Chapter 57
CHAPTER 57
SIMON
I can’t believe I have to take a Zumba class.
All the old ladies in the room were staring at me as I tried to salsa, with limited success. I was good at sports. Not Brooks good, but good. Generally, I enjoyed anything that got my blood pumping and my heart rate up, but dancing?
Not a fucking chance.
Upbeat, high-energy music with a Latin vibe to it blasted through the speakers. Our instructor was like the Energizer bunny on speed, but none of that helped me get into it. I felt like an astronaut trying to figure out how to bake banana bread.
None of my previous experience counted for a thing in this class. Even Jeffrey was doing better than I was. The guy was a natural. His features were tight with concentration, but he was doing a good job at keeping up with the regulars. He seemed to be getting the hang of it, his movements not so tight as they had been when we’d first started.
Abigail was in front of me, distracting me with the way she was moving her hips, but even without that distraction, I would have been shit. I wouldn’t even try to blame this on her.
As if she’d heard my thoughts, she suddenly turned to look at me and her gaze raked over my body as I tried to figure out the steps. Then she burst out laughing. “Are you cramping up or something? Why are you moving so weird?”
“Hey, worry about your own moves.” I chuckled as I glanced at her feet, which also didn’t seem to be moving the way they were supposed to. “Can we go yet?”
“Nah, let him have his fun.” She shot a pointed look at Jeffrey, and neither of us could hold in our laughs as our nerdy teammate popped his hips from one side to the other, tossing his arms dramatically into the air, and then spinning on the balls of his feet as if he was in a music video.
“Go, Jeff!” Abi cheered him on, clapping her hands to the rhythm of the music and winking at me before she turned to face our instructor again.
For the rest of the class, she and I laughed a lot, tripping over ourselves while being sent pointed looks by people double our age whose limbs and joints were in better working order than ours. When the instructor finally stopped the music, not even seeming winded as he grinned at us all, I nearly dropped to my knees in gratitude.
“Hallelujah,” I muttered to Abigail as she came over to me, her phone already out and set to selfie mode. “Let’s get the picture and get out of here. I never want to see the inside of this place again.”
Jeffrey literally danced over to us, all smiles as he bent his torso to the side to get into the frame. Abi lifted her phone, snapped the pic, and sent it. Chuckling, we left the studio.
“That was fun,” she said as we climbed back into my car. “We should do it again.”
“No thank you.” I turned over the engine and shook my head enthusiastically. “I am never taking another Zumba class for as long as I live.”
“I quite liked it,” Jeffrey piped up from the back. “I might come again on my own. We just found a form of physical activity that is actually enjoyable.”
I groaned and Abi giggled, but neither of us contradicted him or even commented at all. Instead, Abi got buckled up before glancing down at her phone. “Oh, the next clue is up!”
Since we were still in our parking spot, she turned the screen to show me the picture Blake had uploaded. As I looked at a photo of a delicious burrito bowl, I read the caption out loud. “The chef of this restaurant helped piece together the necessary ingredients to make Fit Gal.”
“Anyone have any ideas?” Abi grimaced. “I don’t remember reading anything about a chef helping them to develop their products.”
“All I remember is that they called in all kinds of nutritional experts in the initial phases.” Jeffrey shrugged. “I don’t think that’s going to help us.”
I took the phone gently out of Abi’s hand and pressed two fingers to her screen, moving them outward to zoom in. In the background of the picture was a food line, similar to chains where you built your own bowls.
“Buckle up, kids. I think I’ve got it.” I handed her back the phone and took off. They exchanged a puzzled look as I pressed down on the gas, so I explained my thought process to them. “It’s Earthy Eats . They’re a local, vegan taco bowl place. Right up Blake and Ashley’s alley.”
“And you know about this place how, exactly?” Abi asked with a curious, teasing smile tugging at her lips. “Weren’t you the guy who once told me that vegan is just an old English name for a bad hunter?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I did say that, but David went through a phase where he kept dragging us to all kinds of different restaurants that caught his fancy. This was one of them. Luckily, he’s back to being happy with chicken wings.”
Abi smiled. “Well, I’ve been wanting to try this place for a while. Maybe I should ask David if he has any other recommendations for me.”
“Please don’t.” I deliberately furrowed my brow and shot her a horrified look. “You might remind him of his phase and I’ll have to go eat all kinds of weird stuff again.”
“Earthy Eats is a place that sells weird stuff?” she asked.
I chuckled. “Nah. I do love a good build-your-own bowl place, but he also made us try a restaurant that put bugs and stuff in their tacos, Chorizo ice-cream, and a Ramen burger. Trust me, if you remind him of that phase, I will drag you along to every single weird place he takes us to.”
Abi rocked her head from side to side as if that might not be the worst thing that could happen to her. Jeffrey, however, was quick to start stressing again. “When we get there, just no beans for me. They make me?—”
“Let me stop you right there, buddy,” she cut him off. “You don’t have to finish that sentence. We get it.”
His cheeks turned beet red, but Abi didn’t leave him to his embarrassment like I might’ve. She drew him into conversation about how well he’d danced and where he’d learned to move like that, and I spent the rest of the drive to the restaurant marveling at how she always seemed to manage to find a way to make people feel at ease.
It was a quality I’d always admired about her but had never quite managed to pick up. She was just one of those people who naturally drew people to her while my default setting was to push them away. Honey and vinegar.
I used to think that we were a prime example of opposites attracting, but given recent events, she sure as hell didn’t seem very attracted to me anymore. Physically, sure. I’d seen her looking me over when she’d climbed out of her car at Fit Gal, but attraction in our case had never stopped at being a purely physical thing.
These days, it was my personality she didn’t seem to be interested in anymore. Although I still felt connected to her on every level, I was mindful of what she’d said before—even if she definitely hadn’t been as cold or distant with me today as she had been on Tuesday.
It made me hopeful that we might get to talk later after all, but on the other hand, it could all be a show for the sake of team building. After the charity events, we’d learned that Blake and Ashley didn’t simply make their decisions based on their own observations.
In order to decide who had won that challenge, they’d spoken to everyone we’d worked with and they’d taken their opinions into consideration. It was entirely possible Abi was acting like we were friendly just in case anyone involved with us today was interviewed later.
I didn’t know what to think. Honestly. All I knew was that I was enjoying the lack of hostility. Crazy as it sounded, I’d fucking missed her and feeling like I had her back was better than nothing—even if it turned out only to have been for show.
When we got to Earthy Eats, there was a parking spot waiting for us again, this time with a little sign proclaiming, All that dancing must’ve made you hungry! Come meet the genius Chef Greene .
“It was nice of them to reserve parking for us,” Jeffrey commented as we walked into the vegan eatery. “They’re very thoughtful, aren’t they?”
“They sure are,” Abi agreed, not having lapsed into an awkward silence with him once. It seemed she and Jeffrey had become fast friends while they’d been working together, and already, she seemed genuinely fond of him. “How awesome would it be to have a client like that?”
He didn’t respond immediately, seeming to have gotten lost to his thoughts, but she didn’t rush him or prompt him to respond, merely waiting patiently until he was ready. “I have to agree. It would be rather awesome to represent a client who applies rational thinking to ideas and problems. However, it’s not really the client that should be thoughtful, is it? It’s us. It’s our jobs to do that for them.”
She smiled. “That’s not a bad point, but I do love Fit Gal as a company. The more I get to know about them, the deeper I fall in love with their culture and the community they’re creating.”
“It’s an interesting business model,” he said before delving deeper into the different strategies corporations followed in order to create their company cultures.
Meanwhile, we built our bowls, got to meet—briefly—Chef Greene, and then we went to find a table. Jeffrey and Abi still hadn’t stopped talking, but I was okay with just observing.
Jeffrey had gone off on a tangent about each ingredient in Fit Gal and all their properties, but while he went on about green tea extract delivering natural caffeine but having a bitter taste that had to be masked, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Abigail. I was sitting across from her at our table, watching her eyes sparkle in the sunlight pouring in from outside and wondering what the name was for the exact shade of blue of her irises.
Something oceanic, for sure.
She was just so damn beautiful. Always, but especially when she was so relaxed and animated. Her light brown hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail that she’d made while we’d been racing to catch the Zumba class and she wore almost no makeup. Just the lightest line of charcoal on her eyelids.
It had been a long time since I’d had the opportunity to look at her like this, unhurried and without her even necessarily knowing about it. Jeffrey was too caught up in his explanations to notice me staring and Abi was focused on him.
Or so I thought. Until he excused himself to get some more water and she suddenly snapped her gaze to mine. “What are you looking at? Do I have lettuce in my teeth?”
I smiled, wondering if I should tell her that even after all these years, she made me feel things I hadn’t felt since I’d left her. This probably wasn’t the time or the place, though. Not to mention that I still had a whole lot of explaining to do. So instead, I kept it simple and told her the truth.
“No, you’re just insanely beautiful and I don’t care about green tea extract. You’re much more interesting to me.”