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“That’s right—Ben. The fella that grew up around here.”
“That’s him,” Mia said with a nod as they turned and punched the water on their way back to the other end of the rectangular pool.
“Oh, yeah—the grump!”
But he wasn’t. Or at least, he hadn’t been when they were kids. And she’d had a lot of time to assess, since he was best friends with her older brother.
Nancy turned to face her. “Wasn’t his mom the president of that garden club you belonged to?”
“Connie, yeah,” Mia answered, her gaze blurring slightly.
This water aerobics class wasn’t the only time Mia had been part of a group whose members were well into adulthood during America’s bicentennial. But she didn’t care then, and she certainly didn’t now. Time spent with Mrs. Wilson was where her love for flowers started. And it never left. Not when her dad grumbled about her spending too much time “playing in the dirt.” Not when he pushed her to follow in his footsteps, insisting she attend business school like he had. Not even now.
“Connie was the best.” Mia grabbed a couple sets of foam water weights, handing them to each of her interrogators as her mind drifted back in time to afternoons spent in Mrs. Wilson’s backyard, the two of them working until their hands were the color of the earth. Those summer days were some of Mia’s fondest childhood memories. She took to gardening like a specialized school, often writing tips and tricks in her soil-stained notebook.
“Speaking of flowers, when are you gonna open that shop of yours?” Renee asked, doing synchronized bicep curls to the beat of an ABBA song.
“I’m not planning to open a shop.”
The half-truth tasted sour on her tongue because she had made plans for a shop, an entire business plan she vowed to show no one after her father rattled off statistics about the failures of small businesses. Never mind that he’d not so much as glanced at the document.
But she didn’t want a shop anymore. Best she could do was create arrangements for fun to drop off at her grandma’s retirement home when she was in town to visit and another to decorate the lobby of the fitness center before she got in the pool for class. People deserved something pretty to look at before they sweated their brains out, she believed.
Nancy stopped pumping her arms and looked at Mia. “I think you’re making a mistake by not following your passion, sweetie. I’ve seen your arrangements here. And those gorgeous photos you post—people clamor on about them on Insider-gram.”
“Instant-gram, you ninny.” Renee snickered, clearly not knowing that she was also wrong. They both were, really.
“Well, followers don’t equal sales, which I’d need to be successful. I don’t think a shop is the right fit for me,” Mia answered.
“You’re right—it’s a terrible fit,” Renee agreed, and for a minute Mia’s shoulders dropped. Until she saw the challenge in the elderly woman’s eyes. “A job where an Ivy League business school graduate can use her brain while also following her creative passion? Terrible idea.”
“You’ll never know unless you try,” Nancy urged. But that was the problem. If she’d learned anything from her mother—a woman who tried to turn her passions into something profitable on more than one occasion—it took a lot more than trying to keep a business afloat.
The class spread out to stretch, which was everyone’s favorite part. It meant class was almost over.
“Whatcha got for us today, Hannah?” one member asked.
They loved when Hannah closed out the class with one of her funny stories, pearls of wisdom, or whatever else she came up with. It was the only time when the endless chatter of the class ceased.
“Alright, ladies,” Hannah said as she brought her arm across her chest to stretch her shoulder. “This may have come from the fortune cookie I ate the other night, but since I can’t stop thinking about it, I thought I’d share. It said: happiness is a choice.” Mia noticed the bob of Hannah’s throat. “I don’t wake up happy every day, despite what many people think. But each day, I choose to be happy. To find things that bring me joy.”
Hannah looked up and locked eyes with Mia. Like she was speaking only to her. “This life is yours—why not make it a happy one?”
The words repeated in Mia’s mind as she threw on her coverup and walked to the lobby. Lost in thoughts of how unhappy she was at her job, how meaningless her life had become, she walked past the towel bin. She turned to toss her towel into the container, but when she let go of it, the white fabric flew through the air and hit a gym patron in the face. More like she was a web-slinging comic book character who’d captured an innocent victim.
Heat flooded her cheeks from embarrassment, initially, but that quickly took a turn when she noticed the sculpted arms coming out from under the towel. One hand held a basketball, and the other swatted the damp cloth off his head. Both were incredibly toned. Both belonged to a man Mia recognized the second he freed himself from the towel’s unrelenting clutches.
“Ben! What are you doing here?”
His eyes, rounded and bulging from their sockets, stared at her as his mouth hung so ajar, he could have stuffed the basketball he was holding in it.
“Well, what do we have here?” Nancy chirped as Renee’s brows lifted above her glasses.
“Nothing,” Mia squeaked. “There’s nothing to see here.”
Just a man who broke her heart.
Chapter Two
