Crushed (18 page)

She still hollers obscenities at me, the treadmill, and all other areas of the gym except for the water cooler, which she’s started referring to as “Sweet pea.”

I still tease her about her hair; she still calls me Beefcake.

But there are differences between us, too.

She no longer tries to cop a feel, and I no longer catch her shamelessly checking me out in the mirror.

Which is too bad, because I can’t seem to stop checking
her
out.

I can’t stop looking at her, because I can’t stop remembering what it was like to touch her. I can’t forget the way she felt beneath me, or how perfect her mouth tasted, or how when she all but begged me to take her, it had been the hardest thing in my life to say no.

Even harder to try to explain to her that I didn’t deserve what she was offering.

Because the shitty part of all this is, I
want
to deserve a girl like Chloe Bellamy.

“We done here, Beefcake?” Chloe says, pulling her turquoise towel off the bench and mopping back her forehead. She doesn’t look all that winded. Not compared to where she was when we started a month and a half ago.

We still have seven minutes left of our session, but before I can open my mouth and suggest one last interval round on the treadmill, Mindy McLaughlin saunters over.

At least she
tries
to make it look like a saunter. It feels a bit more like a stalking.

But today, I’m not her prey. Chloe is.

“Chloe, sweetheart.”

Chloe turns, and I catch only the briefest glint of annoyance in her gaze before she turns one of those full-beam smiles on at Mindy. “Hey there.”

The slim blonde approaches Chloe with arms open, but instead of going for a hug, she grabs Chloe’s elbows and does that lean back and
let me look at you
thing that only women can pull off without looking totally creepy.

“Honey, can I just say, wow!”

Chloe’s face turns bright red, and I pause in the process of taking the weights off the machine because Chloe blushing is a new thing.

“Wow?” Chloe repeats, her voice too high.

“Honey, you are looking
good
. Donna and I were just chatting across the room when we saw you with Michael here, and I have to say . . . I didn’t even recognize you!”

Chloe gives a forced
ha
kind of laugh and rubs the towel over the back of her neck.

“You’ve got to tell me your secret,” Mindy says.

“No secret,” Chloe says, with just the barest edge to her voice. “Just started exercising. Eating better.”

I lift an eyebrow. That last part is a surprise. I mean, I’m glad to hear it. I like to see a woman enjoy food, but I’ve always wondered if the surplus of candy Chloe keeps in her gym bag is really about chocoholism as she calls it, or if it’s more like eating her feelings.

Although, come to think of it, I haven’t seen her eating a whole lot of crap lately.

Hell, the other day, I watched her pull out an
apple
.

I look at her again, a bit more critically, and I see what Mindy sees: a bombshell body.

The curves are still there, and every bit as lush as they were the first day I met her. But the curve of her waist is more pronounced, the arms a bit more defined, her posture more confident.

In six weeks, she’s gone from being the chubby Bellamy to the curvy one.

I wonder if Kristin knows it.

As though reading my mind, Mindy leans forward and not-so-quietly whispers, “I bet your sister is green with envy over your boobs, huh?”

Chloe’s smile is big and fake. “I’m not sure Kristin’s been green with envy over anything in her life.”

“Where is your sister, anyway? We were just saying we haven’t seen her around. Or Devon Patterson, for that matter.”

Chloe drops the towel on the bench and, putting her hands on the small of her back, stretches a little as she studies Mindy, as though trying to determine whether she’s friend or foe.

The position makes her butt stick out a little, and I turn away to hide my groan. Jesus. I don’t know at what point I got the hots for Chloe Bellamy, but it’s starting to get damn inconvenient.

“Kristin’s visiting a college friend in Seattle,” she says finally. “And I’m not sure about Devon.”

I frown at that last part, mostly because I’m pretty sure it’s a lie. I’ve been asking Chloe about Devon, too. That was our deal, after all. I help her get the guy.

But she’s been clamming up every time I mention him, and she’s doing the same to Mrs. McLaughlin. Either something’s going on with her and Devon that she’s trying to hide, or she hasn’t seen him since the Fourth.

I hate that I like the latter scenario a hell of a lot better.

“So is it you that’s been occupying our Michael?” Mrs. McLaughlin asks.

I stiffen as their attention shifts to me, and I have a feeling that I’ve been the target of Mindy’s mission all along. She’d been all but slipping her panties into my pocket during our tennis lessons, and from the hot look she’s giving me now, I wonder if she’s about to up her game.

Chloe lifts an eyebrow before giving Mindy a little smile. “Definitely not.”

“Mmmm,” Mindy says, running her finger over her mouth in an almost ridiculous come-hither motion. “Well, rumor has it he has a girlfriend.”

I jerk a little. What the fuck? I most definitely do not have a girlfriend. Far from it.

But I have stopped sampling the wares of the bored Dallas housewife set. Apparently word gets around.

“Huh, interesting,” Chloe says, in a tone that says she finds this news anything but. “Well, my time is up, so I’ve gotta get going. See you on Friday, St. Claire.”

I try to catch her eye to read her, but she’s already turned away.

And because I don’t want anyone to catch me watching her go, I turn back and ask Mindy McLaughlin some shit about practicing her serves, and she’s all too happy to have my full attention.

But I don’t have hers.

Halfway through asking me whether I think she should be taking lessons three times a week instead of two, she breaks off and flashes a knowing smile over my shoulder.

“Well, well,” she murmurs. “I wonder if
that’s
why Princess Kristin’s dashed off to Seattle.”

Frowning, I look over my shoulder in the direction she’s smirking.

Looks like Devon Patterson has resurfaced.

And he’s sought out Chloe.

Chapter 20

Chloe

Whenever anyone’s asked what Devon’s been up to since The Breakup, I say I don’t know.

Everyone thinks I’m lying, but the (rather unpleasant) truth is that I haven’t talked to him since he and Kristin broke up on the Fourth of July. I sent him a text saying I was sorry (a lie) and that I was there if he ever wanted to chat (a truth). But he responded with a curt
thx
.

Kristin wasn’t nearly so closemouthed prior to fleeing to the Pacific Northwest.

She told anyone and everyone that Dev was a selfish bastard who cared only about himself. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one dying to start addressing her as Kettle.

Oh, and get this. My darling sister? She’s been seeing someone in Seattle.

Yep, that’s right. Two weeks out of an almost eight-year relationship, and she’s hooked up with some hipster musician who has “so much more substance than Dev.”

It’s for this reason that I don’t feel even the tiniest bit guilty over my butterflies at seeing Devon for the first time since he’s been single.

And I feel only
slightly
guilty for saying yes to his lunch invitation.

After cleaning up in the locker room, I drop my gym bag off in the car and then head toward the patio of the restaurant where Devon said he’d wait.

He smiles when he sees me, and I hate the way it makes me feel all warm inside.

“You didn’t have to rush,” he says, pulling out the chair for me.

I let out a little laugh. “I didn’t think I did.”

He uses his water glass to gesture toward my head. “Your hair. Still wet.”

“Ah, that,” I say, spreading my napkin on my lap. “That, my old friend, is because these curls can’t be beaten into any sort of reasonable submission with a hair dryer. They’ve got to air-dry.”

I can’t see his eyes through his sunglasses, but I’m pretty sure he’s studying my hair, and I squirm with the urge to run a hand over its probable frizziness.

“I’ve always liked your hair,” he says.

I snort. “Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously.”

“See, people always say that,” I reply. “But they mean they like my hair in an
it’s an interesting spectacle
kind of way.”

He shrugs. Probably because he’s a dude, and I’ve maxed out his ability to talk about hair.

The waitress comes over, and I order an iced tea and then shift to face Devon more fully.

He gives me a small smile. “So, tell me. How bad is it?”

“You mean, on a scale of one to ten, with one being you looking visibly heartbroken and ten being you’re all
gorgeous bachelor,
where do you fall?”

He laughs. “Yeah. I guess.”

I squint. “Take off your sunglasses.”

He does, and I take in the full effect of golden boy Devon.

“Seven,” I say.

He blinks. “Yeah?”

“Yup.”

And it’s the honest-to-God truth. Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see, but Devon doesn’t look heartbroken. A little more tired than usual, perhaps. A tiny bit unsure. But he also looks . . . lighter.

“How sucky has it been?” I ask, smiling at the waitress when she sets the iced tea in front of me.

He blows out a long breath. “I feel like I shouldn’t say.”

“Why, because it’s my sister?”

He takes a sip of water. “Have you talked to her?”

I shrug. “Text, mostly.”

He nods. “She’s okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. I don’t elaborate. I don’t care
how
well adjusted the guy looks to his single life, he does not need to know that his long-term girlfriend’s already moved on. Or is at least pretending to move on.

“I never meant to hurt her.” He fiddles with his knife.

I kick his leg softly. “Hey. I know that. She does, too, deep down.”

“Do your parents hate me?”

“What? Of course not!” I take a sip of iced tea.

His eyes flick up. “Do you hate me?”

I choke on the iced tea. “God, Devon, no. Why would I hate you?”

He glances down. “I don’t know. I guess . . . I’ve been an idiot, about a lot of things.”

My heart starts to pound a little.

“What do you mean?”

He lifts a shoulder.

“Do you regret ending things with Kristin?”

“No.” He glances up again. “No, that’s not what I meant. At all.”

“Oh.”

For the first time, in . . . ever? . . . the silence between Devon and me is almost painful.

We get a brief respite when the waitress comes by to take our order (Cobb salad for me, fish and chips for him), but then the silence is back.

“Devon.”

“Yeah?”

I smile. “Why’d you ask me to lunch?”

He blinks a little in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we’ve never done lunch before. Not without Kristin or our parents.”

“Sure, we have.”

I shake my head. “Nope. Not since we used to geek out over books in the corner of the cafeteria in middle school.”

He bursts out laughing, and an elderly couple to our right pauses in their conversation to look over, but he doesn’t notice.

“Ah, shit, we did do that, huh? I haven’t thought about that in forever.”

I hide my wince. I’ve thought about those long-ago lunches way too often.

“Point being,” I say, keeping my voice friendly, “it’s been a really long time since we’ve done this.”

He stares out at the golf course to his left, his smile fading completely, and I give him another of those soft leg kicks. “Hey, it’s cool, Dev. You’ve got a big void in your life where Kristin used to be.”

His head whips back toward me. “Chloe. You’re not a Kristin stand-in.”

I lift a skeptical eyebrow. “Sure you’re not just all sorts of bored and lonely?”

“A little bored, maybe. Summer is always like that. But lonely . . .” He leans toward me. “Is it bad that I’ve liked having my life back?”

I press my lips together. “No, it’s normal, probably.”

“What do you mean,
probably
?” he teases.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve been through a bunch of breakups myself.”

He leans back in his chair and studies me, his smile back in place. “Why is that?”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, not this routine. You sound like my parents.”

“Oh, Jesus.” He laughs.

“You do!” I say laughing back. Then I let my voice go into a high, not-too-bad impression of Mom. “Chloe, just you wait, sweetie. One day soon the boys will figure out what a catch you are, and then you’ll have your pick.”

He smiles, and I switch over to an impression of my dad’s deep voice. “Take my word for it, Chloe. Soon the boys will turn into men and they’ll want a sweet, smart companion.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Devon asks, moving his silverware aside as the server sets down his fish and chips. “I think they’ve got a point.”

“Maybe,” I say with a shrug. “But when you’re twenty-one with minimal relationship experience, it sounds an awful lot like a conciliatory
you have a nice personality
.”

He dunks a fry in tartar sauce and points it at me. “You do have a nice personality. For the record.”

I twirl my finger in the air unenthusiastically with my left hand, while my right hand stabs at an olive.

“The rest of you isn’t so bad, either.”

I nearly drop my fork. And I don’t dare look at him.

“Seriously, Chlo,” he says, when I don’t look up. “You look really good. Have you—”

He shakes his head, stuffing a fry into his mouth instead of finishing his sentence.

I take pity on the guy. “Have I lost weight?”

He gives me a half smile. “Yeah. I didn’t know if it would be weird of me to say something. I mean there was nothing wrong with the way you looked before—”

I give him a look. “I was overweight, Dev.”

I could still stand to lose another five pounds. Ten, if I want to be fashionably skinny. But the truth is, I have lost weight. Not an unhealthy amount, I don’t think. But after the Fourth, I started paying more attention to my diet, and . . . well, I won’t say that losing the weight has been easy. That’s an insult to women everywhere. But it’s crazy what a lot less ice cream and a bit more movement can do for a girl.