“Ha, but you’re wrong again, Mad.” Jo sighs and thumbs through the pages, searching the number on the bottom corner as though sh
e knows what she’s looking for. She smooths the page over with her hand and places the yearbook in my lap, leaning her body closer to mine. I suck in a breath, my pulse quickening as her soft hand grazes my thigh. “Recognize anyone?” And as if she’s in my head or can hear my thoughts, she scoots impossibly closer, her head resting against the inside of my bicep.
I’m fuckin’ confused as hell as I scan my eyes over the freshmen class of 2007 page, each face unfamiliar. Random strangers. Well, except that kid. I think Mav shoved him in a locker daily, but that was only because he had the hots for the kid’s older sister. Leave it to Mav to be a dick just to get laid. “I don’t think so.”
“Look closer, Mad. Really look.” Jordan takes my hand in hers and traces each image on the page, stopping near the very end. Her hand is clammy, shaky, and I realize Jordan is … nervous. But why?
Beneath our twisted fingers is the image of a chubby face that is so unrecognizable but familiar all the same. Her hair is braided down the side of her face, her cheeks round and smattered with freckles and a tinge of sunburn. Her smile is small, sad, and distant. The ordinary face of a teenage girl. But it’s in those eyes, tantalizing honey brown eyes, though meek and timid, that I see Jo. I scan my eyes over to the roster and back to the portrait, completely in shock that this knock-out beauty beside me is the same girl in the picture.
I can’t control the muscles in my face when my jaw falls slack, and the words rolling about my mind are lodged in my throat.
“I was the overweight ugly duckling in high school.” Her admission is low, pained, and there’s even a hint of humiliation in her tone. “I told you, Mad, my longest love affair has always been with cupcakes.”
“You knew me in high school?”
“Erin was a year younger than you, and our gram used to make her take me with her anytime she went to ballgames, school events, yada, yada. You were my high school crush, Mad.”
My head is spinnin’ out of control.
“Why didn’t you say something when I first started trainin’ with you at Dumb Belles?”
She shrugs, embarrassed. “What would I have said exactly? I wasn’t even on your radar in school, Mad, bein’ three years behind you; not to mention, my weight then doesn’t define who I am today. Like your weight six months ago doesn’t define who you are.”
Unsure what to do with all this, I turn my attention back to her freshmen yearbook photo realizin’ we really don’t know as much about each other as I’d like. I want to change all that.
“This is why you decided to become a trainer?”
“One of the reasons. I had no idea that was the direction my life would take, certainly not at fourteen when I was already on blood pressure medication and being monitored for pre-diabetes.”
“This doesn’t even look like my Jo…” I mumble more to myself than to her, although she hears me. “You were still beautiful then.”
“High school was difficult. My closest friends were guys who were only interested in sports talk or a smart girl to do their homework. When Erin and Laney weren’t draggin’ me out with them, I was holed up in my bedroom alone watching reruns of Friends and prayin’ I’d have a Monica Geller outcome, all the while stuffing my face with whatever snacks my granny had made that week.” She shrugs, lost in her own thoughts for a moment.
“Erin and I…” She sighs, and I start to tell her she doesn’t have to continue, but she trudges on. “Our grandparents raised us. Mom and Dad had no business having one kid, let alone two. They were never around, and when they were, we always ended up back at Granny and Papaw’s anyway. That was home for us … their house felt like home.” She smiles for a moment as if she’s remembering good things about her childhood. “Man-o-man, my granny was one of the best cooks on the island. She always had some kind of homemade goodie prepared. At some point, I don’t even remember when, I began to associate food with my granny, and Granny was comfort because she was home.” Taking a deep breath, she continues, “Food was how I coped with anything. I didn’t really care about my appearance, and by the time I did start to care I was already a big girl.” I raise my thumb up to her cheek and wipe the tear away, and she offers me a sad smile. “Kids made fun of me because I was obese. By the time I was in a junior in high school, I had managed to drop some pounds but not the healthy way. I tried every fad there was to lose weight quickly. I don’t think that I ever took it seriously until my freshman year of college when my grandpa passed away due to heart disease and diabetes. The doctors told Gran that his weight was a major factor in all his health problems. That scared me straight. I didn’t want to end up like Papaw. I didn’t want to be withdrawn anymore. I wanted to be confident in myself, so I changed my whole lifestyle. Started studying nutrition and worked my ass off to learn all kinds of exercise regimens. It wasn’t until Kyle, my brother-in-law, suggested that I open Dumb Belles that I realized my success.”
“You’ve done awesome, Jo. I’m so fuckin’ proud of you.” She smiles bashfully, and I don’t even care that my outburst is embarrassing. Shit, I’d say about anything to make that woman smile. “Fuckin’ beautiful, darlin’. Don’t you see that?”
“Are you sayin’ that because you’re crushin’ on your trainer?” She pushes my shoulder, puttin’ me in the damn friend zone again, and I clasp my hand around her wrist and bring her hand up to my lips, kissin’ the open palm. She sucks in a breath at my contact against her skin.
“I’m sayin’ it because it’s true, Jo.” I lace my fingers around hers and hold her hand against my thigh, intent on explainin’ to her what she means to me. “Crushin’, absolutely. Hell, I’m kickin’ my own ass because I didn’t notice you in high school, but then…” I trail off, unable to say the words out loud. Fate has a weird way of bringin’ your life full circle. Had I noticed Jo all those years ago, I wouldn’t have my little girl. Although life with Casey was brutal hell, we’ve closed that chapter of our lives. Maybe this is mine and Jo’s… “You’re beautiful inside and out, Jo, and although you’re far out of my league, I’m thankful to have you as a friend because you’ve brought my ass a long way; you quite literally saved my life. You treat my little girl like a damn princess, sharing moments with her she’d otherwise have missed out on because her momma ain’t in her life. And you do all of this so selflessly. You’re my damn dream girl, Jo. I’m crazy about you…” The same pink tinge that covered her cheeks that day in the gym when I kissed her has made its return, spreading down the length of her neck. She tilts her head to the side and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, studying me as she absorbs my confession.
“Mad...”
I wave my hand, cutting her off. “Come on, let’s get away from all the heavy. I think I’m ready for a cupcake.” I stand and pull her up with me, keeping her fingers linked with mine as I lead her into the kitchen.
Turning into me, she puts her hands on my chest as she looks up at me under her lashes.
“I like you, Mad. More than I let on because I’ve always been married to my career, to my health, and I’ve never given a relationship any thought. Because I really don’t know—”
I grip her hips and kiss her forehead, unsure of what any of that means. “We’re supposed to be avoidin’ the heavy, remember, darlin’?” I release my grip on her, intent on puttin’ some space between us.
“Yes, you’re right.” Jordan opens the box of cupcakes and places one on a plate. Clapping her hands together, she beams up at me with pride and happiness etched across her features, seeming to have turned her mind off to our previous conversation.
“You and I, we basically switched roles in our lives, Mad. It takes so much hard work and dedication to put yourself first, to get fit and become healthy. But you’re the same guy you were all those years ago. The same shortstop, the same young construction worker climbin’ his way up the ladder in his dad’s company—quite literally. The only difference is now you’re a dad, and you made this transformation for your daughter, to give her all of yourself, and to e
nsure her quality of life wouldn’t be disrupted any further because of your health.
“So, to celebrate your weight loss, seventy-five pounds of Madden Davenport that we will never see again, we’re gonna share a cupcake.”