Page 28 of My Not So Wicked Ex-Fiance (My Not So Wicked 2)

Chapter Ten“Great class.”

“That squat song was amazing. I’m going to have buns of steel after this vacation.”

I was pleased with how many women came up after class and thanked me. But no one was as enthusiastic about it as Bobby Jay. During class he was everyone’s cheerleader. I don’t think he had ever met a stranger. He ran up afterward, dripping in sweat, and picked me right up and swung me around. “Dang, girl, I forgot how much you could swing those tiny hips of yours.”

I had forgotten how ripe a Southern boy could get in the summer. I tried not to take deep breaths. “Thanks, Bobby Jay.”

He set me down. “You want to take a walk or maybe go get a beer? Or your fancy little umbrella drinks you always used to get?”

I peeked around him at Emma, who was walking our way wiping sweat off her brow. “I’d like to, but Miss Emma and I have a date with some pure chocolate and almond butter.”

Bobby’s face contorted. “That sounds god awful.”

“Doesn’t it, though?” Emma agreed.

“Hello, Mrs. King.” Bobby Jay tipped his head. “How are you this evening?”

She stretched her back. “Sore,” she groaned. “Shelby, I think I’m going to take a rain check on us gagging together.”

I shook my head and laughed. “It’s not that bad.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Good class, by the way. Now I know why you look like you do. I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

“You’re gorgeous just the way you are.”

Bobby Jay gave her a once over. “I’d say Mr. King is a lucky man.”

Emma actually blushed. It was cute. “Speaking of my husband, I’m off to find him. I think he may need to carry me home. I thought I was flexible, but I was wrong. So, so wrong.” She pulled up her leg to stretch her hamstring.

“Do you want me to walk you to your cabin?” I offered.

She shook her head. “I got it. Why don’t you go have a drink, and I will too. A deep, dark one,” she sighed.

I placed my hands on her shoulders. “You got this. Drink some lemon water—it will help.”

“Shelby, please don’t make me hurt you,” she teased. I hoped.

Bobby Jay laughed at Emma before holding out his hand to me. “Looks like we have a date.”

We said our goodbyes after I gave Emma the peppiest of pep talks about how denying herself now would make it that much easier to do it the next time. I’m pretty sure she didn’t appreciate it by the way she growled at me. She left muttering that if she didn’t get pregnant after all this she was suing her doctor for malpractice.

I agreed to a walk around the lake with Bobby. I figured with him I wouldn’t feel so lonely this time. I did have to ask him, though, as we made our way down the well-worn path, “Why are you being so nice to me?” He and Ryder were more than cousins—they were best friends. What you did to one was like doing it to the other.

He tilted his head and squinted as if I’d spoken to him in a foreign language. “You were always good to us. Generous to a fault. Whenever one of us was sick, you were the first one there with a meal and words of comfort. And we all know it was you who paid for little William’s surgery.”

I bit my lip and stared out into the distance. I never wanted anyone to know that. William was Bobby Jay’s younger half-brother. He’d fallen out of a tree and broken his arm. His family didn’t have insurance at the time. I worked out the surgery and payments with one of the surgeons I knew at the hospital I was employed at.

He gave me a crooked grin and nudged me. “You became family, Shelby. You don’t stop loving family, even when they do stupid things.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “Stupid is one word for it.”

Bobby Jay put his arm around me too. “Why didn’t you talk to him?”

I thought about what I should say as we walked in companionable silence all the way to the lake. I didn’t want it to sound like I was blaming Ryder. I knew full well our breakup was all mine to bear, well, and my parents, but ultimately, I made the wrong choice. I let out a deep breath when we hit the shoreline. Cold water ran up over my tennis shoes. It felt welcome after the intense workout.

“Bobby Jay, he changed. I could tell he was hiding something from me. He wasn’t making time for me like he used to, and the business trips he never used to take were getting longer and more frequent. I didn’t want to be like my Momma—always lowest on my husband’s priority list and maybe not the only woman.”

---