Coming Back To You (10 page)

“I don’t know, Daniel. I’m not sure—”

“You like Brad, right?” Lisa said, cutting
her off as if she didn’t want to let Karma go down that path.

“Well, yeah. Of course I do.”

Daniel leaned in. “Is he hot?”

“Why does it always have to be about looks
with you?” She didn’t feel right saying that Brad was hot. He was
attractive, but he was no Mark, who had struck her breathless at a
glance.

“Honey, it’s always about the looks. Most
people just don’t want to admit it. So, is he? Hot, I mean?”

Karma giggled. Daniel could be such a breath
of vibrant yet incorrigible air. “He’s attractive.”

Lisa jumped back in. “How old is he?”

Daniel waved his hand. “Who cares, sister? He
sounds fine.”

Karma shook her head at Daniel’s exuberance
then turned back toward Lisa. “I don’t know, but older. Maybe mid-
to late-thirties. He has a twelve-year-old daughter.”

“Oooohhh.” Daniel sucked his tongue between
his teeth, making a sound between a chirp and a tsk, and then
exchanged cautious glances with Lisa.

“What?” Karma said.

Daniel gave her a compassionate look, his
eyebrows upturned over his nose. “A man with a kid. You are going
to have to win that young thing over if you want to be with her
dad. I hope you know that.”

Karma huffed. “He hasn’t actually asked me
out, but I know he will. And when he does, I’m sure it will be a
while before I meet Jade.”

“You already know her name?” Lisa’s mouth
curled into a knowing grin.

“Yeah, so?”

“So, that means he’s already asked you out,
you just don’t know it, yet.”

“I think I would remember if he’d asked me
out, Leese.”

She held up her hand. “He may not have
actually asked, but in his mind, he already has. Mark my words, he
wouldn’t have told you about his daughter and given you her name if
he wasn’t planning on asking you out.”

True. Brad had told her quite a bit about
Jade. Would he really have done that with just anyone?

“Enough about my social life.” Karma waved
her hands as if clearing a swarm of gnats. “We need to work. This
stuff isn’t going to move itself, and we only have…” She checked
the clock. “Two hours.”

She didn’t want to get any deeper into the
discussion about her and Brad. They’d only seen each other twice at
Single Servings and once at the gym to discuss training for the
Mini. She liked him. He was nice. He made her smile. But right now
it was time to work.

Chapter 8

St. Patrick’s Day

Sweat poured from Mark’s body. He was drenched, but
he refused to stop.

“One more set,” Rob said, poised behind the
bench press.

Since Mark’s global meltdown in January, he
and Rob had made amends, and Rob was doing his best to be down with
Mark’s plan to give fate time to work through the red tape of
bringing Karma back to him.

Mark lay back on the bench and gripped the
bar.

Rob stood ready to spot him through his last
grueling set. “How many?”

“Eight.”

“Got it.”

After taking a series of deep breaths to
oxygenate his muscles, Mark pushed the weighted bar off the rack
and balanced it above his chest.

Inhaling on the way down and exhaling on the
way back up, he worked through the first four reps without much
distress. But on number five, his fatigued muscles protested. By
rep seven, he was straining. This may have been his lightest set of
eight, but after five hardcore sets, the eighth rep wasn’t coming
easily.

Holding the bar over his body, Mark took
several rapid, deep breaths as Rob moved in and placed his hands
under the bar.

“You’ve got this, Mark.” Rob was using his
personal training voice. The one edged with grit and determination.
“Come on. One more. Don’t you puss out.”

His arms burned. His shoulders and chest
screamed. But he was doing this for
her
. In the beginning,
his brutal workouts had been about trying to forget Karma. About
pushing her from his thoughts. But now the grab-him-by-the-balls
beatings he gave himself five times a week had morphed into an
almost meditative practice where his determination to be with her
again overtook everything else. Instead of using this time to clear
his head, he used it to visualize the two of them together. One way
or another, he was going to make that happen.

Taking one final breath, he lowered the bar
then growled, straining as he pushed it back up. Rob began to
help.

“No!” Mark would see this through by himself.
He would complete this set without needing Rob to save him.

Slowly, he ground out the last rep and
dropped the bar back on the rack.

“Good job.” Rob blew out an exhale as if he’d
been the one pounding it out instead of Mark.

“Fuck.” Mark swung himself upright and
rested, legs on either side of the bench, elbows on his knees.

His hair had grown out and hung over his face
as he stared down at the floor. Droplets of perspiration trickled
down his neck and back.

I will get her back. Damn it, I will.

After allowing him to rest another thirty
seconds, Rob tossed him a towel and his water bottle. “Break over.
Let’s hit the pads.”

This was what made Rob the most popular
personal trainer at the gym, even if he only worked there part
time. The guy was ruthless. He built a program and made his clients
stick to it. Which was why Mark had told Rob to build him the most
insane program he could. He needed the challenge, not only for his
body but also for his mind. And it was working. The gym sessions
were so intense that it was no wonder they felt more like
meditation than a workout. With the shit Rob threw at him, Mark
definitely had to get down with the idea of mind over matter.
Otherwise, matter would kick his ass.

“How much weight have you lost?” Rob said as
they made their way to the boxing area.

Mark killed his second bottle of water and
screwed the cap back on before chucking the empty container in his
bag. “Since January?” Mark thought a couple seconds. “About ten
pounds, I think.”

“You look it. Shit, but you’ve leaned
out.”

“Thanks to you and this killer workout you’ve
got me doing.”

A couple of gym bunnies on their way to the
stair climbers smiled at him and Rob and giggled as they passed. A
year ago, Mark would have given them a second look. Maybe even a
third. But not now. Karma consumed one hundred percent of his
interest. There wasn’t room for anyone else. In fact, the last time
he’d had sex was with Karma last September. Talk about a drought.
But at least this was self-imposed. There had been plenty of
opportunities to wet his wick. He just couldn’t stomach the thought
of doing so with anyone other than her.

Rob helped him tape up his hands. It was time
for punching practice. As Mark flexed and fisted his fingers, Rob
grabbed his pads, strapped them to his hands, then raised them out
to the sides.

Mark was no boxer, but playing one in the gym
sure helped cut his body fat percentage. And it gave him another
outlet to both vent his frustration and build his fortitude. The
universe was taking way too long to get its act together and show
him the door that would lead Karma back into his arms. As the weeks
passed, he grew more and more determined to take matters into his
own hands.

He cross-jabbed and his fists popped against
the leather pads. The exertion felt good. Again, he crossed then
jabbed, then jabbed again.
Pop-pop-POP!

“Good.” Rob clapped the pads together then
held them up again as he stepped to the side.

Mark followed, keeping his eyes on the
targets.

He never should have left. He should have
turned around on the way back to Chicago.

Rob circled him, moving the pads, turning one
so it faced the floor and holding the other out to the side.

Mark hooked then sent an uppercut into the
downward-facing pad.

Downward-facing. That made him think of yoga,
which made him think of
her
again. Did she still do
yoga?

Maybe he should take up yoga. Maybe that
would help clear his mind even more.

Rob sidestepped and backed up. Mark stayed
with him.

He envisioned the red leather pads on Rob’s
hands as representations of fate.

POP!
He laid into the right pad with a
fierce jab.
Take that, fate. Maybe that will get you off your
ass and pick up the pace.

It had been seven months, for God’s sake. How
long did it take to create a goddamn sign?

One thing Mark knew for sure, he was on his
last legs of waiting around.

One way or another, he was getting back his
precious Karma, even if he had to do it himself and ditch his
promise to the universe.

Come hell or high water, she would be his
again.

Chapter 9

March 27

“I like your hair,” Jan said as she settled into the
chair across from Karma.

“Thank you.” Karma ran her hand down her
shorter tresses, which hit just below her shoulder. She hadn’t cut
her hair this short in…well…ever. She felt refreshingly lighter.
Her stylist had also added some burnished highlights, bringing out
the red tones.

Jan crossed her legs and rested her tablet on
her lap. “How’s training for the Mini-Marathon coming along?”

“Slow, but good. I might end up walking part
of the marathon, but it won’t be for lack of trying.”

Karma had been interval running three times a
week since getting her treadmill. On the days she didn’t run, she
rode her spin bike and lifted weights, and two or three times a
week, she met Brad at the gym. They usually grabbed a quick bite
afterward.

That first week had been brutal. Not a night
had gone by when at least one muscle group or another hadn’t
protested the new routine.

“How are things going with Brad?” Jan held
her stylus over her tablet.

“Good.”

“Has he asked you out?”

“Not officially, but we’ve been spending so
much time together that it feels like we’re already dating.” The
time she spent with Brad did actually feel more like dating than
two training partners preparing for a marathon together. Still,
going out on a real date, where he asked her out and they got
dressed up, would be nice.

“And how do you feel about that?”

Karma shrugged one shoulder. “I’m ready. It’s
time for me to move on.”

Jan made a note on her tablet. “And you want
to move on with Brad?”

“Yes. I guess. Maybe.” Admitting that she
wanted Brad to ask her out made her feel like a traitor. “But I
feel guilty.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Karma glanced down at her hands
then out the window.

“Because it makes you feel like you’re not
being loyal to Mark?”

She met Jan’s gaze again and nodded. “Yes. I
know it’s stupid, especially since I know he’s moved on.” She’d
told Jan about the New Year’s Eve picture of Mark with that woman.
“But I still feel like I belong to Mark. Like he’s just away on
business or something and that any minute he’ll be back and will
expect me to still be here waiting for him. I don’t want to hurt
him.”

Jan’s expression softened. “First of all,
it’s not stupid. It’s human. Nothing you think is stupid,
especially where your feelings for Mark are concerned. With that
said, it’s my job to help you explore why you’re feeling this way
about a man who has clearly moved on…who told you from the start he
didn’t want a commitment and would leave…and did exactly what he
said he would.”

Karma had thought the same thing a hundred
times, maybe more. But Jan hadn’t been with Mark like she had.
Karma had seen the glint in Mark’s eye. She had heard the love in
his voice and felt it in his touch. Mark might have done exactly
what he said he would do, but she would bet her last dollar that he
had grown to see her as more than just some random woman with which
to kill time.

Which made the picture of him spending New
Year’s Eve with another woman that much harder to understand. Maybe
she’d never understood him as well as she’d thought.

“Despite what Mark said, I feel like he fell
in love with me, too.”

Jan’s eyebrows raised. “Maybe he did.”

“Then why did he leave?”

Jan pursed her lips and drilled her gaze into
Karma’s as if she’d just latched on to a key piece of evidence.
“You tell me.”

Karma searched her mind for several seconds,
not seeing what Jan apparently did.

Jan uncrossed her legs and sat forward. “Why
would a man who’s in love with you leave you behind, Karma?”

She lowered her gaze, searching her thoughts.
Then, “Oh…” She met Jan’s gaze, and her breath rushed out of her as
if she’d been hit. “Because he didn’t love me enough to stay. His
fear of commitment was stronger than his love for me.”

Jan’s expression shifted into one that said
she’d hit the nail on the head.

Karma’s shoulders fell as she looked back
down at her hands resting on her lap.

“Mark might have fallen in love with you, but
the demons of his past were apparently too big to overcome. He may
never get over what his fiancée did to him.”

“And it would be a waste of time to put my
life on hold and wait for him to come back when that’s not going to
happen.”

Jan grinned like a proud mother. “Very
good.”

There was no way Karma could compete with
Mark’s painful past. He would always bow down to what had happened,
unable to put Carol’s jilting behind him and move forward.

At the end of the session, Jan set aside her
iPad. “So, you’re seeing Brad again tonight?”

It was Tuesday. Single Servings night.

“Yes.”

“And what if he asks you out?” Jan walked her
to the door.