Page 74 of Capri

I pull Capri to me, settling her in my lap and burying my face into her neck. My arms hold her tight. “I’d love that.”

I take it back. I’m blurring my own lines, and I’m not sure I’ll survive Capri’s staying intact.

21

CAPRI

“When I saidI would try a class, I didn’t mean set myself up to die.”

“Wasn’t it so fun?” Collie dances in circles around me. “The best kind of burn.”

“A blast,” I mumble. “So much that I doubt I’ll be able to walk tomorrow.” I give her a thumbs up, smirking playfully.

I finally caved on the hip-hop fitness class.

“I was watching you, and you killed it!” Collie attempts to convince me. “Who knew your hips could move like that?” She laughs, and I don’t blame her. Jokes aside, Collie knows how horrible of a dancer I am.

I don’t have a coordinated bone in my body. Walking is a struggle enough. I grew up playing softball and kickball with the boys.

Dancing has always been my sister’s thing, while I can barely clap to a beat.

Collie has been trying to convince me to join one of her early morning classes for years, and I’ve avoided them like the plague.

Again, not my thing. I’d rather walk to get my activity in. But I figured, why the hell not?

I think in another life, I’d choose to be a dancer over a teacher. But in this life, it’s for the best that I stick to teaching.

“Ask me how I feel in the morning when I’m walking like a newborn calf.”

I can’t help but giggle, Collie following suit.

I’m lucky I had a cute workout set to wear now that I have a working dryer.

Thanks to Jones.

I’m still shocked he’s here, in my hometown. Out of all the places in the world for us to see each other again, what are the chances it’d be here?

Slim to none, I’d say.

I fully intended to fix the dryer myself and be on my way. Not expecting to run into a handyman hottie, bag some free labor and a lunch date.

Companion. Not date.

“We gonna talk about the tall, dark, and handsome man from Italy that showed up the other night?” Collie asks me as we enter the juice bar.

I groan. “Do we have to?”

“Sure do. What do you want?” she asks, pointing at the full menu of fresh juices.

“Anything is fine.”

I find a seat at the corner table next to a window. Minutes later, Collie joins me and wastes no time questioning me.

“So, how do you feel?” Her eyes bug out of her head like she’s waiting for some juicy secret to be revealed.

“Uh, good,” I tell her, scoring me a look of annoyance. “What do you want me to say, Cols? I thought I said goodbye to Jones in Capri. I prepared my brain to never see him again.”

“But you did see him again, Capri. So, what are you going to do about it?”

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