Page 10 of Just Another Meet Cute
“Not a whole one. You’re splitting it with me.” I gave her a big cheesy grin. “We’re in this together.”
“I was afraid of that,” Linh said, shaking her head. “Fine, but you’re buying and we’re getting the caramel pecan one. With a taro bubble tea on the side. Extra egg pudding and no boba.”
“Deal.”
After our satisfying snack, we walked over to the gym and peeked in. It was pretty crowded for a Thursday afternoon. Or maybe this was the usual crowd for a weekday. I didn’t really know. My idea of a fun afternoon was eating pizza or going go-kart racing. Certainly not sweating buckets on some machine.
One quick glance around and I could already see that Ian wasn’t here. Unless he was in the locker room, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to check in there. Images of a shirtless Ian popped in my mind, and my face immediately burned. I physically had to shake my head to focus.
“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Linh whispered as she looked around, ducking her head a bit to hide behind me. Like that was even possible.
“Ummm …”
She rapped her knuckles against the side of my head. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”
I really didn’t. Up until this point, I was pretty much winging everything.
I cleared my throat. “I’m improvising. Unless you have something in mind?”
“I don’t—”
“Hi, can I help you with something?”
We both squealed and jumped upright. Our heads smacked together like the Three Stooges. My hand grasped the doorframe so I wouldn’t fall on my face.
“Are you all right?” A really tall guy in a blue polo shirt peered over at us from behind the counter. He looked about eighteen or so. A little bit on the nerdy side, with his black wire-rimmed glasses and tucked-in shirt. But a cool, chic type of nerd, like he didn’t care what people thought.
“Hi!” Startled, I automatically waved aimlessly for a few seconds before realizing how stupid I looked. “We were—We were …”
My mind drew a blank until finally Linh stepped out from behind me. With a flirty grin, she swept her dark hair over her shoulder. “Hi, I’m Linh. And this is my cousin, Nina.”
“I’m Todd.” He barely took his eyes off her as he reached out to shake my hand. “So, what can I do for you, ladies?”
“I, uh, found this key fob outside. Some guy dropped it. Maybe you know him? His name is Ian. Dark hair. Asian. Probably a couple of inches shorter than you.”Incredibly good looking, with a smile that could melt you like a rocky road ice cream cone on a summer day, I internally added.
“Uh, no, sorry. I don’t think I know Ian. If you want, I could hold thegym fob if he comes looking for it.” His hand reached out toward my hand, and I jerked away.
“Oh.” I glanced down at the computer in front of Todd. “Do you want to check the computer first? To make sure that he belongs tothisgym? I don’t want to leave it here if he doesn’t.”
“I’m sure he does. That looks like one of our—”
“Could you check anyway?” My voice came out a little louder than I intended. I cleared my throat and smiled. “Please?”
Giving me a funny look, he let out a heavy sigh under his breath and held out his hand again. This time I surrendered the key fob and he shoved it under the computer scanner thingy before giving it back to me. I held my breath until it beeped. It took ages, like time had slowed down. Finally, a profile flashed on the screen. Tiptoeing forward, I peered over Todd’s shoulder.
There he was. Ryan Nguyen.
Wait a second …
I leaned in closer to squint at the blurry ID picture on the screen to check again. His hair was a little bit longer, but the smile and the eyes were exactly the same. And the dimple.
My mind raced through our short conversation from the other day, but I was certain that he said his name was Ian. Almost certain. ’Course, looking at his gym profile now, I couldn’t be 100 percent positive …
“Excuse me?”
“Hmm?” I glanced up at Todd’s frowning face. He waved both hands at me to back up and I realized that I was practically draped over his shoulder.Cheeks flushing, I jumped back behind the counter and grabbed Linh’s arm. “Oh, sorry. I was—Uh, Linh, didn’t you need something?”
“What?”
