He Loves Lucy (12 page)

If there was one place on her body she didn’t want him fondling, it was the underside of her upper arms. Or her stomach. Or her thighs. Or the pads of flesh on her hips. Or her waist, because it was still so soft.

“You rock, Cunningham. Exhale on the extension.”

“Stop doing it for me!” She would have batted his hands away, but she was busy pushing the stupid bar up over her head. Theo kept his fingers on the vulnerable bare flesh of the underside of her arm.

“I’m not doing it for you, Lucy. You’re doing every bit of the work.”

She exhaled on the extension, feeling her shoulders and arms shake with the weight on this last of fifteen repetitions, her abdominals contracting to provide the stability for the movement. “Then why are your hands all over me? Take your hands away and let me do it.”

With great relief she returned the bar to its berth and sat up. Theo guided one of her arms up over her head and bent it at the elbow so that her fingertips touched between her shoulder blades.

“Breathe into the stretch and chill out, Luce. I’m not doing anything for you. I’m just here if you need me. That’s my job.”

She harrumphed.

“That was an excellent workout. You’re a machine, Luce, a lean, mean fitness machine.”

She stood and grabbed her gym towel and water bottle from the floor and glared at Theo while she chugged. Then she wiped the sweat from her face.

“That might be overkill,” she said into the terry cloth.

“The man has a valid point, Lucy.”

It was Tyson. She peeked around the towel to see him standing at Theo’s side, and it was the first time Lucy had noticed that Tyson was at least two inches taller than Theo.

She immediately felt self-conscious. The sweat stains under her pits were so big they had blended with the sweat ring around her neck, which ran all the way around to her back and down into the seat of her yoga pants. She was basically one large, wet rag. Her hair was pulled up in a clip that had long ago lost its fashionable position and was now balanced on her shoulder.

She took another swig of water for fortitude, then fixed her hair clip as best she could. “Hey, Tyson. How’ve you been?”

“Fine, except I don’t get to see you much around here. Our schedules don’t seem to mesh.”

He was one handsome man. Deep-set dark eyes with decadent eyelashes and a nicely trimmed mustache over one beautiful set of lips. Big and hard and bald and black. And he’d just smiled at her, and Lucy wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand up much longer.

“Well, it’s nice to see you, Tyson. And I’ll catch you tomorrow, Theo. Thanks for the workout.”

She turned to head to the locker room and Tyson was at her side. “Mind if I walk with you?”

She shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. She could feel Theo’s eyes on her. He was staring at her, sending heat her way, from his increasingly distant position behind her. She felt it. She felt him. She was so tempted to look back…

“I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me some evening. I’ve been meaning to ask you for quite a while.”

Lucy stopped and grabbed the towel from around her neck and wiped her face again. She glanced up to Tyson and saw him waiting patiently for her answer, a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Look, I’ve got to ask you this one little thing.” Lucy took a quick sip of water. “Are you
sure
you want to go out with me?”

Tyson’s laugh was sexy. She liked the sound of it. “I’m very sure. So is that a yes?”

“No. I mean… I have one more question.” She took a steadying breath. “Weren’t you a Division I football player in college?”

“Uh. Yeah. University of Florida. You got something against bigger schools?”

She could tell by the way his eyes sparkled that he found her amusing. Nothing about this subject was amusing to Lucy. And she just knew that if she accepted his offer, Doris was going to have a field day with the deeper meaning of it all. “I have nothing against the schools themselves, just the football programs.”

“Is that right?” Tyson put one of his huge hands on her soaking wet shoulder and encouraged her to continue her walk to the locker room. “Well, how about you shower and change and we’ll go have a cup of coffee across the street and you can tell me all about the activities you
do
like.”

“Parcheesi. I like Parcheesi. Nobody ever gets hurt playing Parcheesi.”

“You haven’t played Parcheesi with me.”

Lucy giggled. Her worry was ridiculous. Tyson went to school down here, not in Pennsylvania where it was news. He didn’t recognize her. That was paranoia. Plus, maybe going out with Tyson would accomplish two things at once-she could face her fear of jocks and end her dating drought all in one fell swoop.

She looked up at him and realized the most important reason for her to say yes was that Tyson seemed genuine, had a fine sense of humor, and was an incredibly attractive man. It might also help her to get over her completely irrational and dead-end crush on Theo.

“I’d love to have a cup of coffee and talk about Parcheesi. Twenty minutes?”

“Absolutely.” Tyson smiled big at her. “I’ll see you in the lobby.”

Lucy dared to turn around before she entered the locker room, and there Theo stood, right where she’d left him, an expression on his face she swore looked just like jealousy. He gave her a wistful smile, tapped the clipboard against his thigh, and walked away.

Tyson turned out to be the kind of man who liked to laugh and dance and be in the company of women. He seemed to know quite a lot about the female species, and Lucy figured it was knowledge that came from years of intense hands-on study of the subject matter.

In fact, Tyson had his hands on her during much of their first date. A hand on her elbow. A hand wrapped around hers when they walked. A hand on her knee to illustrate a point.

She enjoyed it. She enjoyed his laugh and the easy way he had with everyone they encountered. When they strolled together toward Bicentennial Park for the reggae festival, she relaxed into his strong arm and leaned up against him.

At one point, she turned her head to look up at Tyson, only to find him smiling down at her with that bright, devilish grin of his.

“What’s on your mind, Tyson?” She smiled back at him.

“Just thinking that you’re the sweetest woman I’ve met in a long time, Lucy. Are they all like you in Pittsburgh? ‘Cause if so, I may be relocating.”

She laughed. “There’s only one of me.”

Tyson moved his hand to her waist, pulling her tight against him. “You’re damn cute, Lucy. So tell me, how many other men are you seeing these days? I mean besides Theo of course.”

Lucy stopped and wrenched away from Tyson’s embrace. “I’m not seeing Theo!” She realized she sounded huffy.

“Whoa, girl. Relax.” He pulled her close again and resumed walking. “That was a little joke, you know? Because everybody knows you see Theo every damn day. Unless-”

Lucy shook her head. “Don’t go there.”

“You got a thing for our man Theo?”

Lucy brought her arm up around Tyson’s waist and squeezed. It was a bit of a shock. Tyson’s body was more than buff, it was carved out of granite, and she felt his muscles ripple under her fingers. “Dear God,” she whispered.

“You like that?”

“It’s impressive. What’s your percentage of body fat?”

“You gonna tell me yours if I tell you mine?”

Lucy tilted her head back and laughed. “Like you and the rest of Miami don’t know it already.”

Tyson stopped this time, pulled her close to the revolving door of an office building, and held her steady in front of him. “Listen, Lucy, I like you a lot.” The feel of one of his big fingers stroking the side of her cheek was very nice. Very nice indeed. She felt her eyes close. “But all you have to do is say the word and I’ll back off. Theo’s my friend. I respect him and like him and I’d never want to get in the middle of something you two are working on.”

‘The only thing we’re working on is my body,“ Lucy said.

“Sounds like nice work if you can get it.”

Lucy smiled up at him, stood on her tiptoes, and brought her lips to his. She wanted to thank him for being so considerate and figured a nice kiss was a way to do it.

Their lips touched. His were warm and cushiony. They welcomed her, moved on her, felt so nice and smooth. And Lucy stood there on her tiptoes, waiting…

And waiting…

She waited patiently for the
zing
! she’d felt when she’d kissed Theo. She counted to herself,
One, two, three
… but there was no
zing
. Where the hell was the stupid
zing
?

“You feel good, girl.”

Tyson’s lips went back to hers and his arms went around her and she was off the ground. He was lifting her up off the sidewalk! She started kicking.

“My God, put me down! You’re going to snap your vertebrae!”

All he did was laugh and try to get his lips back on hers.

“Tyson!
Put me down
!”

He did, and she stood there out of breath and bewildered, his hands still gripping her around the waist. She watched a little smile play on his lips.

“Baby, I’ve been known to bench press three hundred. I could lift you with one hand.”

Lucy did the math, and knew he was sort of close to being right.

Tyson laughed hard and grabbed her hand in his. “C’mon. Let’s go hear some music.”

The outdoor music festival was loud and joyous and he kept her close in the throng. Lucy felt safe and relaxed with Tyson and enjoyed the feel of his arms around her as he swayed to the beat.

Many people came up to her to congratulate her. One woman gave her a bear hug and began to cry, explaining that Lucy’s success had inspired her to lose ten pounds and quit a dead-end job. Tyson took all the attention with grace, yet Lucy noted how he stayed right by her side.

“Are you my bodyguard?” she asked him at one point that night.

“Like I said, sweet Lucy, nice work if you can get it.”

“Delivery for you, Lucy.”

Veronica tilted the dolly on its back wheels and used her sandaled foot to steer it though the door of Lucy’s office.

Lucy looked up from her food journal, where she’d just had to fess up to eating an entire multigrain bagel for breakfast instead of just the half she’d intended, and stared at the dolly. Three nondescript shipping cartons were stacked on top of one another.

“I’m not expecting anything.”

Veronica shrugged and tossed an invoice on Lucy’s desk. “The UPS guy just brought them up. They’re all addressed to you. From the Palm Club. They’re not all that heavy. Want me to open them?”

Lucy frowned. “No. It’s OK. I’ll unload them in just a second.”

She wondered what Theo could be sending her- new workout clothes? A lifetime supply of food journals? Several exercise balls? A self-help book for women who never get kissed a second time?

“And there’s a bunch more fan mail this morning,” Veronica said. “I think it’s so cool you’ve got a fan club. I’ve never known anyone who had a fan club.”

“Yeah. Fifteen members at last count. I’m gonna be bigger than Britney Spears soon.”

“But still, it’s a club. I don’t have a fan club.”

“You’re young yet.” Lucy walked over to the dolly and grabbed one of the cartons. “At this rate, every man, woman, and child in America will be required by law to do something humiliating on television before they die, so your time will come.”

Lucy hoisted the package on the top of her desk, then used a letter opener to slice through the packing tape. She pulled open the flaps and her eyes landed on the familiar small yellow boxes with brown printing. Dozens of little yellow boxes, the sight of which caused her heart to race and her mouth to water.

“Why in the world would the club send you three cases of Milk Duds?” Veronica peered over Lucy’s shoulder and sniffed. “That’s really mean.”

Lucy reached for the invoice with trembling fingers and studied the sender information-sure enough, it listed the Palm Club’s Miami Beach address and number. And it listed Theo by name.

She grabbed her phone. Then put it back down.

Could somebody have put his name on that invoice as a joke? Who would want to hurt her like that? Who would like to see her fail? Who on earth could be so malicious?

Veronica stared at her, openmouthed and bug-eyed. “Ohmigod!” she said. “I thought you were going to rip Theo to shreds. That was close.”

“Yes, it was.”

Veronica eased a hand into one of the packages and held aloft a few boxes of candy. “Because I was just thinking maybe somebody used Theo’s name as a kind of sick joke. I mean, it makes no sense that he’d send you these.”

If Veronica had just reached a logical conclusion before Lucy, the end was near. “I think that’s exactly what happened,” Lucy said.

“I wonder who would do that to you?” Veronica shook the boxes like marimbas and sashayed toward the door. “You don’t mind if I eat these, do you?”

“It’s time to WakeUp, Miami!”

Lucy spread her arms wide and smiled as the vaguely salsalike theme music kicked in. The applause was punctured by sharp whistles and a chant of “Go,

Lucy; go, Lucy“
as the cameras left her and focused on hosts John Weaver and Carolina Buendia.

“Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Lucy, for waking us up today!” Carolina said. “We’ve got a great show for you this morning, including what’s fast becoming everybody’s favorite monthly segment here on
WakeUp Miami
-Lucy Cunningham’s check-in on her journey from chubby to chic!”

From his spot just off camera, Theo cringed, and caught Lucy’s eye. She shrugged it off and gave him a little smile.