Chapter 1
STEPHANIE
My pulse thrummed in time with the loud, upbeat music. The smell of chlorine hung heavy in the air on this side of the gym, closest to the Olympic-sized pool. Stepping onto the fake terrain I would be pounding for the next hour, I checked out the swimmers slicing effortlessly through the water and a few women paddling off to one side.
Three kinds of people frequented a gym. First were the ones taking their workouts seriously, rubbing their sweat-drenched bodies with tiny brightly colored towels and wearing fancy watches that measured how many calories they burned. Second were those girls hanging out in the pool. I was neither of those.
I fell into the category of people who finally caved and joined their local fitness center because ten consecutive years of not going to the gym that day were adding up. The evidence was my horizontally challenged body. And yet, despite dragging my overweight ass in here day after day, I struggled to actually work out too hard once I got here.
Who pays to sweat? It was absurd.
Okay, maybe not absurd, but I was awarding myself points for having come here at least three times this week.
Instead of joining the ranks of the dedicated gym rats, my best friend Tiana and I set the treadmills to low, jogged a little and used the time to catch up after work and do some people-watching.
I jerked my head discreetly at a slender blond girl prancing by, neon pink yoga pants showcasing a butt I would never get by jogging at the speed I was.
“How about her?” I asked Tiana, happy that my friend happened to share my affinity for gossiping about the better-looking girls at the gym and talking about the sexy guys working up buckets of sweat. “Do you think she’s hunting for a man or an even better body?”
Tiana smirked, rolling her pretty olive eyes. “Definitely a man. Your body doesn’t care about what label you wear while working out.”
“True.” I sighed, wiping away the few dots of sweat forming on the back of my neck. “I haven’t shopped for labels in so long I didn’t even notice she was wearing one.”
“That’s why you have me.” She waggled her dark brows and set the controls on her treadmill to the warm-up cycle. “Well, for that, and to gently encourage you to start looking for a job that will allow you to shop for labels again.”
“I don’t need labels,” I told her as I fiddled with my own controls. These damned buttons seemed to get more confusing every time we were here. “I thought I had you to help me grow my voluptuous figure by making me be the guinea pig for all your delectable creations.”
“Rather voluptuous than skeletal.” She lectured authoritatively, sliding her eyes to mine. She sounded more like her mom with each passing day.
If someone accused me of sounding anything like my mom, I would be majorly offended. In Tiana’s case, it wasn’t an insult to say. If anything, it was a huge compliment.
Mrs. Jeffry, Tiana’s mom, was one of the best women you would ever meet. Hailing from the Mediterranean, she was a classic Greek beauty who was all about family, food and fun. Traits she shared with her gorgeous daughter.
Tiana’s sleek black hair was piled into a messy bun high on her head. She didn’t give a damn how she looked while working out, but she didn’t have to. She would turn heads anywhere, even if she decided to go without a shower for a year or stop shaving completely. Not that she would, but hey… She was that kind of beautiful that she would probably get away with it.
People would likely think she was starting some new trend.
“But I can always stop experimenting on you. I have a recipe for a chocolate lava cake I was going to try out tonight, but I can always save the recipe and try it out on my family.” She shrugged, blinking innocently.
“Don’t you dare!” Images of cutting into one of Tiana’s rich, perfectly fluffy cakes and watching the chocolate ooze out were already playing in my mind. Having a culinary grad as a housemate was fantastic unless you cared about piling on a few extra pounds—then it was a nightmare. “Let’s make a deal, you bake the cake and tomorrow, we’ll come an hour earlier.”
She pursed her lips, moving them from side to side, considering. “We can’t tomorrow, but I’ll take you up on the extra hour next week.”
“What’s wrong with doing it tomorrow?”
Rolling her eyes, she lifted one perfectly manicured brow. “It’s your birthday tomorrow.”
“So? We don’t have any plans.” To me, birthdays were like downing shots at a frat party or getting an STD test. Unavoidable, but there was really no reason to celebrate.
Tiana shot me a look and blew out an exasperated sigh. “No plans you know about. I, however, have plans for us. We’re going out tomorrow night. Period.”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Yes,” she insisted. She hit the button to stop her machine so she could turn, plant her hands on her hips and give me a meaningful headshake. “We’re going out. We’re even getting you a new outfit. We’ll go shopping after this and have fun. The end.”
“Could it be the middle?” I hedged, trying to negotiate, but I was fairly certain it was going to be useless. When she got that look in her eye, she tended to get what she wanted.
“Nope,” she said. She grabbed her little green towel from its hook and hopped off the treadmill. “Let’s go shopping.”