Eligible Ex-husband - Marie Johnston
Chapter 1
Natalie
Discovering who was deemed North Dakota’s most eligible bachelor ruined my morning. The article streams through my head like a Netflix show I can’t turn off, only there’s no pause asking me if I want to keep watching.
My best friend Rachel forwarded a link to me this morning, hoping to spare me from discovering it in line at the grocery store. There he was in a full-page spread. Handsome, with a chiseled jaw and natural highlighted dirty blond hair, a body honed by years on the rowing team in high school—which had most definitely not been in North Dakota—and a net worth in the millions. All self-made. And of course they included the part about his brother’s sudden death three years ago. It was right before describing him as the doting dad of two little girls and commenting on how he successfully co-parents with his ex-wife.
I snort and thrust my legs up. The metal plates of the leg press clang against the top and I ease my legs back down to a count of four. My quads are burning.
“Still thinking about that garbage?” My personal trainer peers over me, her hair pulled off her face in braided rows, mirth glittering in her eyes. I gave her the article when I arrived and told her to work me so hard I forget all about it.
“Yes,” I hiss and strain upward with my legs once more, my muscles shaking like a newly birthed calf. I have three more reps to go.
“You want to quit leg day a little early so we can go for a run?”
My next yes comes out in a puff as I push my legs straight.
Aleah keeps talking, doing her best to motivate me, cheer me up, but not so much helping me forget. “You’d think running would give you too much time to dwell on all those ladies and gentlemen who’ll be drooling over the full-body shot of Mr. North Dakota in a Tom Ford, but the endorphins help you care a whole lot less.”
I somehow doubt that I can cover enough ground to not care. “I can’t let it ruin my whole day. It was just so unexpected. Wake up, it’s a normal day. Then… that.” A reminder of everything I’ve lost in bold-faced type.
Aleah crosses her arms, her sleek and defined biceps flexing. Every arm day, I look at her bare arms to get me through the endless sets of push-ups she makes me do. “That sucks, Nat. And you know it’s okay to be angry, right?”
I finish my last rep and grab a drink from my water bottle. Time for the run. “I am angry.” I wipe my brow with a gym towel. “I thought I was over it. I should be over it.”
She tsks. “Don’t should on yourself. What’s my rule?”
“No shoulding on myself during training.” I suck in a long breath. She’s right. This gym has become my mecca. A positive environment. Moving meditation, Aleah calls it. I need some of that now.
I stash my items in the locker room and follow Aleah outside. It’s a pleasant morning for a run. There’s enough wind to hold the onslaught of sweat at bay and it’s early June so the bugs aren’t out en masse quite yet. Birds chirp and hop around the parking lot between cars. They scatter as we walk by. Aleah and I go to the end of the sidewalk where the running path loops by the gym.
I don’t know how many clients she runs with, but it isn’t like going with me taxes her stamina any. Half the time, I swear she’s trying hard not to walk right next to me as I slog full speed ahead.
She’s right, though. After the first half-mile, my give-a-shit starts to taper slowly downward.
A fitness watch is shoved in my face and I try to focus without face-planting on the pavement.
“Look at your time. You’ve improved so much.” Aleah goes back to barely moving while I die a little with each step.
Six months ago, I sought out a personal trainer with the determination to fix myself. I was newly single and too comfortable in my identity of frumpy mom. In college, I had such big plans. Now, thirty’s on the horizon and other than my accomplishment of birthing tiny humans and making sure they hit all their milestones, I don’t have anything else to claim.
Nothing. I gave it all up. The kids are going off to school. Then what? Who am I? What kind of