Fate Interrupted (3 page)

“What do you
have to lose?”

Dean stared at
the cup, his heart beating faster just considering it.

A short laugh
slipped from Shaun’s lips. “Wow, I’ve never seen you like this before.” He
leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. “Look, if she says no you’ll never see
her again anyway so what’s the big deal?”

Dean glanced
over his shoulder again, blood pumping thickly in his ears. His phone vibrated
loudly against the metal table, making him flinch. He cringed, knowing it was
Megan, and picked it up. Relief washed over him like a cool Nigerian waterfall on
a hot sunny day when he saw the text message. “Jon,” he said, answering Shaun’s
questioning look and silencing the phone. “He wants to know everything about
last night.”

“You
gonna
do this or what? I don’t have all day.”

Dean’s forehead
creased. “I thought you just said Carrie was at a movie with the kids and you
had all day.”

“Some of us have
yards to mow, Dean.”

Dean shifted in
his seat and wiped his sweaty palms on his black jeans.

“Don’t be such a
pussy, man. You’re a lawyer, for Christ’s sake!”

Dean pushed his shades
up his nose and took a deep breath, puffing his chest out. “Fuck it,” he
whispered, carefully sliding his chair back and getting up. “Hey listen, if
anything goes wrong over there…”

Shaun held a
hand up. “I’ll be right outside the back door. We got a helicopter on the
roof.” He stuck a finger in his ear.
“Eyes and ears on the
ground.”

Dean responded
with a shallow nod, before heading across the bustling patio.

“Don’t forget
the cup!”

Dean turned back
around and grabbed the empty cup, flashing Shaun a sheepish smile.

“You got this,” Shaun
said, folding his arms across his chest.

Dean weaved
between the tables with his head held high, his eye on the prize. Even her
posture was perfect. The way her sandal dangled from her toes sent an electric
current shooting through his veins. A wadded up napkin on her empty tray
bolstered his confidence. She had finished her lunch and was probably in dire need
of a refill. Little did she know, he was coming to her
rescue.

He stopped at
her table and glanced back at Shaun, who gave him
an excited
thumbs
up. Dean turned back around to find the brown haired beauty
looking up at him with the most stunning pair of green eyes he had ever seen. His
heart pounded against his ribcage. He wiped a sweaty hand on his jeans, trying
to catch his breath and wondering if he was coming down with the flu.

Her emerald
colored eyes narrowed. He swallowed dryly and considered aborting the entire
mission as adrenaline spiked through his system. He forced a smile that fought
him tooth and nail, and gestured with the empty cup. “Can I get you a refill? I’m
going back inside.”

Her mesmerizing
gaze swept to the cup in his hand, her full lips hanging part way open as if he
had asked the question in Russian. He tried to read into the hesitation and figured
his boldness teetered upon creepy.

“Umm,” she
said,
her voice as light as a feather. “I’m good, thank
you.” She flashed him a polite smile and returned her attention to the laptop.

Dean tried his
best not to look dumbfounded but it was impossible. His Adam’s apple bobbed
when he swallowed and he couldn’t remember the last time someone had shot him
down. He glanced back to Shaun, who opened his palms. Dean turned back to green
eyes, his muddy mind scrambling for something to say that wouldn’t cross into the
land of cheese. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath to steady his
shaky voice. “You always work this hard on a Sunday?”

Her eyes jerked
back to him like he had just called her the b-word, their heavy weight driving
the air from his lungs like a blow to the gut.

“Personally, I
don’t think God would be too happy. This is supposed to be a day of rest.” He
cringed as soon as the words slipped from his mouth.
Welcome to
Cheeseville
.

She chuckled,
restoring his confidence. “You are absolutely right,” she said, shutting the
laptop.

His entire body
tensed. She was going to ask him to join her. The only question was: should he
go inside and refill their cups or sit down before she could change her mind?
She answered his indecision by sliding the computer into a black bag and
getting up.

“That’s enough
for one day,” she said with a quick smile.

He stepped back
as she squeezed past, crop-dusting him with a sweet smell that inflamed his
desire as she headed for the parking lot.
“So no refill
then?”

She stopped and
turned to face him. Her hair blew in the wind, like she was filming a shampoo
commercial as she slid on a pair of big brown sunglasses. “Thanks anyway.”

With a quick
turn, she trotted down the patio steps, her laptop bag in her hand and a red
purse slung over her shoulder. He watched her perfect boobs bounce in slow motion
as she sinuously glided into the parking lot. The way her leg muscles flexed
with each confident stride drove him mad. She looked his way as she got in her
car. Instinctively, he whirled to go inside and collided with a heavyset woman
carrying a tray of food with both hands. The woman inhaled sharply. Her drink teetered
for a moment before slowly falling like a razed skyscraper.

Dean and the
woman dodged the fruit punch as it exploded against the ground. Once again, the
patio went silent as Dean’s face turned a similar shade of red as the fruit
punch. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I’ll get you a new one.”

“Thank you,
sweetheart,” the lady smiled, joining a man and a young boy at a nearby table.

Dean slipped
through the glass door and entered a new world of chatter and laughter. The
air-conditioning felt good against his skin. He turned just in time to see No
Refill girl pull out of the parking lot and disappear down the road. His gaze
crept over to Shaun, who just shook his head with his arms folded across his
chest. “Shit,” Dean whispered, releasing a pent-up breath and wiping his brow
with the back of his hand. Shaun would never let him hear the end of this epic
fail.

Chapter
Three

The gym smelled
like disinfectant and dirty socks. It was a ghost town, too. By late afternoon,
angry clouds had rolled in - quenching the thirsty yards and deterring everyone
into watching movies on the couch at the same time. Dean wiped his wet shoes on
a black mat and swiped his membership card.

“Hey
there, tall, dark, and handsome!”

He looked up and
smiled, making the pretty redhead behind the front desk blush. “Hi Stacey,” he
said, grabbing a folded towel from a nearby rack. “You look good.”

“Thank you,” she
said, resting her elbows on the counter and giving him a nice view down her
unbuttoned polo shirt.
“Thought you were going to call me.”

His eyes
narrowed. “I was, but I dropped my phone getting out of the car and the thing
froze up.”

“Oh.”

“Even the Geek Squad
couldn’t retrieve my contacts.”

Stacey made an
o-face. “Well, no wonder,” she said, jotting something down on a piece of scrap
paper and handing it to him

He took the
scrap and glanced at her number.
“You doing anything Friday
night?”

Her face brightened.
“I’m wide open.”

“I will call
you,” he said, stuffing her number in a pocket.

A coy smile
spread her lips. “No excuses this time.”

“Hi
Dean.”

Dean turned to
see a stunning blond coming out of the women’s locker-room, her car keys in
hand.

“Hi Robin,” he
smiled, admiring Robin’s formfitting tights. “You look great.”

Robin paused at
the front door and squeezed her eyes into slits. “You never called.”

“His phone
broke,” Stacey volunteered before Dean could get a word out.

Robin pushed her
lips into the side of her mouth. “Right,” she said slowly, pushing through the
glass door and fading off into the parking lot.

Dean turned back
to Stacey and raised his brow.

She shrugged.
“Her loss.”

“We’ll talk
soon,” he said, crossing into the middle of the warehouse-sized room where Megan
was doing sit-ups on a big red ball. His legs locked up like an engine without
oil. His pulse rate doubled. Megan came back up, her arms folded across her
chest, glanced at Dean in the mirror. He breathed a sigh of relief and kept
moving. It wasn’t Megan. He shook off the creeps and draped his towel over a
red bench press, threw a plate on each end of the long barbell and climbed
beneath it. The dimpled ceiling’s rows of fluorescent lights made him squint, triggering
a dull thud to begin pulsating behind his eyes. He could still see Megan
thrashing under him like it was ten minutes ago.

He lifted the
bar from its rack and carefully lowered it to his chest. The hard metal tapped
his
pecs
and he pressed it back up, exhaling through
his mouth.
You can cum on my tits if you
want to
floated
through his mind as he lowered the
bar again. He pressed it back to the ceiling, focusing on a dimple that was
larger than the rest, pushing last night further from his mind with each press
of the bar. He racked the weight with a controlled clang and sat back up,
avoiding the barbell with his forehead like doing the limbo. No Refill girl sat
on a pectoral machine across from him, staring at him with those gripping green
eyes.

Dean looked
away, a lump in his throat. Stacey smiled from the front desk and wiggled her
fingers at him. He blinked a few times and turned back around. No Refill girl acted
like she hadn’t seen him, squeezing the machine’s arms together in front of her
chest. He readied himself for something to say, his breath hitching. Out the
corner of his eye, he watched her biceps flex as she squeezed out her reps. His
mind reeled, intent on not letting this second chance slip through his fingers.

She released the
weight and got up without making eye contact, tightened her ponytail and hurried
over to a shoulder machine across the room. The way her butt cheeks jiggled
inside her spandex shorts drove him insane. Her legs were tan and toned and
when he realized he was starting to stiffen he lay back down on the bench and
knocked out another quick set, rounding up an opening line. After the tenth
rep, he racked the weight and it hit him like a ton of bricks. He glanced over at
her and scrambled to switch out the smaller plates with the largest.

His sneakers
traipsed across the thin carpet, its colorful confetti pattern unfolding beneath
him like a birthday party. Weights clanged around him and someone laughed out
loud. The room seemed to get longer with each step he took. No Refill girl
released the machine’s weight and their eyes met again. Dean had to focus extra
hard to keep from tripping over his own feet. She pulled out one of her ear
buds, her jaw dangling in the air.

Dean jerked his
chin to the shoulder press. “I thought you said you were going to take it easy
today.”

Her brow crumpled.
“Are you following me?”

“What?” he
gasped. “I probably got here before you did.”

She folded her
arms across her chest, perhaps noticing the way he was stealing glances at her
breasts. “When did you get here?”

He checked his watch.
“Five minutes ago. When did you get here?”

“A
half an hour ago.”

“Oh,” he said
flatly. “Well, I’m not following you. Not that I wouldn’t want to follow you,”
he said, growing silent as her eyes thinned. “I mean, if I was going to follow
someone, you would make a perfect…” He trailed off and swallowed dryly. “Listen,
can I get a quick spot?” He thumbed toward the bench press. “There are only a
handful of elderly people over there and I don’t trust
em
.
They look pretty weak.”

A short laugh
escaped her, making his adrenaline spike. Her smile lit up the room like whites
lights against freshly fallen snow. “Sure,” she said, getting off the machine
and following him to the bench press.

His heart jack
hammered inside his chest, pumping blood through his veins too fast. He felt
dizzy and prayed he wasn’t coming down with a summer cold. They were the worst
kind. The silence between them thickened. His gut tightened into knots as he
dug for something witty to say, which had never been a problem before. He groaned
inwardly, deciding he had to be getting sick. Even his B game was pathetic
today. The smell of her perfume mixed with her sweat, stirring his hormones
into a wild frenzy and further clouding his thoughts.

He turned to her
as they passed a lonely row of elliptical machines. “So did you just join the
gym or something?”