thin and had a little bit of tone to her physique. She did yoga, she had told me, and I bet I could bend her into all sorts of positions in bed.
But I was so done with one-night stands.
I didn’t know what it was. Maturity, maybe. I was twenty-nine years old; it was time to think about growing up and settling down. Zach, my best friend, was at that point. He and his girlfriend, Mikayla, had just moved into a place together.
But more than wanting to settle down, I was just bored of the one-night-stand thing. It was exactly the same with every girl. I’d take her home and have sex with her, but nothing about it excited me anymore. Maybe it was just the girls I picked. Maybe I needed someone who wasn’t my usual type to make things interesting.
Then again, there was a reason I had a type. If I took home someone I wasn’t attracted to, it was going to be even more boring for both of us.
And to be honest, no matter how cute Keira was, there was something about her that I just didn’t like. She was too fake, like she was trying too hard. She was the kind of girl who woke up in the morning and spent two hours doing her hair and her makeup and getting dressed. Once, that wouldn’t have bothered me. I would have taken her home and fucked her just the same. But now I was looking for something different, something real.
Maybe that was what growing up was.
I glanced at my watch while she finished five curls on each arm. “Looks like our session is just about finished for the day!” I said brightly. Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had nothing on the books for the rest of the day.
“Well, thank you so much,” Keira said, taking a step closer to me. “You’ve helped me so much already. I can already imagine how fit I’m going to be in a few weeks.”
I wanted to say something about not going for instant results, something about how she might have to be patient—e
specially if we were only working with five- or ten-pound weights for everything. But I refrained. This was the part where Keira would try to give me her number, and when I didn’t call her, she wouldn’t book another appointment. I only hoped I wouldn’t lose the friend who had referred her in the process.
But I wasn’t going to take Keira home just for the sake of the money I was earning off her friend. Not only was that a bit too close to prostitution for my liking, but it just wasn’t worth it.
Sure enough, Keira sidled closer, putting a hand on my arm. “Wow, you’re really strong,” she said. She giggled. “I knew that of course. It’s just one thing to see it and another thing to feel it.” She cocked her head to the side. “You know how people say you should only do business with your friends? Maybe we should see one another outside the gym at some point, just so I know what kind of man you really are.”
There was something dirty about the way she said that last part, and I knew exactly what she was really going for. I tried not to pull away from her in disgust. In a way, I had to give her props for how bold she was being. She knew what she wanted and went right for it regardless of the consequences. Then again, she’d probably rarely heard the word “no” in her life.
“I’m afraid I can’t see clients outside work,” I told her politely. “It wouldn’t be professional.”
It wasn’t a rule I always adhered to, but it was easy enough to tell to the women I wasn’t interested in.
Keira frowned. “So let’s say I happened to be getting coffee at, say, Benji’s Bakery around three on Tuesday and you just happened to show up. What would happen then?” She smiled at me. “Surely you wouldn’t just walk out and leave, would you?”
I made a mental note to avoid the place, not that I had ever been in there before. “Keira, I’m sorry,” I said. “I like my job, and I don’t want to risk jeopardizing it. And anyway, I have a girlfriend.”
“Oh,” Keira said, pouting a little. “I guess I’ll see you next week.”
“See you next week,” I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes.
The problem with telling her that something in my contract said I couldn’t go out with her was that she would keep trying. In her head, I must be interested in her and I was just holding myself back. Hopefully, the lie about having a girlfriend would keep her at bay.
I shook my head as she walked away toward the locker room. Instead of watching her sashay away, I turned to find Zach staring at me with a raised eyebrow. Zach was my best friend. We’d known one another since we were in pre-K. He came to the gym nearly every day to bug me as well as to train.
“Hey, man. I didn’t see you come in,” I said, smiling at him.
Zach continued to stare at me. “So, you have a girlfriend, do you? Why haven’t I heard about this?” He paused. “Is that why you never want to go out for beers anymore? When do I get to meet her?”
I laughed and punched him on the arm. “You know very well that I don’t,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I was just trying to get rid of her."
“Why?” Zach asked. “That girl was hot, and she was totally into you.”
I shrugged. “She wasn’t really my type.” When Zach gave me an incredulous look, I added, “I’m tired of the endless string of one-night stands, dude. It’s just getting old.”
Zach didn’t look convinced, but then he shook his head. “I’m glad someone is showing some signs of responsibility,” he muttered.
I looked at him in surprise. “What does that mean?” I asked. “What did you do?”
Had he and Mikayla already had a fight at their new place? They’d never lived together before, even though they’d spent a bunch of time at one another’s places. Maybe she was mad at him for not taking the trash out or something like that.
“Not me,” he said with a sigh. “Abigail.”
I frowned. Abigail was his younger sister. She was five years younger than us, and I’d known her her whole life, although I hadn’t really seen her in a while. We’d all hung out together a lot during college, but since then, we’d drifted apart a little. She and Zach still had dinner together regularly, but our schedules rarely seemed to all work out so that we could all see one another. We needed to fix that.
“What’s Abigail up to these days?” I asked. “She still working in retail?”
“That’s just it,” Zach said, shaking his head. “She got fired from that job. She says it’s just because the company was downsizing, but she was an assistant manager. Who fires the assistant manager when they’re just downsizing? I think there’s more to the story. Anyway, now she’s just fucking around, not doing anything. I was talking to Mom earlier, and apparently, Abigail is getting kicked out of her place and asked about moving back in with our parents. “
I frowned. That didn’t really sound like Abigail. She’d always been a go-getter. I’d joked a couple times that if I could get her into the gym, we could make an Olympic champ out of her. She’d never seemed interested.
Zach was still talking. “She’s twenty-four years old, and apparently, she still doesn’t know how to support herself. If I were the one crawling back to our parents, Dad would probably make me pay rent, but because she’s daddy’s little girl, it’s like she’s done nothing wrong.”
I was sure there was more to the story than what Zach was saying, but I wasn’t about to call him out for being a jerk, especially not right in the middle of the gym. Instead, I just shrugged. “Actually, my roommate just moved out unexpectedly and I could use a new one.”
Zach snorted. “She wouldn’t be able to pay you,” he said. “That’s the whole reason she’s getting evicted.”
“I’m sure we could work something out,” I said. “It’s not like she’ll be unemployed forever.”
“You hope,” Zach said darkly. He shook his head. “If you want her as a roommate, by all means, call her. I’m just glad she hasn’t asked me if she could move in because I would have to tell her no. Mikayla and I don’t really have the space, and she’s been unemployed for, like, a month now. If she was really trying, she could have a job.”
I made a noncommittal noise in response. I knew the job competition in the city was tough, and with rent as high as it was, it was difficult to save up much money, especially if you weren’t working a high-paying job. Abigail had been working in retail, so she probably never had the chance to build up her savings. A month might have been all it took for her to be flat broke and getting evicted.
I thought about how that might feel, having to move back in with my parents at this point in my life. I had nothing against my parents, but I’d been out of college and out of their house for long enough that I knew there was no going back. There were certain freedoms I was used to having.
The thought solidified my decision. “You know what?” I asked Zach. “Give me her number.”
***
After I finished up my shift at the gym, on the way out to the parking lot, I called Abigail.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Hey, it’s Ian,” I said.
“Ian?” she asked in surprise. “Is something wrong with Zach?”
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head even though she couldn’t see it. Of course, that was the first place her mind went. Why else would I be calling? It wasn’t like she and I ever interacted without her brother there.
I started to wonder whether this was a mistake, inviting her to live with me. But it was too late to second-guess myself now. I was already on the phone with her, so I forged ahead. “I was just calling because Zach mentioned earlier that you needed a place to live, and I have a roommate who just moved out with no warning. I thought maybe you might want to check the place out.”
Abigail laughed bitterly. “That’s a really sweet offer, but I don’t think I’d be much help there. I’m searching for a new place to live because I can’t afford my rent at the moment.”
“Yeah, no, he might have mentioned that,” I said. “But I’ve already covered rent for the month anyway
, so I don’t need anything from you. If you’re really worried, you could pay me back later—in installments or something. Whatever works. That would give you a little time to get your feet under you. And anyway, I can cover you for rent for a little while if you need. It’s been pretty busy at the gym lately. But we can discuss all the details when you come by to check out the place.”
“When I come by to check it out?” Abigail asked. “You make it sound like it’s a done deal.”
I shrugged. “I hear your other option is moving back in with your parents. I can’t imagine you really want to do that.”
There was a pause, and for a moment, I was afraid I had gone too far. Finally, Abigail sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “And I really appreciate it.”
“I’ll text you the address,” I said. “I don’t have any clients lined up tomorrow morning, so why don’t you swing by then just to check the place out?”
“Sounds good,” Abigail said. She paused. “And thanks again, Ian. I really do appreciate this.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said before hanging up the phone.
Chapter 3
Abigail
I was a little nervous about going over to Ian’s. I had been there before for a couple parties, but the last time I’d been there had been a while ago. Actually, I had a feeling Zach had something to do with that, like he wanted to keep me away from his best friend. Which was fine; I understood that. I would have been a little weirded out if Zach and Brittany started hanging out, too.
I was surprised Ian suggested I might move in with him. I just hoped he had cleared it with Zach first.
I brushed my hands down my suit jacket and rang the doorbell. Ian answered it right away. “Hey,” he said, giving me a once-over and frowning. “You know, you didn’t have to dress up for this. I mean, you look nice and all, but I’ve known you for years now.”
I laughed and self-consciously smoothed my hands over my suit again. “I’m going door to door handing out my resume after this,” I told him. “I’m dressed up for that.”
