In the Zone (Portland Storm 5) (9 page)

“The dog is as good as their child,” Brie clarified, laughing.

“Understandable. My dogs are my kids. At least for now.” And we were back to talking about me. Not only that, but her eyes lit up when I added that last part. Fucking hell. I had to try harder to keep the conversation on her. “And your brother? Is he living the American dream, too?”

“His version of it, at least. He’s moved up through the ranks to become the CEO of his company, and he has a live-in girlfriend. No pets or kids, but he has a fancy sports car and lives in a penthouse.”

“And you’re somewhere in between the two of them, I guess.”

“Age-wise, yes. In any other way?” She shook her head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She rolled her eyes at me, and even that was as pretty as a picture. She held up her hand and started ticking off a list, putting up a finger with each thing she named. “Single. Transient. Fleeting career after foolishly chasing my dreams.” With her other hand, she waved it along the side of her body, indicating God only knew what.

No, I knew what. It hit me like a ton of bricks. She meant her appearance.

“Dating a hot professional athlete,” I interrupted before she could make herself feel any worse, especially because I was positive she was preparing herself to demean the body I found so beautiful.

Her eyes flickered up to meet mine, darker than ever because of the dim candlelight. “I wouldn’t say we’re
dating
.”

“This,” he said, indicating the pair of us, “is definitely a date. At least where I’m from. Maybe things are different in Providence. Still, one more, and…”

She took another sip from her wineglass, scowling. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“I know what I want, and I go for it,” I said, mimicking what I’d said about her cat earlier.

The waiter came back with our check, and Brie used that as an excuse to duck her head away from me, to try to back away from the candlelight and hide in the shadows. It was no use, though. There was no chance I could see anything but her.

I took out my credit card and paid the bill. When the waiter walked away to run the transaction, I reached across the table and trapped her fingers in my hand. “It feels good to touch you again. Even though this isn’t anything like how I want to be touching you.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice a breathless purr.

“Why what?” I let my gaze settle on one of the rare places on her body not fully covered—the alternatingly tensing and relaxing spot where her jaw met her neck. Each time she tensed, it tugged her earlobe down a bit. Just enough to draw my notice, as her small hoop earring swayed gently.

“Why do you want to touch me? Why did you want to take me out tonight? Why are you trying so hard to convince me we should be together?”

“Because in the nearly six months since that night, I’ve hardly been able to look at another woman without thinking about you, let alone touch one. Because all I have to do is see how you dress and the way you try to hide yourself away from the world to know that the one night we spent together wasn’t enough. For you. For me. You still think the bullshit he told you is the truth. You think you’re fat. You don’t believe that I could find you sexy when all I have to do is take one look into your eyes or hear your voice or get a single finger on your skin, and I’m hard as a fucking brick wall.”

There were tears welling in her eyes—big fat ones, building up right in the corners—but she didn’t pull her hand away from me. I traced the lines on the inside of her palm, easing my fingers up to tickle her wrist.

“You were going to tell me you’re fat, weren’t you?” I said after a moment.

“I am fat.”

“No, you’re not. You’re curvy and beautiful. You’re one of the most stunning women I’ve ever known, but you’ve got a head full of lies. I want to help you see the truth. That’s why I want to touch you and be with you.”

The waiter came back with my credit card and the receipt, and I had to drop her hand to sign the check. When I set the pen down and closed the leather folio, she’d already crossed her arms over her chest—attempting to hide herself again—and she looked off into the distance. A wet streak on her cheek shimmered in the candlelight.

“Did you meet him when you moved to Providence?” I asked.

She shot those midnight eyes over to stare at me but stayed quiet.

“The asshole who told you that you were fat,” I clarified. “The one who convinced you that you weren’t good enough.”

Brie sniffled and reached for her napkin to dab at her eyes. “He was my partner. Val.”

Her partner. Her dance partner. The man she’d followed halfway across the country, away from her family and her home. She’d given up everything for him. I’d barely comprehended it before she was pushing back from the table and pulling on her coat.

“Can we go? I want to go home now.” Without waiting for me, she made her way through the other tables toward the restaurant’s main entry.

I grabbed my coat from the back of my chair and hurried after her. As soon as I caught up to her, I put my arm around her—gently, but it was definitely there. She stiffened under my touch.

“There was something else I wanted to take you to do tonight,” I said once we got out into the parking lot, the breeze fluttering the hem of her skirt.

“I think it would be better if you took me home. You said you’d leave me alone after a date.”

“I will.” I opened the car door and waited while she got in. I didn’t close it, though, leaning over it so she had to look up at me. “If you want me to back off after tonight, I will. But please, let me take you to do one more thing.”

She frowned, but after a moment the cold must have started to get to her, and she shivered. “Will you close the door?”

“If you agree to let me show you what we came out here to see.”

“Fine. But then I want you to take me home.”

“After this, I’ll do anything you want me to.”

Now I had to make sure that what Brie wanted, when everything was said and done, was me.

K
EITH DIDN’T DRIVE
far before parking in one of the lots at Oaks Park, not far at all from where we’d been earlier. I really wasn’t in the mood to go roller-skating again, even though it had been fun before, and I had no doubt he knew that, so I couldn’t imagine why we were returning.

He shut off the engine and sent a scorching look in my direction. “Ready?”

Ready for what?

There were dozens of other people crossing the lot and heading toward the riverbank, so there must be something big going on. I shrugged and climbed out of his car. I hadn’t even shut the door yet and he was standing there, right in front of me, holding out a hand for mine.

I hesitated, but then I slammed the car door and forced myself to close the distance between us. I mentally kicked myself the whole time for acting the way I was. He didn’t deserve my acting like a shrew around him. It wasn’t Keith I was upset with; it was myself. Because he was right. Maybe he wasn’t right about me not being fat—I had a mirror, after all—but he might be right about me letting myself believe everything Val had said to me for so many years. I still heard Val’s voice in my head when I saw pictures of myself and when I looked in the bathroom mirror in the mornings. His voice was at its loudest when I saw myself in the studio mirrors.

How you think we can win if you looking like this?
he’d said to me again and again in his thick Russian accent.
Fat! Your body doesn’t look right when we move together. I need my old partner back.
That hadn’t even been the worst of it, either. Those were the kinds of things he’d said when we were in public, when others might hear. When we were alone, it was so much worse.
I can’t look at you like that. You make me sick. How you expect me to get turned on? It’s like fucking a whale.

The things he’d said to me hadn’t been lies, no matter what Keith wanted me to believe now. My body no longer moved the way it used to move. I couldn’t wear the slinky outfits I’d always worn in competition—the type that had emphasized my sleek body, my toned muscle, just the right curves in very specific places. If I put something like that on now, the people who saw me would want to cover their eyes and tell me to change into something more appropriate for a person my size.

It wasn’t just what I saw, and it wasn’t only about the things Val had said to me. I saw the way people looked at me now. I knew the way they treated me.

It’s a very different experience, being a heavy girl. I’d spent most of my life on the other end of the spectrum, so there weren’t many people who could make the comparison as readily as me. I never realized how easy some things were for me until all of a sudden they were next to impossible. It wasn’t all bad, though. These days, it was easy for me to be invisible, despite the fact that I took up twice as much space as I used to. I preferred to be invisible. That was a heck of a lot easier than dealing with the pitying stares or the disgusted expressions I got otherwise.

I couldn’t deny that the way Keith looked at me was different from everyone else, though. He looked at me the way Val
used
to look at me, before I’d gained all the weight. Before my entire life plan had been ripped like a rug from under my feet. And it didn’t seem as though Keith was putting on an act in order to do it, which was really screwing with my head. No man had looked at me the way he did in almost four years now, but every time he turned in my direction, I could feel it.

Like now.

He’d parked near the pavilion, and Keith winked at me as he opened the trunk. He took out a blanket and we walked away from the car. The whole area was fairly well lit, and he guided me through the crowd, heading toward the riverbank—a realization that had me dragging my feet.

“I don’t know what everyone’s here for, but there’s not a chance you’re going to get me in the water.” The temperature had to have dropped down into the thirties while we were at dinner.

“Okay,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I like the idea of taking you skinny-dipping at night sometime, though. Maybe in the summer, when it’s warmer. There’s a private place up near my house in Nova Scotia—”

“Not in this life,” I cut in. Private or not, I wasn’t going skinny-dipping with anyone, anywhere, anytime. And what was he doing, trying to talk about us doing things together in the summer? We hadn’t even gotten through this date yet.

“Never say never. I’m really persuasive. You might end up eating your words.”

An odd sound came from my mouth, something along the lines of,
hmph
, and he reached for my hand. I took it, not thinking about how he might interpret my readiness to resume contact. He tugged me close to him, and the heat of his body warmed my side so much that I had to fight the urge to get even closer.

When we got to the bank, everyone was spreading out on the lawn, finding places to sit and look out at the water. Okay, so that had me curious. I couldn’t imagine what we were watching for since it was already fully dark out.

Keith found an empty space without too many people in front of us to block our view of the river, and he spread out the blanket. Once he had it settled, he took a seat and tried to ease me down to join him. There was one—big—problem, though. There wasn’t a graceful way for someone my size to get down to the ground while wearing a skirt. I ignored the help he was attempting to give me and situated myself as best I could, keeping a little space between us.

“You’ll be warmer if you move over here with me.”

“I know that.”

“Are you scared of me?”

“No.”

“What are you scared of then?”

Only everything he made me feel and the fact that at every turn, he continued to challenge everything I’d come to believe about myself. “What are we here for, Keith?”

“You’ll see soon enough.” He squinted up the river.

I turned my eyes in the same direction, but I couldn’t make anything out. “All right, be that way.” I sighed, tucking my skirt around my legs and drawing my coat tighter over my chest before zipping it all the way up to my neck. I might as well try to get him to talk because Lord only knew how long we’d be sitting here waiting for whatever mystery was yet to be unveiled. “So how is it that you understand as much about dance as you do? For someone who’s never danced before, you took to it well.”