Chapter Three
Grace
Ibolt upright in bed when the dormitory alarm clock blares like a wailing banshee through the building. It whines so loudly, for a second I think it’s going to shatter the fricking glass.
I rub sleep from my eyes and look around the room.
It’s small, but everything is sparkling clean and the sheets smell like vanilla, the scent drifting up to my nose so sweetly I can’t help but let a smile bend my lip upwards.
Dawn sunlight glows red through the pale curtains. Outside, I can hear birds chirping quietly, and then the louder noise of people talking in the kitchen area at the end of the hall.
When the alarm finally stops, I reach down and pick up my phone. As usual, the first place I navigate to is the Zodiac Zone website, which feels all the more important after that meeting with Harry last night.
I expected him to be a douche.
When he was swaggering over, every inch the taut-muscled bad boy I remember from high school, I thought some scathing comment was going to come out of his smirking lips.
I decided to play it safe.
I’d make nice.
I’d make him believe I was going to be his best friend … and then, once I’ve gained his confidence, I’ll bite him in the ass bigtime. Not literally, obviously. Though the way his shorts hugged his assdidlet me know he hasn’t been skipping any workouts.
Today it’s time to relax and cut loose. You’ve been second-guessing yourself for too long. Let yourself just be in the moment. Stop and smell the roses. If you can, do something adventurous. Challenge yourself. You can do it.
I squeeze the phone tightly in my hand, wondering if the operator of the website is writing these personally for me. I know that people say horoscopes are silly, but it just seems so right.
I think the best course of action is to just go with the flow today. I don’t have to obsess about my blog every second of every day … even if getting involved in the fitness camp is the best thing for it right now.
I climb out of bed and take a quick shower in the en suite, the water pressure like manna from heaven after the pitter-patter of my apartment’s showerhead. I slip on some yoga pants, a sports bra, and a baggy sports T-shirt.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I debate applying some makeup.
But why?
This is a fitness camp, not a fricking beauty pageant. I don’t care if Harry sees me without makeup. The days of anxiously studying myself in my pocket mirror as my teenage heartthrob paces across the soccer field are long gone.
I leave my dorm room and walk down the wide hallway toward the exit. After grabbing an energy bar from the vending machine, I walk across the sunlit field toward the gym at the end of the complex, where pretty much everybody is heading. In our workout gear, we’re like a herd of go-getter antelope heading for a fresh challenge.
The gym is well-equipped in the extreme, the exercise machines all brand-new and gleaming. I look at the running machines with their digital readouts and their unchipped plastic and get the weird-as-heck urge to drag my own running machine here and shout in its face,“See,thisis what a running machine looks like.”
Okay, so maybe this whole early-morning wakeup is making me a little freaky.
We all chat idly as we wait for Harry to arrive. When the door finally opens and he swaggers to the head of the room, standing near the reception area with his elbow casually resting on the desk, I notice how most of the women draw in their breath or go all googly-eyed.
One woman starts to fuss with her blond bun, adjusting it as though she’s about to go meet her Prince Charming.
Careful, I want to tell her.This Prince Charming’s a heartbreaker.
But it’s hard to deny the blistering sight of him, his jet-black hair wavy over his forehead, his clean-shaven face stern as he looks us over like a commanding general.
His eyes twinkle in that arrogant way when he finds me gawking at him with the rest of them. He smirks.
I smile in the brightest, friendliest way I can. But it’s only for show.
Once I hook him, his smirking days are gonna be well and truly over.
“We have an optional excursion this morning,” he says, walking up and down in front of the crowd, tossing a tennis ball from hand to hand.
