Noah Read Free Page A

right?”
    Veronica felt like throw ing up now. She could hardly believe she’d let herself put on that much weight in just two years! “Can we leave, Nellie? Please?”
    “No.” Nellie stood in front of her and took Veronica ’s hands in hers. “I’m not letting you add any more reason for being depressed and locking yourself away from the world. If being overweight is what has you so depressed then this is exactly where we belong.”
    Where we belong. Veronica had to smile. What would she do without Nellie? “You don’t even need to lose weight.” She sniffed , bending over to get a bottle of water out of the small gym ba g Nellie had brought. The only thing s in it were two medium bottles of water, Nellie’s wallet and her inhaler.
    “Yes I do! Even though I’ve lost a few pounds I’m still over my ideal weight ! Did you see how he looked at me when I said I’ d lost some pounds ? Like he was thinking, ‘lose a few more!’ ”
    Veronica held back a harrumph. “I’m sure you’ll lose whatever else you need to lose today. It’s probably all water weight .” She took a sip of her water then turned to look up at Nellie. “Your asthma acting up again ?”
    Nellie shrugged. “Not really but I figured since I haven’t worked out in so long better safe than sorry.”
    Veronica frowned , remembering how in the past there’d been times when Nellie had to be hospitalized because of her asthma. From the corner of her eye she saw Noah was on his way back already and they were supposed to have been stretching . The closest they’d come was Veronica bending down to get the water.
    “Here he comes.” Nellie said, spreading her feet apart and reaching for the floor with her hands . “So what do you think of our trainer?”
    Veronica looked up at her from where she was bending. “Huh?”
    “ Talk about sexy! ” Nellie whispered as he neared.
    “Nellie, he’s a kid.”
    Halfway to them, Noah dropped the mats and went back. Nellie and Veronica watched him from behind. His muscle shirt left nothing to the imagination. There wasn’t a perfectly defined muscle on him you couldn’t see. And he had a lot of them. Typical trainer looking guy. Not an ounce of fat on him and whole lot of huge everything. 
    “Oh , c ’mon where’s your sense of escapism? I’m a married woman and I’m enjoying the view. Who cares if he’s young ? Nothing wrong with fantas iz ing—besides how many kids have you seen with a body like that? He’s gotta be at least twenty-three, twenty-four. ”
    “Twenty- four ? No way.” Veronica said , bending over again. “You’re just saying that because he’s so big. But he has a baby face.”
    “ One of the strongest jaws I’ve ever seen on a baby.” Nellie giggled. “And did you get a load of those lips? Umm umm. Talk about suckable lips.”
    Veronica had to giggle now, too. “Will you stop? The guy can’t be more than twenty-one and I’m being generous.” She’d been around students enough when she worked at the college to be able to guess their age fairly accurately.
    “Let’s ask him.”
    “No!” Veronica stood up. “Don’t you dare.”
    Nellie laughed. “Why not?”
    “Because it’s none of our business. You better not.”
    Nellie shook her head, her face still full of humor. “All right, all right. You’re no fun anymore. The old Roni would’ve already been flirting with him.”
    Veronica rolled her eyes going down for one more stretch. “Yeah, well the old me didn’t weigh a hundred and sixty-seven freakin’ pounds!” She groaned disgusted in herself. How could she let herself go like this? She’d gained more than the forty pounds she thought she had.
    Nellie was right about one thing. She’d almost forgotten what a flirt she could be. But she was wrong about the other. There was no way she’d ever think about going out with someone so much younger than her. It was hard enough to find a mature guy her age, she most certainly was not taking her