Nerdy Girl Nation (Nerdy Girl #1) (9 page)

Cherry sat on the back of Peaches to show a submission hold to none other than Emma MacLean.

Rob swallowed a few times to rid the dryness in his throat. He hadn’t set eyes on the raven-haired beauty in person since he was a teenager. After her email response to his condolence and offer of friendship, he’d prepared for this moment. Being in the same room with her again was exhilarating, yet a little overwhelming.

“What do you think she's doing here?” Rob's voice trembled at the thought of coming face to face with her. He’d readied himself for Monday since Aaron told him she would be there. Nothing ever seemed to work out the way he’d hoped concerning Emma.

“She's tight with Russell. Seems like she still has the camera crew with her. You should probably put a shirt on.”

Rob glanced down at the sweat trailing down his chest. The world admired his shirtless chest on national TV weekly, but he wasn't sure he wanted the next impression he made on Emma to be of a sweat-drenched mess. He grabbed a towel and his shirt while Chance hopped out of the ring and walked over to the other one.

“Perfect!” Cherry instructed. “You're a natural.” Cherry turned her head to Aaron. “You think we can convince her to fight in a real match?”

Emma laughed as she got off Peaches and helped her up.

“Never say never, Emma.” Harry cocked his eyebrow at her.

Sometimes she hated how well her brother got her. He would pick this moment to remember her childhood daydream of becoming a women's champion. Harry would use this as an opportunity to share it with the world if she didn't shut him down.

“Enough of your mouth.” Her eyes drifted from her brother to the crowd of people who gathered around the ring.

Emma’s heart leapt into her throat. Rob Breyer stared right at her with a brilliant smirk on his face. Sweat drenched hair, crystal blue eyes, killer smile, and a body currently making her lady parts ache rattled her entire being.

“Good to see you again, Emma.” Rob offered his hand to help her out of the ring.

“You too, Rob.” She immediately backtracked. “I mean, Bobby.”

“Rob is fine.” She realized she held his hand a bit longer than she needed to and reluctantly pulled away. “It's been a while.”

“Twelve years.” Emma lost herself in his eyes, but the real world intruded when Aaron spoke up.

“That's right, you two know each other,” Aaron mentioned with a sideways glance at Rob.

“Emma was part of one of the most important days of my life.” Rob's smile intimated something sinful. She needed to set things straight.

“What he means is I was there the day he won the national wrestling championship against my boyfriend.”

Rob turned to Aaron and continued the story. “I met her and her boyfriend, Derek, during the tournament. Derek and I were both shocked when we advanced to the final match against each other.”

“Rob won the match after Derek put him through the ringer.” Emma laughed at the memory of the two teenagers rolling around on the mat.

“Yes, but Derek got the girl.” Rob's smile was genuine and caused a flush to creep up Emma's neck to her cheeks.

“Didn't last much longer,” Harry quipped. “Not after—”

Emma smacked Harry on the shoulder. “I don't think this is the time or place to get into my lackluster love life.”

“Oh, I don't know. I might be interested in hearing what an idiot my old pal Derek is.” Rob walked over next to Harry like they were old friends.

Emma grabbed Harry's arm, pulled it around his back and forced it upward. “Don't you dare.”

“I give! I give!” Emma let go as the crowd around them laughed. “I taught you well, young Padawan.”

They proceeded on the tour with several more people in tow, including Rob and Chance. Before she left for the day, Emma got a moment to herself when Peaches led her into the women's locker room to freshen up.

She used the restroom, reapplied her lip gloss, and deemed herself camera-ready once again.

When she opened the door, Rob’s muscular arm pushed her back inside and closed the door.

“Hey,” Rob whispered.

“Hey,” she whispered back and wondered what was going on.

Rob cleared his throat before he began. “I wanted to get you alone for a minute to tell you how good it is to see you again.”

“I think we did this part back in the ring.”

“Yeah, but I also wanted to see if you might be free for dinner tonight.”

Emma's heart swelled at the thought, but she remembered the job she just finalized. There were several couples working for the company. What would happen if . . . She realized she was getting ahead of herself and needed to respond.

“I would love to catch up, but things are crazy for me right now. Plus with the cameras, any man I’m seen with is painted as my soul mate.” She laughed but was saddened by how true her words were.

The disappointment was clear on his face. The same expression he had when she walked away from him twelve years earlier with Derek's arm draped around her shoulders.

“Maybe . . .”

“Maybe?” His eyes seemed to lighten a shade off their normal blue.

Emma reached into the front pocket of the jeans he had changed into and took his phone. After several taps, her number was programmed in under NERDY GIRL.

“This is my personal cell phone. Only a few people have this number. I'm trusting you not to give this out.”

“No. Never.” His smile widened as she slipped the phone into his hand. “Can I call you tonight?”

She nodded and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. “I'm staying at my dad's until I get back on my feet. The cameras are usually gone by eight.”

“Expect a call at five after.”

“I’ll be waiting.” She wouldn't let herself touch him in case she couldn’t stop, so she ducked out the door and went back out to meet Harry and Aaron.

“Dad, I had fun, but I swear I’m going to tape Harry’s mouth shut one of these days.” Emma recounted her wrestling lesson to her father and the camera while father and daughter shared a double meat lover's pizza in the MacLean kitchen.

“I remember the first day you got on the mat with Harry. He was eight and you were about three?” She nodded in agreement. “You wanted to take him down so bad. He was three times your size, but you were so determined. We couldn't keep you away from his practice. I kind of figured you dated Derek because of the whole wrestling thing.”

“Ah, Derek. Funny you should mention him.” She put her pizza slice down and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “You remember the guy he lost to at the nationals senior year?”

“Yeah, a kid from Baltimore, right?”

“You remember The Baltimore Bruiser.”

Mick's eyes went wide at the realization. “Bobby Breyer?”

“Yep. One and the same.” She took a drink of her local microbrew. “He was at the training facility today. He's the one who sent the oak tree kit.”

“No kidding?” She nodded. “Wow. It was, what, twelve years ago?”

“Almost. Feels like a lifetime, though. Then Harry had to mouth off about how Derek and I broke up.”

Mick took a sip of his own beer. “He's the vice-principal over at the high school now.”

“He didn’t say anything when we talked after the funeral.” Derek had been a natural leader in high school. When he told her he was going to major in secondary education, she wasn't at all surprised.

“Mrs. Mosley had her baby over Christmas break and decided not to come back, so the school board promoted him in January.”

“Is he still coaching the wrestling team?”

“Sure is. All those boys are top notch. Some of them would be naturals in the IWA.” Mick took a bite of his pizza before clearing his throat to speak. “He's single, too.”

“Dad. Derek and I were over a long time ago.”

“Right.” Mick wiped his face with his napkin. “I still don't quite understand why you gave up on him. He was good to you.”

“We weren’t meant to be, Dad.”

Her father stared at her long and hard. He always seemed to know what she was feeling or thinking with the exception of her relationship with Derek.

Mick gathered their plates and set them in the sink. He came over and kissed Emma on the forehead. “No one deserved what they did to you, but pushing everybody away didn't do you any favors, Princess. You're going to need to stop pushing one of these days.” After a light caress on the cheek, Mick left Emma to her thoughts.

That time in her life was one of the most difficult she'd ever experienced. High school had not been easy for Emma by any means. She was tall and rail thin until her junior year when she seemed to grow curves overnight. Her shy nature and nerdy pursuits made her easy pickings for the popular crowd. Especially queen bee, Maria DeFazio.

She felt a common thread form when she and Derek were paired on a chemistry project together their junior year. They became more as wrestling season came around and Harry helped out with the squad. Derek had always been friendly towards Emma, but never showed any romantic interest until one day after practice. She was caught off guard when he kissed her while she was waiting for Harry outside the wrestling room. He asked her out as soon as he broke the kiss and she nodded through the fog he created.

Emma and Derek had plenty of trouble from outside forces during high school, but they didn’t let any of it separate them. The end of their senior year, everything went to hell when both Emma and Derek were nominated for Prom King and Queen. Emma was called names, bullied, and even had her locker destroyed.  When Derek won King and Maria won Queen, Derek refused to dance with Maria. A few days later, Emma was kidnapped, beaten, and violated with hardly a memory of the entire ordeal. Derek stood by her every step of the way, but with her fragile state, she didn’t think they would last.

When he returned home on break during her college years, they would hook up until he met Sarah Beth the fall of his senior year. Letting Derek go was one of the hardest things she ever had to do, but she eventually did. One thing her relationship with Derek taught her was to keep her private life private. Until the disaster with Patrick, she had succeeded with a few men. She wondered if she and Rob could be . . . something more.

Rob glanced at the clock every few minutes for over an hour, waiting for the moment to call. He felt as if he had walked across every square inch of his apartment at least a hundred times.