I groan, not wanting to be reminded of all the loser men I’ve dated in my twenty-seven years on Earth. Susan continues, “So you made it your mission not to date any skinny guys and then you found Nathan and his beer gut won you over. But now you spend all your time with these sexy body builders and now you want a meathead.” She says it like she has it all figured out—like she has a PhD in Delaney Psychology.
I cap my mascara and turn toward her. “You know your stupid rambling kind of makes sense.”
She winks. “You wanna rub your hands over an oiled up six pack, don’t ya?”
I smile and this time I really do throw the mascara at her. “You are such a pervert. There is more to dating than sex appeal. I love Nathan and I’m not going to break up with him.”
“Right,” she says, following me out of the locker room and out of the gym, whispering dirty things about biceps and sex positions that only strong men can do.
“I think you need to lay off the wine at work,” I tell her, pointing toward the desk where she keeps her stash in the mini fridge.
“Oh I’m not drunk,” she says, poking me in the ribs while she does this little hip-shimmy dance thing that only a drunk person would do. “I’ve just got you all figured out. You’ll come around eventually. I’m telling you…muscles will have you in bed begging for more in no time.”
She stands in the doorway while I walk to my car, completely ignoring how I tell her to shut up. “You know I’m right,” she calls after me. “But why don’t you prove me wrong and go have sex with your boyfriend?”
Chapter 3
Cat groans when I flip on the living room light. She’s passed out on the couch, or at least she was a few minutes ago, and now she mumbles something about fuck me and lights are stupid as she rolls over and shoves her face into the crease of my brown suede couch. Ever since our parents chose to combat their mid-life crisis by going back to college for doctorate degrees, my twenty-one year old sister Cat has taken to crashing at my house much more than she used to.
I sit on the back of her legs and rest my feet on the coffee table. “It’s almost eight-thirty. You have to be at work soon.”
With that, she pulls her head out of the couch and gives me a pathetic version of a puppy face. “I need breakfast, Del. There’s no food at my house. Mom and Dad don’t buy food anymore.”
I punch her in the back of the knee. “There’s an envelope of cash stuck to the refrigerator, dumbass. You’re supposed to buy food with it.”
She wriggles out from under me and sits up, pulling her knees to her chest. “But I don’t want to.”
I roll my eyes and head to the kitchen while she tells me thanks and singsongs about how I’m the world’s greatest sister. I make us both fried egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches and meet her back on the couch a few minutes later.
“You okay?” she asks, diving into her breakfast after shoving a stray piece of bacon back under the bread.
“Yeah,” I answer. Butterflies appear in my stomach and I’m not sure why.
“You never make me breakfast without bitching for ten minutes first,” she states all sarcastic and matter-of-factly. “And you have dark circles under your eyes, plus you’re dressed like total shit, and—”
“Okay, okay,” I interject with a wave of my hand. I set my food down on the plate in my lap. “These are my workout clothes so I’m not dressed like shit, thank you very much.”
“So what’s wrong with you?” Cat asks with a mouth full of food. “You on the rag or something?”
I sigh. I wish a little PMS was all that’s wrong with me. “You really want to know? Because I could use some advice.”
Her lips squish to the side of her mouth for a second and then she shrugs. “Lay it on me.”
I tell her all about Nathan and how he’s such a great boyfriend and how he loves me a lot and how I just suddenly feel…not into him anymore. She listens with an apathetic gaze on her face, and when I’m finally done pouring out my heart to her, she laughs.
She freaking laughs.
“Dude, you’re thinking way too hard about this.” She stands and takes our plates to the kitchen sink. “I’ve always known you would outgrow Nathan sooner or later. Frankly, I thought it would be, like, way sooner than later. He’s so not your type.”
“He is too!” I object, following her into the kitchen. I catch a glimpse of myself in a decorative mirror on the wall, and damn if my eyes aren’t circled with dark half-moons. “He’s educated and successful, and he makes more money than I do which is a first for all the guys I’ve dated—” as I say all these things, I realize how shallow they sound, but I keep talking anyway. “And he’s super nice and he loves me a lot. He wants to move in together and get married and all that. It’s time for me to settle down, and I just don’t know how to make myself love him. This might be my only chance for happiness.”
My face crumples when I finish talking, but tears don’t form in my eyes. It feels like the kind of emotional relationship moment where I should cry, but I don’t. Cat steps forward and places her hands on my shoulders. “Nathan fits a checklist in your head of what you want in a man. That doesn’t mean he’s your soul mate or that you should keep dating him when you don’t want to.”
“I do want to.” My voice breaks but I clench my jaw tightly and pretend that I mean it. Because if I say it enough, I’ll eventually believe it.
“Del,” she says, shaking my shoulders this time. “You just need to find someone else. You’re hot and you’re a ripe young twenty-seven-years old. You got this.”
I shake my head. “I’m old as hell. Twenty-seven is the new forty. All my friends are married now.” I put my hands on her shoulders, making it look like we’re slow dancing in the middle of the tile floor. “And this town is so small I’m pretty sure I’ve rejected all the eligible guys in a fifty-mile radius.”
She gives me a sinister smile. “Yeah, you probably have rejected them all. Maybe you should broaden your search to a seventy-five mile radius.”
I smile back at her but those words stab into my heart with a sharpness that makes about three dozen guys flash through my memory at warp speed. Maybe I have rejected every guy around. My only happy relationship was when I was a junior in high school, but that doesn’t count because I was a kid back then. Kris and I dated since the summer before ninth grade. Back then I never thought about dating anyone else. I never thought I’d be pushing thirty years old and still single.
Wait, I’m not single. God, what is wrong with me? I shake my head to clear thoughts of my old high school sweetheart. The guy who left me when I needed him most. The guy who does not matter at all anymore.
Cat pulls me into a hug and my face presses into her shoulder, smearing wetness on my cheek. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying. I suck in a deep breath and pull myself together. A loud buzzing fills the air.
“Your ass is ringing,” Cat says, grabbing a drink from the fridge. I slide my phone out of my back pocket, hoping it isn’t Nathan and hating myself for thinking that. It’s my boss, calling from her personal phone and not from the gym. Judy and her husband Dwayne founded Carson’s gym back in their twenties, when they both competed in professional body building championships. Now they’re pushing retirement age, but are still just as muscular and fit as ever. I couldn’t ask for better bosses. They’re like family to me.
I consider letting it go to voicemail just in case she wants me to cover an additional shift or do extra work for her around the gym. But then I realize that any extra work would fill up my free time, so I answer.
“Delany, honey, we need to talk,” Judy says, her voice tinged with anxiety.
“Yes, ma’am?” I squeak out, my fingers tightening around the phone. My heart speeds up as my mind contrives a million possibilities before she has a chance to say another word. Am I being fired? Did the gym burn down and now I’m jobless? Is Dwayne dead?
“As of today, I am no longer your boss.”
My heart drops into
my stomach. “I don’t understand,” I say as Cat’s expression turns serious when I look at her. “What did I do?”
A chuckle comes from the other end of the phone. “You’re not fired! Dwayne and I sold the gym. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner, but we’ve kept the negotiations private for a few weeks until we were sure this was a done deal. But no worries, you still have your job. You’ll need to meet at the gym tomorrow at nine in the morning. We’re having an owner trade off and orientation meeting for all of the employees.”
I swallow, but my throat stays dry. At least I still have a job. Still, change is never fun. I make some kind of stupid joke about them getting an early retirement and she assures me that they will continue to see me at the gym, since they’ll never quit working out. Cat, now bored with eavesdropping on my conversation, finishes her sandwich and helps herself to my leftover Chinese takeout in the fridge. I don’t bother telling her that it’s three days old and probably shouldn’t be eaten.
Chapter 4
Dull pain shoots through my eyes—no, just my left eye. It’s cold and warm at the same time. And it hurts. My teeth grind together as my head pulls against an invisible force holding me down, forcing me to stay in pain. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I run away?
Why is my vision dark but I still see his face?
I wake up, gasping for breath as I fling my body over on my back. My chest heaves as I stare at my bedroom ceiling. I was dreaming; it was just a dream. My eye still hurts though. I bring my hands in front of my face, turning them over a few times to ground myself in reality. That was a dream and this is real. And Kris doesn’t matter anymore and my brain was just being an asshole by unearthing him out of my memories and into a hazy nightmare. I take a deep breath, dragging my palm over my mouth. Nightmares fade and I will soon forget about it. About him. It’s already been nine years. Surely it won’t take much longer.
I rub my hurt eye, feeling an indention in my skin. Realization hits me as I glance at the bracelet on my wrist; a thick chain with a lock and key charm that my brother gave me all those years ago. The last present he ever gave me. I never take it off. It must have been pressed against my face, causing the pain I felt in my dream. The sun shines through my window, meaning I slept straight through the whole night. It’s time to get up and face the day. Meet the new boss and all that.
I sigh so loud it startles me.
Even a cold shower doesn’t take him off my mind.
The new owner wastes no time in alerting the public that Caron’s Gym is under new management, according to the massive banner hanging from the glass walls in front of the gym. Big black vinyl letters scream NEW MANAGEMENT with a freaking emoticon smiley face printed on plastic in blindingly bright highlighter yellow. You’d think the old management was a bunch of communists or something to warrant a sign of this nature.
Visions float through my mind of our new boss as a clone of Richard Simmons. It almost has me so terrified that I can’t get out of my car. I mean, seriously, who has a professional banner made with an emoticon? What if he makes me work harder than I am prepared to work? Or if he’s some kind of fitness freak who won’t allow me to snack on pizza-flavored pretzels and disgustingly fattening mocha frappachinos with extra whipped cream? Or what if he’s not fit at all, but some kind of overweight creep who will secretly install security cameras in the women’s locker room to broadcast our goods to some internet webcam business?
I think I’ll start taking my after-workout showers at home.
The gym still smells and looks the same when I walk inside. I almost toss my purse under the desk on instinct, before remembering that I’m not here to work. Everyone is gathered in the dance room, an addition to the original gym with mirrored walls and reclaimed high school gym flooring that my old boss snagged for super cheap. I check the time on my cell phone. I’m five minutes late. Awesome.
My stomach twists into a knot as I enter the dance room, fully aware that the first impression I’m making on my new boss is not the best one. All five employees are here, plus Dwayne and Judy who I guess are here to say goodbye. They’re standing around a pop up table with donuts, assorted muffins and drinks. Susan calls me over with a wave of her hand, while her mouth is filled with pastry and some kind of red icing.
“My ass is gonna kill me for this,” she says, taking another bite of her donut. The way she closes her eyes and savors the taste makes me feel like her ass doesn’t have much of a say so in the matter. She shoves the box of caloric nightmares toward me. “Here, take one. That way we can work it off together.”
“I’m surprised the new owner brought donuts,” I say as I grab one with chocolate drizzled over the golden sugar glaze. “Does he not know this is a gym?”
Susan shrugs with her mouth full and I glance around, looking for my new boss. “Where is he anyway?” In a softer voice, I ask, “Is he weird?”
Susan glances around and then gives a longing look toward the rest of the donuts. “I guess he ran to the other room or something. And no, girl, he’s not weird.” She throws her hand against her heart and looks me dead in the eyes. “He. Is. Gorgeous.”
I cock an eyebrow. This could be interesting. “Gorgeous as in my age? Or your age?” I’ll never forget the time Susan tried hooking me up with this “ridiculously hot” man she met at the dentist. He was forty-seven years old but she swore he looked no older than thirty. Right.
Susan gives me a chiding glare, probably because she’s remembering the same thing I am about the dentist guy. “Your age,” she says with a roll of her eyes. The sliding glass door to the dance room swings open and she nods in that direction. “See for yourself.”
My new boss saunters in, donut in one hand and the membership binder in the other. Susan was right. He’s definitely my age. Light blue designer jeans cling to his muscular thighs in all the right places. The motorcycle logo splashed across his teal shirt stretches to accommodate his muscular chest. He takes one bite of the donut and his perfectly chiseled jaw moves as his auburn eyes glance across the room. Our eyes meet and the heart in my chest turns to ice.
The good news is that the new owner is not a freaky health nut with an aversion to junk food.
The bad news is that he killed my brother.
Chapter 5
Although I remember the beginning of my sixteenth birthday party and it’s impossible to forget the end of it, I never remember anything that happened between. I guess those memories never had time to form. I think we had pizza and someone showed up drunk, but I’ll never be sure.
It was June 22nd and Tyler was ridiculously excited that my actual birthday fell on a Saturday. He had all these freaky OCD-like tendencies, and partying on a date that’s not the actual date of your birth really annoyed him. But it was Saturday and it was June 22nd, the actual, real date that sixteen years prior to today, I had popped out of our mother. Although she said the term popped out was incredibly inaccurate.
We weren’t rich enough to throw some big sweet sixteen bash for me, but I wasn’t a huge fan of attention and fancy things, so I opted for a pool party in my grandparent’s back yard. Despite being about as unpopular as the group of nerds who sat alone in the cafeteria, playing a card game they invented themselves, about two dozen people showed up to celebrate the date of my birth.
I only cared about one.
Kris Payne stepped into my back yard and my knees went weak. Even with the sun in my eyes, I knew it was him by the way he walked, like he had no cares in the world and not even an earthquake could trip him. His black and red board shorts covered the only part of his body I hadn’t yet seen. Our eyes met from across the yard. I sat on the edge of the pool with my feet in the water. His lips broke into a smile as he kicked off his flip-flops and pulled his white t-shirt over his head in one quick movement, tossing it on a patio chair. I barely had time to gaze as his chest, sculpted from all that varsity basketball playing, before he crashed into me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling us both into the water.
<
br /> I flailed in the shallow end as he kissed my hair, cheek, neck and lips, pulling me closer to him as we bobbed in the pool. I squealed and whined that he had messed up my hair and now we were all wet, and my corduroy bikini top was simply for show and not for swimming. I punched his shoulder and he grabbed my hand and kissed it.
I was a little angry about the wet hair thing because I had spent hours stuck in the bathroom with the flat iron and all I could think about was how I’d forever be captured in photos looking like a swamp zombie. But it didn’t matter too much, because I was with Kris, and I would always be with Kris and although I would look ugly in photos, at least he would know what I looked like for those few moments before we fell in the pool.
My brother Tyler, high on the excitement of getting accepted into law school, came riding into the backyard on his beloved motorcycle. It was really just a Vespa that he found in a dumpster and fixed up over a few months at his job at a real motorcycle shop. But it was his pride and joy and I didn’t dare call it anything but a motorcycle. Tyler let out a whoop as he pulled up to the pool, stopping by slamming his feet on the ground and pulling hard on the handlebar brake.
He threw his arms in the air while straddling the bike and yelled, “It’s my sister’s birthday!” as if he were making some dramatic proclamation to the world. I shook my head, embarrassed, and Kris laughed and squeezed me closer to him.
That’s the last time Kris touched me. What happened next haunted my dreams for years. Now, almost ten years later, the nightmares are few, but they are always the same crystal clear image that is forever burned into my brain.
Tyler hopped off the Vespa and walked to the edge of the pool, leaning over to shake Kris’s hand. Only, they started joking around with each other, making comments about muscles and arm wrestling and shit that I wasn’t paying attention to at the time, but I wish I was. Maybe then I could have stopped it. I could have said something or done something to prevent Kris from grasping onto Tyler’s hand and giving him a playful yank, hoping to toss him fully-clothed into the pool.
Not Your Fault Page 2
