Julien's Book (7 page)

John David
stepped in like the voice of reason. "Coach Julien inspired the main character in Julien's Book, and your name's Nadine LaBelle. I'm sure you can see where that's sort of hard to believe."

"I have a pretty good grasp on the English language, but the words that just came out of your mouth made no sense at all to me. Why are those two things hard to believe?"

The three guys got all shifty-eyed glancing around for someone to come out and say something. A steady stream of people walked in and out of the door behind them as one class ended and another began. None of the coaches paid attention to the people coming and going, which made Nadine feel like she was about to have some sort of weird intervention or something.

"Have you ever read a book called
Julien's Book?" Brad asked.

Nadine's clueless expression was extremely convincing. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"There's a book where a guy named Julien falls in love with a girl named Nadine." Brad said.

"And that's the big coincidence?" she asked, incredulous. "How is that supposed to be my fault?" She was pissed. She had never enjoyed exercise so much and was already feeling like part of the gym family. She
wasn't about to let this guy Julien and his little book obsession make her quit coming. She figured it wouldn't be a problem as long as she took care to avoid his classes.

"I'll tell Christian to
text me if he can't be at class," she said. She started walking toward the door, but paused and gestured in the direction Julien had walked in. "Tell him I'm sorry for being named Nadine. He can call me Yvette or Peggy Sue if he needs to, but I’m not quitting."

The guys cracked up.

"Don't worry about Julien," Tim said. "I'll set him straight."

"I'd appreciate that," she said. She reached for the door, but Tim put a hand out to stop her.

"I don't know where you think you're going. You're still doing class."

"I don't think so
," Nadine said.

"Come on. I'll be in ther
e with you guys," Tim said. Tim taught the advanced classes, so Nadine hadn't taken any of his classes. She knew what a respected teacher he was, and was tempted to stay just so she could say she worked with him.

"Get in there," he said, giving her a noogie that she was sure left her hair in disarray. She'd seen a few people she knew go in for the class, so she knew she'd have
someone besides Julien to talk to once she went in there. Before she could chicken out, she made her legs take her in the direction of the mat.

She took off her jacket, socks and shoes, and within a minute had everything folded and stored. Julien waited for her to get on the mat before he started taking the class through warm-ups.

Chapter 7

Julien looked at the beautiful girl refusing to make eye contact while he took them through warm ups
, and thought it was too damn bad she was off her rocker.

"I don't think she's faking it." Tim said. He had just walked up and his backed turned to the class so that Julien was the only one who could hear him.

Julien laughed.

"I'm not joking. I think that's her real name."

"Even if that were an extremely common name in France, which I can't imagine it is, what are the chances that she'd be coming here, to this gym?"

"That's exactly what I asked
her, and she had no idea what I was talking about."

"I'm sure she didn't."

"I think she was telling the truth, Julien."

That was all they had time to say
on the subject. The class had finished the series of warm ups they'd been given, and the coaches went into demonstrating the first technique.

About halfway through the class, Nadine found herself stuck on remembering which hand should be positioned where
as she tried to work through a technique. She looked up at the nearest coach for assistance. It happened to be Julien, and thank God, it seemed he was able to set aside the problem he had with her and answer her question. She was on her back with her legs positioned around her partner's waist. She was holding onto her partner's shoulders and neck, but her grip felt awkward, and she hesitated to go on without asking a coach. Julien got down on one knee so he could help position her hands correctly. He hovered over her, trying to see exactly what needed to be changed. He was a big guy, and she tried not to notice how his shirt hugged the muscular curves of his chest and arms. It was too bad he was impossible to get along with because he was extremely handsome. She couldn't help but notice how he smelled. Given the fact that he was a coach, she expected him to smell like sweat or something, but instead he smelled like he'd just gotten out of the shower. She stared at him as he spoke. He had these blue eyes that looked absolutely striking against the burgundy colored birthmark that took up the space behind his ear.

"Your other left hand," he said.

She hadn't even heard what he said in the first place since she'd been so lost in thought about that birthmark. She quickly switched her grip, trying to seem like she wasn't flustered.

Nadine had
always been a sucker for a challenge, and his disdain for her was probably a turn on. She bit her lip, partly to remind herself to focus, and partly as punishment for being weird enough to like guys who didn't like her back.

"You're not going to be able to sink it," Julien said, "unless your
hand's over here." He pried her hand off the spot where it was and repositioned it.

She grabbed her own forearm
where he showed her, and the other girl instantly began tapping, signaling for her to release the choke. "I can't believe that," she said. "I just moved my hand like two inches. I didn't even have to squeeze."

Julien smiled. "That's the
thing with Jiu Jitsu. If you're straining, you're probably doing it wrong."

Nadine nodded, but she hadn't really heard anything he said.
It was the first time she'd seen him smile, and it was gorgeous to the point of distraction. Several times during the class, Julien offered help, and every time, she experienced a rush of nerves that nearly took her breath away.

She'd have to get more information on that book. Something about it had him all worked up, and she wanted to get to the bottom of what it was.
That no gi class turned out to be one of the best classes she'd ever done. She had so much fun, and not just because Julien was being nice to her, but also because she just plain
liked
the stuff they were going over. She worked up a sweat, and felt like she left there a little bit better at Jiu Jitsu than when she came.

Nadine and the rest of the
no gi class had just walked off the mat, and Julien was left standing there contemplating the amazing,
unprecedented
number of similarities that girl had to the character in the book. She could have been faking some of the likenesses, but others were impossible to fake. Physically, this girl was the
exact same
Nadine that Shea Miller wrote about in her book.

She had dark brown, wavy hair that came out of her ponytail in unruly tendrils, with green eyes the color of emeralds. She always wore a warm, wide smile. She was fairly soft-spoken with the voice of an angel, but she loved MMA, and she fought like a tiger
.

Julien knew John David had read the book, so he went to talk to him, thinking it may make more sense if he verbalized it.
"I don't know which option is more disturbing," Julien said, "her turning out to be some crazy lunatic bored enough to put on this big charade, or her turning out to be the real fuckin' Nadine."

"You think she could be the real Nadine?"
John David asked.

"No," Julien lied. "I just know that's what all you dumbasses think."

John reached out to neck-chop Julien for the insult, but Julien dodged it. "You're right. I
do
think she's the real one," John David said.

Julien laughed. "She might really be from France but I just can't imagine that she would have the
exact
same name and be teaching at the immersion school."

"That's easy enough to find out,"
John David said. "Just go by there and asked the front office if a girl named Nadine LaBelle works there."

"I wouldn't be surprised if she really
did
work there," Julien said.

"You mean you think this girl has a
fake identity
and got a
real job
under a fake name just to try to
score
with you? Don't flatter yourself Julien. It's easier to believe your little fairytale's coming true."

It was thirty seconds past time for the advanced class to start, and they
didn't have time to say any more. Julien had an unsettled feeling with the whole situation, and wanted to quit talking about it anyway.

****

Nadine continued to avoid classes Coach Julien taught in spite of him finally being nice to her at the last no gi class. She was attracted to him physically and was perhaps a little tempted to take one of his classes based on that, but she enjoyed having her time at the gym drama free, and that whole scene about the book made her a little reluctant to see him again.

One of the girls in her kickboxing
class mentioned the book to her too, but she just said the same things the coaches told her in the first place. She said there was a book whose main characters were Julien and Nadine.

Nadine could see the coincidence
s with the characters names or whatever, but the girl at the kickboxing class and Julien both had a measure of distaste or maybe urgency to their tone when they spoke about it that confused Nadine. It was like they
blamed
her or
distrusted
her for being called Nadine, and she thought in the back of her mind that the Nadine in the book must be some sort of villain. She made a mental note to get that book when the term was over and she had time to read. For the time being, she'd just do her best to avoid Julien.

Then,
freakin-A, it happened again. She showed up to a class that she thought Brad was coaching, and when it was time for class to start, Julien walked in.

"Grab a jump rope ladies. And don't forget to put your cards in the basket." His voice was extremely low, and the way he gave orders had a
sing-song quality to it. She couldn’t get over the sound of it. He seemed too young to have a commanding voice like that, and she loved how it sounded. He'd only said a few words, and already, Nadine felt a burning sensation in her gut. Something about Julien just made her extremely nervous, and she contemplated getting out of there before class got going. She could just say she got sick or something.

"Grab a jump rope, book-ey."
He said. He was standing right in front of Nadine, but she didn't comprehend he was talking to her.

"Me?" she asked, putting a hand to her chest. "What do you mean when you say
book-ey?
"

The other girls were all jumping rope and the noise of the ropes hitting the mats was so loud that
Julien and Nadine's conversation couldn't be overheard.

Julien moved in closer to her just in case. "You work at the French immersion school," he said. He was close to her ear, and the sight, smell, and feel of him made her nearly miss what he was saying.

"Oui," she said, smiling that wide, warm smile Shea wrote about.

Shit, he thought. Why'd she have to be so freaking crazy? She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever laid eyes on, and she was either a made up story or a crazy stalker. The thing he couldn't understand was why in the world she'd been avoiding him. She'd been coming to several classes a week for the last couple of weeks, and she
always
avoided the ones Julien coached.

"Is it bad that I work there?" She asked, able to read his agitation. "I technically don't
work there
, if that makes you feel better. I don’t get a paycheck or anything. I'm student teaching."

He
stared at her—his striking blue eyes burning, begging her to tell the truth. "Tell me you read the book and you made all this happen to try to get close to me."

Her head cocked back and she looked at him like he'd just spoken Chinese. "You
're really starting to freak me out with all this book stuff."

He took her by the shoulders and gave her
an intensified version of that same pleading expression, as if her honesty was the most important thing in the world. "Did you read a book called Julien's Book?" he asked.

"No," she said simply.

"Coach, we're dying!" a girl named Summer yelled. "You forgot to set the damn timer."

"Jump ropes up," Julien yelled
. The slapping sound of jump ropes hitting the mats stopped instantly, and the girls went to stand in line to hang their jump ropes on the wall.

Nadine didn't want their conversation to come to an end, and she could tell Julien didn't either.
Halfway through the class, Julien told the girls they had two minutes to get some water. He got some cones and began lining them up on the side of the mat, and Nadine walked over there to talk to him.

"I'm getting the book on the way home," she said. She didn't know w
hy she hadn't just downloaded it in the first place. It was probably because she'd never read a romance novel, and thought it'd be cheesy and she might be bored by it.

He turned
to face her. "You promise you've never read it?"

She stared back at him with an equal amount of sincerity. "I promise I've never read the book," she said. "That's all gonna change tonight though. I'm downloading it to my phone
when I get home."

"Don't do it," he said.

"What?" She laughed at him, incredulous.

"
Please," he begged. "Don't read it. Not yet."

"I hope you know that
forbidding
me to do something just makes me want to do it that much sooner," she said.

"
Just to put it out there, I don't necessarily believe you when you say you
haven't
read it, but on the off chance you're telling me the truth,
please promise me
not to read the book. Not yet."

"You're really freaking me out."

"Just hang out after class. I'm done after this and I'll explain."

The w
ater break went longer than he said, and the girls started to get restless. He wasn't usually distracted, and apparently they didn't appreciate it when he was.

He and Nadine didn't say another word to each other until after class was over. "Can you hang out for a little bit?"
he asked. She had lingered behind when all the other girls made their way to the door and they were mostly alone.

"I thought we already established that," she said nervously.

"What I mean is can you come with me somewhere."

"You mean like
leave
with you?"

Julien shrugged. "Why not?"

"Because I don't know you, and you can easily overpower me."

"
Ah, but that's one of the things you like about me, isn't it?"

She
rolled her eyes, hoping to seem nonchalant. "Where are you supposed to be taking me?" she asked.

"Just for a drive. Maybe out by my house. It doesn't really matter. There's just always someone listening around here, and I wanted a few minutes to talk to you alone."

She looked deep into his eyes, and found that she liked what she saw. She almost felt like she could see his secret-most intentions, and understood they were innocent and pure. She knew it was probably dumb to get in the car and head to some mystery location in the dark with someone like him, but she didn't care. She had major trust issues as a result of a crazy ex-boyfriend, but somehow Julien was able to break through her defenses with nothing but a pleading look.