From Yesterday (4 page)

He shrugs. "I could tell you, but you'd have to agree to come and have dinner with me first."

The thing is, I really, really want to. I'm dying to say yes. I just can't give in. So instead, I bristle. "I'm not going out on a date with you."

Brady looks almost contemplative for a moment before the self-satisfied smirk that he is so good at settles back over his face. "Aren't we presumptuous, Lovely Paige. I never said anything about a date. We both need to eat after that workout and it will give us a chance to talk for a while. Unless you have something better to do?"

He arches one eyebrow and looks at me pointedly, like he already knows the answer to that question is no. He's right; I have nothing better to do, nor is there anything I'd want to do more. Well...

Screw it. "I'd kind of rather watch paint dry, to be perfectly honest, but the air conditioning is being fixed in my apartment right now so let's go. I'm going to grab a shower first."

Brady laughs. "I'm glad I'm your first choice. I'm going to shower as well. Meet you in front in twenty minutes?"

"See you then."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Brady is leaning against the wall outside of the womens' locker room when I exit. He looks hot in jeans and a blue t-shirt that skims his muscular chest and arms and makes his blue eyes bluer. When he sees me, he lifts off of the wall and stalks over towards me; almost predatory in a way. The gaze he sweeps over my body makes me very glad that I threw skinny jeans into my bag, along with a very low cut black shirt. I was even lucky enough to have remembered my make up bag. Nicole always told me a woman should never go anywhere without first applying her mascara.

"Hi."

He takes my bag and slings it behind him. "Hi, yourself. You look great."

I try not to let him see how much I enjoy that comment and I start walking in the direction of the parking lot. After a long moment, I hear him sigh and he falls into step beside me.

"You're not going to make this any easier for me, are you?"

I shake my head. "No, probably not."

Brady stops walking next to a black and red motorcycle. He pulls the strap of my bag over one shoulder and settles it across my body; I can see he is careful not touch me anywhere that might be inappropriate. Once my bag is in place, he looks up at me and brushes a strand of my hair behind my ear. Why is the simplest of gestures enough to makes ones knees shaky?

"That's okay, Paige. I respond very well to challenges."

And with that he leaves me practically breathless as he turns around and grabs a helmet from the back of the bike.

I finally find my voice. "What are you doing?"

He hands me the helmet. "I'm getting you set up. I'm sorry I don't have anywhere to store your bag, but it should be fine around you like that. Let's get this helmet on you, though."

I step back and refuse to take the helmet from him. "I'm not getting on that thing."

He looks confused. "Why not? You said you'd come out to dinner with me. It's perfectly safe."

"I... I don't think I can."

I will my voice to sound even and my hands to stop shaking. Brady's expression softens and he puts a big hand on my shoulder.

"You've never been on a bike, have you? I've had bikes since I was fifteen and I'm very good. I promise to take it slow and get you there safely. Trust me, okay?"

Some part of me is screaming in my head, telling me this is a bad idea. I decide to throw caution to the wind and nod my head. If he would just take his hand off of my shoulder, I might be able to make better choices. It's too late now, though, and within five minutes I am wearing his helmet and he is helping me onto the motorcycle. He gets on in front of me and turns his head to look at me.

"Okay, just wrap your arms around my waist and press your body up as close to mine as you can."

The expression on my face must be very telling because now he's cracking up. "I'm kidding. You can just hold on to my hips if you want. If you're scared, though, you should wrap your arms around me, but you don't have to press your chest into my back."

I give him as dirty a look as I can, considering half of my face is obscured. "Jerk," I tell him, but I wrap my arms around his waist anyway and all of a sudden I love motorcycles.

The bike roars to life and Brady squeezes my right hand with his before grabbing the handlebars. And then we're moving. He is going slowly, like he said, but the feeling of the bike tilting slightly as we round the corners of the campus parking lot is a little bit scary. He keeps his word and doesn't drive like a maniac once we hit the nearly deserted service road that takes us from the campus to Biscayne Boulevard. When we stop at the light, Brady puts one foot down and turns to look at me.

"Okay?" he yells over the roar of the engine.

I'm still clinging on to him for dear life so I simply nod my head. The light changes and we're moving again. I just close my eyes and try to ignore my fear of decorating the road with my body parts and just enjoy being able to be physically close to another human being without freaking. It is short lived, however, because not even five minutes pass by before I feel the bike slow down and pull into a parking lot. Reluctantly, I let go of Brady and work on getting off the bike without touching the exhaust pipe as he told me. I even manage to do it gracefully; I keep myself from falling headfirst onto the pavement.

"You like sushi?"

I look up and realize we are at one of my favorite restaurants in South Florida. It's one of those little Japanese/Thai combo places that looks like a dive, but has surprisingly great food. "I love this place."

"Perfect."

He holds a hand out towards me and I look at him, confused. Are we supposed to hold hands now? That wasn't part of the deal and it won't help me pretend I'm not attracted to him. After a moment, he reaches for the strap of my bag and I realize my mistake.

"Let me carry that for you," he says.

"Thank you, but I'm fine. You don't have to do that."

He gives me a look. "Paige, please allow me to be a gentleman and let me carry your gym bag for you."

I relent. The stern nature of his 'request' is actually really sexy. "Ok. Be thankful that I prefer black to pink or you'd look a little bit ridiculous right now."

He holds the door to the restaurant open for me. "I wouldn't mind carrying your pink bag around, Paige."

I roll my eyes as we walk up to the hostess stand, but before we can request a table, Brady snags my wrist and pulls me so that my back is leaning into his chest. I can tell he lowers his head down because next I feel his breath by my ear. "Roll your eyes at me again, Paige. I dare you."

He puts a hand on my hip and moves me forward, but I would have preferred to stay right where I was a second ago. The little power game he just played was inexplicably sexy. I can almost guarantee that if some other guy had just said that to me, while putting me in a physically inferior position, I would have punched him. Instead, I follow him to the little booth near the back of the restaurant that the hostess is taking us to. There are very few parties in the place, and our table is fairly secluded. I'm betting this is all a part of Brady's plan. Plan? What am I even thinking? There's no actual indication that he's interested in me for anything more than friendship and a great partner project. It's not unlike me to read into every little thing a person does and all the lust swirling around in my brain could very well be making me think this is more than it is. I have got to remember that or things could be very embarrassing for me. Again.

I will not let that happen.

Grabbing onto a semblance of the girl who doesn't let people in, I put up as much of a wall as I can before sitting across from Brady in the banquette. He makes eye contact and smiles at me, but I'm saved by the server who comes to hand us menus and I focus all my attention on ordering some water. Brady orders a Japanese beer and I risk a quick glance in his direction once the server walks away. He is frowning.

"Where did you go just now?"

I know what he's asking, but I play dumb. "What are you talking about?"

"It's like you just had a major mood swing or something. I thought we were making progress, you and I. You haven't even spilled anything on me today, yet. All of a sudden you seem like you're not in the same room with me anymore. Why do you do that?"

I shrug like I couldn't care less. It's an act, but I happen to be particularly good at this act. Usually. "Really, I have no idea what you mean. I'm here sitting right in front of you, Brady. Let's just drop it and order. I'm starving."

Just let it go
, I will him. And he does, for a little while. We order our food and then spend a few minutes in what seems like companionable silence; each of us lost in thought.

It doesn't last.

Brady places his arms on the table and laces his fingers together. "How many friends do you have, Paige?"

I am mid-sip of my water when he asks this and I nearly choke. "What kind of question is that, Brady?"

"A valid one. I'd like to know if this is about me or you."

"Well, you don't mince words, do you?"

He shakes his head. "No, and neither do you. Which is why I feel perfectly comfortable having an honest conversation with you. I'm not judging you or trying to be a jerk, I just really want to know if you'll ever open up a little more."

Something about the way he looks at me right then is my undoing. Immediately, I feel my defense mechanisms stripped away from me like a ribbon undone from a wrapped present. I can't do a thing to stop it. The somber mood lifts a little as I drop the straw wrapper I'm playing with and look directly at him. "I don't have any friends."

Something changes between us right then. It's like, with that one sad statement, I have finally let Brady in to my life. It is his first honest glimpse of who I am and he didn't have to pull it out of me forcefully. The words left my mouth willingly, knowing that I can no longer hide from him.

"Well it seems to me as if that is just a little bit untrue, Paige, because from where I sit it looks like the number of friends you have just increased by at least one."

I swallow hard. The lump in my throat is massive, but there is no way I will shed a tear. I've been vulnerable enough for one evening. Our server, bless her, arrives with our food and the semi-intimate moment Brady and I are sharing is drifting off with the aroma of ginger, garlic and cumin. I have never been so happy to see a plate of Pad Thai in my entire life. I grab my chop sticks and dig in while Brady does the same.

I think about Brady and Elyse and how these two people have managed to get more out of me in one week than any person has in years. Is there something different about either of them, or is it me who is changing? There was a time, most notably right after I left when I swore that I'd never trust a soul ever again. My sister had been the only one I had ever felt super close to; certainly not my parents then or now, and I didn't think I would ever need or want friends.

I suppose it is me that is evolving. It was inevitable, really.

One entire wall of the restaurant is a waterfall. I'm fixated by the water rushing down into the incredible jade and emerald stones that line the bottom. If this thing was in my apartment, I'd never leave it. I could sit and stare at it for hours.

"You gone for good there, Paige? Come back to me."

I look up into Brady's infectious grin and I feel a slight smile tug at the corner of my mouth. I must have been staring at that waterfall for longer than I thought because we've both managed to eat half of our plates even though it felt like only a minute had passed. "It's just that waterfall..."

"...is amazing," he finished for me. "I know. Mesmerizing. It's distracting both of us from talking, though, and I was really hoping to get a few complete sentences out of you tonight."

"Oh, stop. I've said plenty."

And then, in a move that just reeks of maturity, I stick my tongue out at him. He stares at me for a moment, seemingly stunned. I'm mortified. Why on earth did I just do that? My humiliation is short lived, much to my relief, because a second later Brady is laughing so hard I'm afraid he will choke.

"It's nice to see you enjoy yourself, Paige."

I look back down at my food and twirl my chopsticks around a few noodles, but I don't bother bringing them up to my mouth. He's right. I don't laugh anymore.

Needing to shift the attention away from myself, I change the subject. "Didn't you promise to tell me all about your sordid history of underage Spinning instructing?"

He nods. "I suppose I did say something like that, didn't I? It's not really all that interesting, much less sordid."

I pick up the bottle of soy sauce with the red cap and point it at him with the implied threat of flinging some at him. "I was joking. Now spill, before I do."

Brady reaches over and wraps one of his hands over top of mine, the one holding the sauce bottle. He doesn't remove it. "There is a very tasteless joke about being wet and salty somewhere in all of this, but I'm too much of a gentleman to make it."

I'm quite shocked and amused at what can only be seen as lewd innuendo and trying hard not to giggle all at once. He raises one eyebrow at me as if daring me not to give in.

"Anyway, the deal with the cycling is simple. My parents used to own a fitness center back home, in Boston. I practically grew up in that gym, and I loved to take the cycling classes when I was finally old enough to try. When I was sixteen, almost half of the staff had the flu at once and no one was able to teach the evening class. It was a really popular class and the members would have rioted if we had canceled it, so I filled in. That's it. Not a very interesting story, is it?"

His hand is warming my own and I'm lost in his words so it takes me a moment. "It is, actually. I like hearing about how people grow up. You sound like you really loved it there, so why did you come all the way to Miami for school?"

He smiles again, but this one doesn't reach his eyes. "My mother died of breast cancer a few years ago. Before that, there had been some amazing offers for my parents to sell the gym, but they never wanted to. When my mother passed, my dad sold the gym he had built with her and retired."