I hadpushed my body to its limits, and earned a silver medal for my efforts. Ihad gone back to my hotel room after the meet to shower off and change ...ntocomfortable clothes, intent on taking a nap before joining the other guysfor celebrations. I took a long, hot shower, and elf the bathroom withjust a small towel wrapped around my waist. I looked around the room, andmy roommate was still not back. He probably was already in the hotel barwith the others. I noticed an envelope on the table. ‘This must be divine intervention. A sign more things are about to happen to you two.’ Elle bit back a smile. ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Come on, don’t tell me this isn’t what you want,’ Zoe said. ‘You held a crush on him for the longest time and you didn’t mind him having a son from a previous relationship. And now you find out that he likes animals. That’s like icing on a really yummy cake.’ ‘Don’t forget he blew me off,’ Elle reminded her. ‘I laid myself out there for me and he blew me. “But that beats the heck out of below zero!”“We usually don’t get THAT cold,” Rebekah said, “though it does happen occasionally.”“Who is Katy?” Kimiko asked.“A girl from church I dated for a time, but we broke up because she wanted to go to school in California,” I replied.That was close enough to what had happened and I didn’t want to worry Kimiko unnecessarily. Of course, thinking of Katy made me realize that I hadn’t discussed with Kimiko the possibility that I’d go to medical school out of. “Don’t be like that. Not all women are the same as your ex.”“Oh, come on, we aren’t going to talk about this again, are we?” I looked up at the ceiling. If I were going to break down and have sex with someone, I would set my sights a little closer to home.She cut me off. “I know, that’s not fair. Look, have I ever asked you to do anything like this before?”“No,” I answered but still didn’t look at her.“So, will you indulge me?” she asked a little too eagerly. She slipped her hand under my shirt.