Page 10 of D.I.E.T. (Did I Eat That?)

“What do you like to do then?”

“Well, I love museums, any kind of museum you can take me to—I mean not youpersonally. I wasn’t suggesting anything like that. I meant the general publicyou.”

“Yes, of course,” he muttered while chuckling.

“Seriously. Art museums, history museums—doesn’t really matter. I just find it all fascinating.”

“Like even the Rock ’N Roll Hall of Fame or NHL Museum in Toronto?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Rock ’N Roll Hall of Fame, baseball Hall of Fame. You name it. Oh, and I love old libraries—checking out old libraries is totally one of my favorite things to do.”

“You like to read then?” he asked.

“Yes, actually. Reading is life, my friend. That and coffee.”

“Ah, a fellow coffee lover. A woman after my own heart… Okay museums, libraries, books, and coffee. Anything else?”

I tapped my finger against my lip thinking about it, thinking hard on his question. “You know, I basically love anything history, which means I love visiting historical towns like Mackinaw or Williamsburg. And um… well, there’s one other thing, but I’m keeping that to myself.”

Sinjin leaned in staring me down, his lip twitching and I detected a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Well, now you have to tell me,” he said. “You can’t end a conversation on a cliffhanger and expect to get away with not telling me.”

“Okay. I guess there’re two things. I’m a massage therapist, but I’ve never actually had a massage outside of school. That didn’t count because school. But that’s not the secret thing.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.” He snickered again.

“If you’re gonna keep snickering, I am not going to tell you.”

“My apologies.” He made it look like he was zipping his mouth shut.

“I kind of have it on my bucket list to stay at all the most haunted places in the world.” That last part I sort of pushed out in a jumble, hoping that he wouldn’t actually hear it.

“Haunted places?” he asked.

Why? Why did I tell him that? Now I couldn’t even make eye contact with the man. I looked down at my plate, pulling it in front of me again and shoveled more food in my mouth, chewing. But this time I didn’t swallow before I answered. “You know,” I said around a mouthful of chicken. “The Myrtles in Louisiana, The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, things like that. There are places around the world that are known for being haunted. I want to go to those places.”

“I never thought about it,” he said. “But now that you’ve brought it up, it sounds pretty amazing. Haunted houses… Never would have pegged you for a haunted house kind of girl.”

“Well, I did tell you I love anything history. You can’t get much more history than a ghost, now can you?”

“No, I suppose you can’t. You have a truly astonishing intellect.”

After we finished up with our lunch, Sinjin paid even though I tried to pay for my portion, then he drove me back to my Jeep exactly as promised. He was sexy. He was fun. This—today—was why I should never let my guard down in the company of a sexy, fun man. Because before climbing into the driver’s seat, I went up on my tiptoes and hugged him.Ihuggedhim.

And I only wished for that to be the end of it, but no. He pressed a kiss to my cheek and I let him. Forget just letting him—Ilovedit. I loved that he kissed my cheek in a cold parking lot on the first day that I met him.

I couldn’t love anything about my accountability partner. He was forward, ate like crap and I had to take him down.

Four:

I tossed and turned all night the night after he took me to lunch, unable to turn my brain off. Yet another reason not to like Sinjin. Interrupting my sleep. My lack of shuteye led me to one inevitable conclusion: Sinjin was going to be a problem for me. And that led to a decision: In no way could I let myself like Sinjin. Liking Sinjin would most certainly lead tolikeliking Sinjin. What if it went further than that? What if I fell for him? Forget that. In no way would I let some guy have that power over me again.

Accountability adversaries. That was what we had to be to each other. I kept this idea front and center in my thoughts on my way to the gym the same as I had every other morning this week. My resolve wavered each time I left the locker room thanks to Sinjin’s bright eyes and gorgeous smile greeting me each day.

Everything changed once we got inside that room. Since I wasn’t allowed to move on to the next cardio exercise until I tackled those burpees, I tackled those burpees like a linebacker taking out the running back on the opposing team. And yes, I almost died, but I made it past the seventy-five mark. Seventy-five burpees—too easy, Drill Sergeant. I made it toseventy-sixbefore I collapsed.

As I lay on the floor dying of heart failure, I looked to my left to myaccountability partnerand was he doing burpees? Oh no. Apparently, this fool had burned through his one hundred burpees and moved onto the next stinking exercise. Despite being on death’s doorstep, I shoved up from the floor andI tried—I tried so hard to do burpee number seventy-seven, especially after seeing Trevor walking up and down the rows to check on everyone’s progress. I wanted to show him that I was really trying, that I was going to kick this camp’s booty. I wanted to be the star pupil. I wanted to show Mr. Dumpling-Eating-Fool that he had to take this seriously.

Instead of showing any of that to Sinjin or our fearless leader, what I got from Trevor was, “Don’t make yourself sick again.”

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