Nothing More Beautiful Read Online Free PDF Page A

slow down, distracted. “I’m not going
to say it just because you want me to.”
    “Fine,” she snapped. “Anyway, I think
they’re gay, so it really doesn’t matter.”
    I squinted at the pair, trying to make their
features out. At 25, my long-distance sight was failing me,
starting to slip into a blurry mess, and every few months it seemed
perceivably worse. “What makes you think they’re gay?”
    “Uh, hello, I know things you don’t,” she
answered. “And even if they weren’t—which they are —it still
wouldn’t matter because you wouldn’t do anything about it.”
    I halted the elliptical. “What the hell does
that mean?”
    “It means you’re way too shy around men.”
She kept going like everything was cool. “You went out with Ryan
for two weeks before you kissed. And before he came along, it had
been, what, eight months since you went on a date?”
    “I’m not shy,” I said, “I’m just not as
confident—”
    “And that’s the strange part,” she cut me
off. “You’re so certain and resolute when it comes to business and
the bakery. You’re like some unstoppable machine, but then when it
comes to men, you’re a completely different person.”
    “What is with you lately? You just keep
attacking me.” I climbed down from the cardio machine, staring at
Danielle. My temper flared.
    “I just don’t want you to get stuck in the
same rut you always do after a breakup,” she said, looking down to
meet my eyes. “I want you to find someone like I have.”
    “And saying c-o-c-k ”—I whispered the
letters—“will help me do that?”
    “What? No, that’s a completely different
subject. I think asking one of them out would.” She glanced across
the room and I followed her eyes, landing on the fit guy. “That’s
one way to see if they’re gay.”
    “That’s ridiculous, Danielle.”
    “Think what kind of story that would be
though,” she said. “Asking your future husband out to win a
bet.”
    “To prove he’s not gay,” I said, wiping the
sweat out of my eyes. That was a big reason why I hated gyms: I
sweated ten times more indoors than outside. Plus, I felt so
trapped and restricted on the machines. “Romantic.”
    “Just do it as a confidence booster, to show
yourself it’s not so scary to ask someone out.”
    The idea sounded good in my head. I could
use more confidence around men—there was no kidding myself
there—but asking a complete stranger out was something else. I had
no intro, no way to transition from unfamiliar to familiar. I
needed something to settle my nerves before I met someone new. I
was staring over at the two men while Danielle waited for a reply.
“If you do this today, I won’t bug you about anything date- or
sex-related for a week.”
    It didn’t sound worth it. “Just a week?”
    “Isn’t that better than a few hours?” she
said, nudging me forward between the ellipticals.
    “All right. All right. I’ll do it.” Her face
lit up as I spun around. I took a step toward the two men and my
heart rate instantly escalated, my throat dry and swelling. Talking
to potential dates never came easy for me. At work it was easy to
talk to customers. It was routine.
    The sweat I had built up from the workout
now seemed to be clinging to every inch of my body. I stuck out my
chest as I walked, but by the time I was within a few feet of the
fit guy, my shoulders had hunched, and I had grown smaller. The
excessively buff friend had disappeared, probably to the
bathroom.
    The odds were now a little better that I
might string a sentence together, but not by much. About two feet
stood between us as he set a pair of 35-pound dumbbells on the
floor. He was sitting on the bench, inclined, breathing hard—as
hard as I was sweating.
    “Excuse me?” I said, realizing as the words
stumbled out that it was the driver from the car accident, but by
the time my brain told me to retreat, the sole of my foot rolled
over something and my balance faltered. My