“Actually it’s not okay, Veronica. It’s part of the training; I gotta keep track of your progress.”

She crossed her arms in front of her, shifting her weight and unbelievably the eyebrow went even higher. “I’m not getting on that scale.”

“Oh come on, Roni,” Nellie said, slipping off her shoes. “What’s the big deal? I’ll go first.”

Roni? Noah ignored the name but he had to smirk at Veronica’s exasperated expression. He stepped closer to adjust the weights on the scale and jotted Nellie’s weight down. Right around what he thought for her height and body size—hundred thirty-nine. “Oh my God. I’ve actually lost a few pounds.” She turned to Noah her smile dissolving when she saw his unimpressed expression. “Yeah, I know I need to lose more.”

“It’s a good thing you’re here,” Noah said, setting the weight back down to zero. He turned to Veronica. “Your turn.”

“I’m not getting on that thing.”

“Look.” He brought the clipboard down against his leg. “I can pretty much guess what you weigh just by looking at you. Why not get the exact number?”

“Because I’m not getting on that thing. So guess all you want.”

Noah stared at her stubborn lips, now pressed together tightly. “Fine—one-sixty.”

Her jaw dropped momentarily and she seemed genuinely scandalized. But she composed herself quickly.

“You two know how to stretch, right?” Nellie nodded, Veronica wouldn’t even look at him. “Great. Start stretching standing up. I’ll go grab some mats so you can stretch on the floor, too.”

He glanced again at Veronica, who was obviously still upset about his guess of her weight. She should be thankful. He’d been nice about it. Though he said one-sixty, he wrote one-sixty-five. Walking back to the equipment room to pull out some mats, he cursed Jack under his breath. This was going to be one long ass week.

CHAPTER 2

As soon as Noah was out of sight, Veronica jumped on the scale. How dare he! She’d never even been close to one-sixty her entire life. She gasped when she had to keep moving the weight past one-sixty. It finally stopped just over one-sixty-seven. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she felt the knot forming in her throat, then she pushed the weights back down to zero before Nellie could see what she weighed.

“Was he right?” Nellie must’ve seen her near-tears expression because she added, “Well, that’s why we’re here right?”

Veronica felt like throwing up now. She could hardly believe she’d let herself put on that much weight in just two years! “Can we leave, Nellie? Please?”

“No.” Nellie stood in front of her and took Veronica’s hands in hers. “I’m not letting you add any more reason for being depressed and locking yourself away from the world. If being overweight is what has you so depressed then this is exactly where we belong.”

Where we belong. Veronica had to smile. What would she do without Nellie? “You don’t even need to lose weight.” She sniffed, bending over to get a bottle of water out of the small gym bag Nellie had brought. The only things in it were two medium bottles of water, Nellie’s wallet and her inhaler.

“Yes I do! Even though I’ve lost a few pounds I’m still over my ideal weight! Did you see how he looked at me when I said I’d lost some pounds? Like he was thinking, ‘lose a few more!’”

Veronica held back a harrumph. “I’m sure you’ll lose whatever else you need to lose today. It’s probably all water weight.” She took a sip of her water then turned to look up at Nellie. “Your asthma acting up again?”

Nellie shrugged. “Not really but I figured since I haven’t worked out in so long better safe than sorry.”

Veronica frowned, remembering how in the past there’d been times when Nellie had to be hospitalized because of her asthma. From the corner of her eye she saw Noah was on his way back already and they were supposed to have been stretching. The closest they’d come was Veronica bending down to get the water.

“Here he comes.” Nellie said, spreading her feet apart and reaching for the floor with her hands. “So what do you think of our trainer?”

Veronica looked up at her from where she was bending. “Huh?”

“Talk about sexy!” Nellie whispered as he neared.

“Nellie, he’s a kid.”

Halfway to them, Noah dropped the mats and went back. Nellie and Veronica watched him from behind. His muscle shirt left nothing to the imagination. There wasn’t a perfectly defined muscle on him you couldn’t see. And he had a lot of them. Typical trainer looking guy. Not an ounce of fat on him and whole lot of huge everything.

“Oh, c’mon where’s your sense of escapism? I’m a married woman and I’m enjoying the view. Who cares if he’s young? Nothing wrong with fantasizing—besides how many kids have you seen with a body like that? He’s gotta be at least twenty-three, twenty-four.”

“Twenty-four? No way.” Veronica said, bending over again. “You’re just saying that because he’s so big. But he has a baby face.”

“One of the strongest jaws I’ve ever seen on a baby.” Nellie giggled. “And did you get a load of those lips? Umm umm. Talk about suckable lips.”

Veronica had to giggle now, too. “Will you stop? The guy can’t be more than twenty-one and I’m being generous.” She’d been around students enough when she worked at the college to be able to guess their age fairly accurately.