No Rep (Madd CrossFit #1) - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,14

topic.

“I came here for fruit,” I said. “I’m out.”

She gestured toward the plethora of fruit on display.

“Pick your poison,” she teased.

I did, then ended up wandering around Target with her and buying a few more things I didn’t need. Mainly knit shorts that I’d been meaning to grab, but hadn’t had the chance to yet.

By the time we made it to the front of the store, I was more than ready to leave, but didn’t want to stop talking to her.

After a few stints in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and a few tours that I couldn’t even talk about, paired with my years as a police officer, I saw threats everywhere. Literally, everywhere. Even the little old lady that could barely push her cart through the store.

Someone that could barely lift her own arm, let alone a gun.

But still, places that had a lot of people were very stressful for me.

But Fran made it bearable.

She likely had no idea that she did, either.

“I need three separate tickets,” she said to the cashier and started to unload things.

That’s when Vlad decided to let himself be heard.

And what he wanted us to know was that he was very, very tired of being in that cart.

Fran stopped what she was doing and picked him up, only for him to launch himself my way the moment he was close enough to me.

I caught him around the upper body while Fran was desperately trying to hold on to his slippery bottom half.

“Shit,” Fran breathed at the same time I said, “I got him.”

She looked at her nephew disapprovingly, then shook her head and looked at me. “You okay holding him?”

I nodded. “I am.”

Five minutes later, we checked out and left, me pushing the cart and holding the baby, while Fran searched in her bag for her keys.

Her face was bright red when she looked up at me next.

“Want to come have lunch with us?” she blurted.

Of fucking course I did.

Even though I tried not to go out and eat because eating out meant eating bad in my book. Because I couldn’t seem to resist the sweet tea or the cookie at the end of the meal. No matter where I went, or how bad or good the sweet tea was.

I tilted my head. “Where?”

She frowned hard. “Well, that is a good question. My normal spot is Mexican food, and I have that pact going on with the gym that I’ll try to eat better. I guess we could try Uncle Sam’s. I could have some eggs and bacon.”

I grinned. “I’ll take you somewhere. Follow me.”

After leaning over one more time to make sure that the baby was securely in the car, she closed the door and then said, “I have to make a single stop first and unload all this. It’s at the mechanic’s shop in town. Then we can leave from there?”

“Murphy’s?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I’ll meet you there,” I said.

A flush crept up over Fran’s face. “Sounds good.”

Then she was getting into her car and heading in the direction of Murphy’s Garage. Murphy who happened to be another member of our gym. Though he was strictly a five a.m. class goer. Fran wouldn’t have had the chance to meet him at the gym just yet.

CHAPTER 6

Planks well with others.

-T-shirt

FRAN

I was utterly embarrassed, while also very proud of myself.

I’d asked him out on a lunch date!

I couldn’t believe I’d had the balls to do it, honestly.

I’d never been on a date before. And I’d certainly never invited anyone to do anything, imaginary or otherwise, that looked like him.

The one and only guy I’d been with that’d ‘popped my cherry’ had been… boring. He’d literally looked like the anti-Taos. Nerdy, blond hair, and smiled easily.

When you glanced at Taos at first, he was intimidating, quiet, and grouchy. But the more you got him to talk, the nicer he became.

When we arrived at Murphy’s Garage I left Mavis’ minivan running, seeing as in the five-minute drive Vlad had fallen asleep, and got out.

Murphy met us at the big bay door with a wide grin on his face.

That grin wasn’t for me, though. It was for the man behind me who’d pulled up and gotten out of his own vehicle. A restored older muscle car that I had no clue what the name was.

But it was pretty.

It was sexier even when the man that I really wanted got out of it with a small grin on his face aimed at the mechanic.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Murphy said from