Back to You (7 page)

She looked up at him for a second before she cupped her hand to her mouth and laughed. He brought his can of soda to his lips, trying to mask his own laughter and failing miserably.

“God,” she said, shaking her head as a slight blush lit her cheeks. “I think after we work on your note-taking skills, we might need to do something about your handwriting.”

“You’ll have your work cut out for you there,” he said, and she continued laughing as she returned her attention to his notes.

A sudden raucous laughter combined with muffled voices from outside caught his attention, and he lifted his eyes and looked over Lauren’s shoulder through the glass front of the pizzeria.

Instantly, he felt the heat build in his stomach as his teeth came together.

The guy outside was named David. He couldn’t remember his last name, but he didn’t give a shit what it was. What he
did
remember was what David had done to him when he had come back to school after missing a few days for his brother’s funeral. He had said the most awful things, hurtful things about his brother that had made the other kids laugh. At the time, Michael had only been eight. David was two years older, and Michael was too sad to do anything about it and too young to know how to stop him even if he had it in him to try.

But now, things were different. Now, he knew how to hurt the people who hurt him.

By the time he had figured out how to do that, David was long gone, having transferred to the local Catholic school, and Del had forgotten all about him.

Until today.

He shifted in his seat, his knee bouncing furiously under the table and his eyes on David’s profile outside.

Out of his peripheral vision, he could see Lauren was looking at him, having obviously noticed the change in his behavior.
This is it
, he thought.
This is the moment she’s going to realize who she’s with and run out of here.

Lauren watched him, evaluating him for a second before she glanced behind her.

“Problem?” she asked, and although her face and posture were calm, her voice shook slightly, betraying her.

“That kid’s a piece of shit,” Michael answered, his jaw tight as he shifted again, bringing his hand to his mouth and chewing his thumbnail just to be doing something.

Lauren turned again, looking outside, and David held up his hand and waved to someone across the street before he began to cross.

“It doesn’t look like he’s coming here,” she said softly, turning back toward Del.

He shook his head slightly, knowing if he opened his mouth, no good would come of it. He wished David had come in there. He wanted to bash his fucking head in.

Would he have done that in front of her?

It only took a second for him to come to the conclusion that he would have. He wouldn’t have been able to help it.

“Besides,” Lauren said softly, pulling his attention back to the present, “even if he did come in here, you wouldn’t have been able to turn this table over. It’s nailed to the wall.”

He stared at her, stunned, and she stared back at him, her expression completely innocent.

And then he broke, his grin quickly followed by the first genuine laughter he’d experienced in a while. He watched the corners of her mouth turn up as the slight tension left her shoulders.

Del sat back against the booth and folded his arms as he tilted his head at her. “You know, you keep your head down and your words soft, but shit, there’s some fire in there too, huh?”

She shrugged, still fighting her smile as she picked up her pen and went back to writing in his notebook.

“I like that,” he said. “In fact, I think I’m gonna bring that out of you more often. And you can help me keep my head.” He picked up his soda and took a sip, appraising her one last time before he nodded. “You know something, Red?” he said after he had swallowed. “I think we got a good thing going on here.”

She laughed softly before she glanced up at the clock, and her expression dropped.

“Shoot,” she said. “I have to go. I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry,” he cut her off. “I can rewrite these. Thanks for the tip.”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly, beginning to pack up her things. “If you want, we can meet to fill in the blanks before the test next week.”

“Cool,” Del said with a nod.

“Here,” she said, reaching into her pocket before offering him money, and he waved his hand and shook his head. “My treat,” he said. “Thanks for helping me.”

“You don’t have to do that—”

“Go. You’re gonna be late for practice,” he said, cutting her off.

She stood there for a second before she nodded and smiled. “Okay. See you soon. Thanks, Michael.”

She swung her backpack over her shoulder and turned, shoving her money back in her pocket as she walked toward the door.

“Hey, Lauren?” he called, and she stopped so abruptly, her bag slid off her shoulder. She caught it at the last second and turned, her expression taken aback.

Del smirked. “Don’t be so surprised that I know your name. You’re not as invisible as you think you are.”

She closed her mouth, looking at him.

“I’m not gonna stop calling you Red, though,” he added casually, picking up the crust she had given him and taking a bite.

She smiled then. Not one of those timid, friendly smiles she’d been giving him for the past few weeks, but a wholehearted smile, one that lit her entire face, before she turned and walked out.

After she had rounded the corner and was out of sight, he looked down, pulling apart the crust she had given him as he replayed the afternoon with her. She was actually funny. And smart. And trusting.

And pretty without trying to be.

She was one of the most genuine people he’d ever met, and he knew at that moment that if he did nothing else in his life, he wanted to be friends with Lauren Monroe.

“
Del
? I can’t believe you, Lauren! What were you thinking?”

Jenn and Lauren were warming up before gymnastics practice, helping each other stretch, but at that moment, Jenn’s first priority had become reprimanding her.

“You know,” she huffed as she grabbed Lauren’s hands and began to pull her into a more thorough hamstring stretch, “I ignored it when you said hi to him, but to leave campus with him? He could have done anything to you!”

“Stop it,” Lauren scolded. “He’s nice.”

“Yeah, I heard that’s what he got suspended over a hundred times for. Being nice.”

“It has
not
been over a hundred,” Lauren said wearily.

“You know what I mean,” Jenn said, letting Lauren out of the stretch. “He’s crazy! Um, hello? Were you in Health that day? What if he flipped out on you? Or even next to you?”

A brief flash of Michael fighting to maintain his composure in the pizzeria flashed across Lauren’s mind, but she quickly shook it off.

“Well, he didn’t. It’s really not a big deal,” Lauren said, taking Jenn’s hands as they switched her into the stretch.

After a minute of silence, Lauren released Jenn, and she sat up. “So are you like, friends with him now or something?”

“I don’t know. I guess so,” Lauren said, standing as she reached above her head to stretch out her arms.

Jenn shook her head. “You’re out of your mind,” she said under her breath as she stood and mirrored Lauren’s pose.

As the two girls continued to stretch in silence, Lauren couldn’t help but wonder if Michael would have to endure a similar conversation with
his
friends, if they would give him the same appalled reaction.

“You hung out with that girl? The freshman loser who gave you the notes?”
she could hear them say. She could picture them laughing and saying her name like it was a four-letter word.
“Lauren Monroe?”

As if on cue, Jenn sighed. “I mean,
Del
? I think you’ve officially lost it.”

But then Lauren thought of his voice in the pizzeria: “
You know something, Red? I think we got a good thing going here.”

And she smiled, because regardless of what their friends said, she thought so too.

“S
o, how’s my favorite patient?”

Lauren glanced up from the magazine she was reading to see Adam wearing his trademark blue scrubs and boyish grin.

“You say that to all your patients,” she said with a smile as she stood and put the magazine on the small table.

“Hmm, I might,” Adam said, stepping to the side as he gestured for her to enter one of the exam rooms. “Health insurance companies don’t cover what they used to, and a man’s gotta make a living. But if it makes you feel any better, with you, I mean it.”

Lauren laughed and shook her head as she walked through the door of the exam room and sat on the table facing him.

“So,” he said, closing the door behind him as he approached her. “How are you feeling today?”

“Great,” she responded, and she meant it. In fact, she was floored at the difference only a few weeks of chiropractic adjustments had made. It made her realize how ridiculous she had been for not doing it sooner.

“Excellent,” he said, standing beside the table and holding her shoulder as he ran the palm of his other hand down the curve of her back. “Nice,” he said with a nod, pressing into the muscle on either side of her lower back with his thumbs. “This tender?”

“Not really. The right side is a little worse.”

He nodded as he stepped back and opened the door. “Okay then. Let’s go.”

“Go?”

He ran his hand through his tousled blond hair and smiled at her obvious anxiety.

“Where are we going?” Lauren asked hesitantly as she slid off the table.

“Out to the gym. The honeymoon’s over. I’m putting you to work today,” he said as he walked out of the room.

“Putting me to work?”

“Yep,” he said over his shoulder before continuing down the hall.

“I should probably warn you,” she said as she followed him, “I had a personal trainer once. He and I did not enjoy each other.”

“Well then there must have been something wrong with him. Who wouldn’t enjoy you?”

“Wow,” Lauren laughed. “Laying it on thick now.”

“Nonsense. This is part of your therapy,” he said. “People work out more effectively when they’re in a good mood. Something about endorphins. That’s just medical verity.”

“Well, I think we’re gonna need a lot more endorphins,” she said with a sigh as she came to a stop where Adam was standing next to a machine that looked like something used in medieval torture.

“Come on now,” he said with that impish smile of his. “You were an athlete. You can’t hate exercise this much.”

“That’s different. With gymnastics, I was doing something I loved and just happened to be getting exercise in the process. But just running in place on a hamster wheel, or sitting here staring aimlessly into space while I move parts of a machine? Are you really going to try to sell me on the fun of that?”

“I can hardly try now,” he said with amusement, folding his arms as he leaned against the machine. “You seem pretty set in your ways.”

“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? I have no problems doing something physical, as long as I’m deriving some sort of pleasure from it.”

The second the words left her mouth, she pressed her lips together in a hard line, and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was his smile morphing into a wide grin.

“You know what I meant,” she said softly.

“I believe I do,” he laughed.

She covered her face with her hands. “Okay, just show me the damn exercises. They can’t be worse than this.”

He laughed then, a jovial contagious laugh that made her chuckle behind her hands, and she finally uncovered her face, fanning herself until she felt the warmth of her blush dissipating.

“Alright, I’ll cut you a deal,” he said, walking away from the torture machine to a mat in the corner. “No machines. Just some floor work. Some stuff you can do anywhere.”

“Deal,” she said, walking over to the mat.

Lauren spent the next twenty minutes on the floor with Adam as he walked her through a few exercises that focused on strengthening her core, sometimes using his hands to align her body into the appropriate position and sometimes demonstrating them on the floor next to her.

As Lauren lay on her back with her feet flat on the floor and her pelvis lifted, she rolled her head to look over at Adam where he was lying next to her, mirroring her position. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry I was being such a brat.”

“You’re not a brat,” he said. “You just know what you want, and you’re not afraid to express that. It’s admirable, not bratty.” He lowered his pelvis to the floor and turned to look at her. “But I do want you to do these exercises, okay?” he said, his expression serious.

“I will. I promise,” Lauren said, lowering her pelvis and pressing her palms against her stomach. “Whew, I can feel that already.”

He smiled. “Good. A few weeks of this, and your back will be good as new. Then you can get back to all that pleasurable physical activity,” he added with a wink before he patted her knee and hopped up off the mat.

“God,” Lauren groaned, covering her face with her hands. “Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Eventually,” he smiled. “Alright, up you go. Back to the exam room for a quick adjustment and then you’re free to go.”

“Thank God,” she said as she stood, and Adam clutched his heart with stage-worthy skills.

“Ouch,” he said, turning to walk back to the exam rooms. “Tough day with the kiddies?”

“Actually, today was surprisingly uneventful,” Lauren said as she followed him back down the hall. “Although in saying that out loud, I’ve just thrown down a gauntlet with the universe, and tomorrow will probably be unspeakable.”

Adam’s hearty laugh carried back to her as he walked through the door of the exam room, and Lauren smiled. He had the best laugh: wholehearted and genuine and completely infectious.

“Alright my dear, if the universe is going to have its way with you tomorrow, then let’s get you in fighting shape.”

Lauren climbed up on to the table and laid on her side, and immediately Adam came up beside her, placing one hand on her hip and the other on her shoulder. But instead of aligning her the way he always did, his hand slid over her hip and came to rest on her lower back, just above the curve of her bottom. She lifted her eyes to his face.

It was strange, because these procedures were strictly medical. He was never inappropriate with her, never crossed any lines, and yet she couldn’t deny how intimate it seemed: his hands on her body, moving her, manipulating her, speaking to her softly and making eye contact with her as he made her body yield to his will. She inhaled slowly as she watched him.

His brow was furrowed, his eyes downcast, and she felt his fingers curl against her lower back. Just as he applied slight pressure, she winced slightly.

“Mm-hm,” he nodded. “After I adjust you, I want to work a little on that trigger point on the right side.”

“Okay,” she said softly, looking away from him, because he was her doctor, and he was touching her this way because it was his job, and she needed to pull it together.

Adam adjusted her with his usual efficiency and precision, and then he asked her to lie on her stomach.

“I’m going to put direct pressure on the trigger point and hold it there. It will break up the lactic acid and help release the muscle. This is going to be a little uncomfortable, but I don’t want it to be excruciating, so tell me if it gets to be too much, okay?”

“Okay,” she said again, and she felt his hand run over her back until he found the area he wanted and applied the pressure. She couldn’t tell if he was using his thumb or his knuckle, but the pressure was instantly intense, and she curled her hands into fists at her sides.

“Too much?” he asked gently.

“No, it’s okay,” she said through bated breath.

“Alright. Hang in there, you’re doing great. About ten more seconds,” he said, rubbing her shoulder with his free hand.

When he released the pressure, the instant relief almost made her laugh, and then she felt Adam take the pad of his thumb and gently rub across the knot.

“Oh, that’s already much better,” he said softly, and she closed her eyes at the gentle pressure that now felt so good. “Ideally, you should do this three or four times in a row. Can you handle one more, do you think?”

She whimpered softly. “Fine, one more, but only if you do this again afterward.”

She heard his quiet laugh before he soothingly laid his palm over the trigger point. “Okay, try to keep breathing this time,” he said, and when she felt the firm, concentrated pressure again, she pulled her brow together and focused all her energy on taking slow deep breaths.

After what seemed like forever, he finally released his hold. “Okay, that’s enough for today,” he said in a soothing voice as he rubbed his thumb gently over the now-weakened knot, causing Lauren to sigh.

“That feels really good,” she mumbled into the table.

“From this side too,” he said. “It’s almost completely broken up. You should keep doing this over the next couple of days. Have your boyfriend or your roommate do this for you.”

“I don’t have one,” Lauren sighed into the table, and she felt his thumb stop on her back.

“What, a roommate? Or a boyfriend?”

Lauren pushed off the table slightly so that she could turn to look at him, fighting her smile when the hope she thought she heard in his voice was written all over his face.

“Either,” she said before she lay back down on the table, burying her face like a child to hide her grin.

“Okay,” he said, resuming his ministrations. “Well then I can just keep doing it for you for the next few visits.”

“Okay then,” she said through her smile.

“Okay then,” he echoed.

And she could tell he was smiling too.

“So you’re not gonna offer it up?” Jenn said, lifting her glass of Merlot and taking a sip, her eyes pinned on Lauren. “You’re really going to make me ask?”

“Make you ask what?” she said casually as she perused the menu.

Jenn sighed in exasperation before she said, “Del. What’s going on with you and Del?”

Lauren glanced up at Jenn, her expression unimpressed. “Are we going to do this at every dinner now?”

“Oh, stop it. I asked you last time because he’d just shown back up in your life like two days before that. And now, it’s four weeks later. And you see him every day. You don’t expect me to be curious about how that’s panning out?”

“If something had happened, don’t you think you would know? I talk to you on the phone all the time.”

“Ah, yes, but I can’t see your eyes then.”

Lauren shook her head and laughed. “You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot who knows her best friend,” she said, placing her glass down and leaning across the table. “So I repeat, what’s going on with you and Del?”

Lauren sighed and placed the menu on the table, looking her friend in the eye as she answered, because she knew Jenn wouldn’t be satisfied any other way. “Nothing.”

“
Nothing
?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” she said with a shrug.

“How is it that you haven’t addressed anything with him yet? You talk to him everyday.”

“Just like I talk to every other parent,” Lauren said nonchalantly as she took a sip of her wine. “A quick update on their kid, answer any questions, and off they go.”

Jenn sat back in her chair. “It doesn’t matter what the topic of conversation is. You’re not starting on square one with him.”

Lauren shook her head, but Jenn continued anyway. “You guys have a ton of history. With people like that, no matter how long you’ve been apart, sometimes when you reconnect, it’s just like hitting un-pause. A simple conversation, and
boom
,” she said, snapping her fingers for emphasis, “you’re in too deep.”

“Well, there’s no need to worry about me. I’m wading safely in the shallow end. Strictly professional.”

Jenn tilted her head and made a face. “Laur, it’s me. You don’t have to put up a wall here. Why are you acting like you’re totally unaffected?”

“I’m not acting,” she said, opening her menu again. “What happened was a long time ago. We’ve obviously both moved on with our lives. What would be the point of dredging up something painful from when we were kids?”

“Because you deserve answers,” Jenn said matter-of-factly.

“Well, maybe I deserve them, but I don’t need them,” Lauren said, deciding it was time for a subject change. “Besides, if you’re looking for something juicy, you’re asking the wrong questions.”

Jenn quirked her brow, leaning forward again. “What should I be asking?”

Lauren smiled, knowing her friend was fully baited, and she took a slow sip of wine, drawing out the suspense. “Ask me about my chiropractor,” she finally said.

“Your chiropractor?” Jenn echoed, confused.

Lauren waggled her eyebrows, and Jenn’s jaw dropped.

“Are you screwing your doctor?” she asked, appalled.

“God, Jenn,” Lauren scoffed before she closed her menu again. “No, I’m not. But I do have a major crush on him.”

“Really? Your
chiropractor
?”

Lauren nodded, a small smile playing at her lips as she twirled the stem of her wine glass. “He’s so smart and well-spoken, but at the same time, he’s funny and completely down to earth. I feel like I’m hanging out with a friend when I’m with him.”