Though, to be fair, shecouldunderstand the fear that easier access would take away all the small-town-closeness that made it so special. Lucky for her, it wasn't Sabrina's job to convince people that the train was a good idea. All she had to do was make the train station as fantastic as the town. Just…not this weekend.
"Are yousurewe can't arrange an emergency?" she asked Emmy Jones between sets at the gym.
Emmy paused with her leg press at half extension, holding the incredibly impressive weight effortlessly. She was a gorgeous fat woman who thought it was actively funny to call herself 'fluffy,' and whose soft brown eyes sparkled with her laugh. "I don't even know how you would have an architecture emergency. I could see it if the station was already underway, maybe, but we don't break ground until next week."
The town had already tented off the whole construction zone for the station, so that the record-breaking winters that had been sweeping over New England the past few years wouldn't stop the station from being built. Sabrina lay down on a bench and groaned dramatically. Emmy finished her set and leaned over to look at Sabrina. "Was that because you can't manage an emergency or you don't want to do your bench presses?"
"Yes. Mostly the first one, though. I could go chop down some of the scaffolding on the site. We'd have to put it all up again and I could use that as an excuse not to go."
"I'msurethe construction crew can get scaffolding back up without your help," Emmy pointed out. "And besides, you said they're your best friends from college. Don't you want to see them?"
"Of course I do." Sabrina sighed, wriggled herself into place on the bench, and tested the weight bar before starting her set. After ten reps, she settled it back in place, exhaled noisily, and finished, "But I engaged in one of the classic blunders."
"You got involved in a land war in Asia?"
Sabrina laughed and sat up. "That's why we're friends, see? But no. It's much worse than that."
Emmy's eyebrows rose skeptically. "It's worse than a land war in Asia?"
"Well, okay, no, I guess it's more of a romcom kind of blunder. I told them I had a boyfriend." Sabrina blurted the last words and squinched up her face, not wanting to see Emmy'sexpression. Except of course she also did, so she unscrewed one eye and looked nervously toward her new friend.
Emmy was womanfully trying not to laugh, and not succeeding at all. "I have never met anybody who's actually done that before. Can't you tell them you broke up?"
"Then they'll think I was lying to them and never had one!"
"You were! You didn't!"
"But I don't want them tothinkthat!"
"Sabrina!" Emmy gave up trying not to laugh and full-on guffawed.
Sabrina sniffled theatrically. "Some friend you are."
"Come on! You invented a boyfriend and now you need one! For a wedding! That's a lot! Finish your reps."
"Fiiiiine." Sabrina lay back down and did her next set. Her armsdidlook fabulous, at least. Maybe if any of The Girls gave her a hard time she could just punch them. She put the bar back, closed her eyes, and let the blood flow return to her arms by letting them fall as Emmy cackled.
"I've got it. I have an answer for you. Finish your last set and I'll tell you."
"Does it involve destroying the scaffolding?"
"It does not."
"Damn." Sabrina did her last set, and as she replaced the bar again, Emmy spoke with a note of triumph.
"You can ask my brother to go with you!"
"Your brother?" Sabrina sat up again. "Aaron, who is engaged to Dion?"
"No." Emmy beamed at her, and pointed across the gym toward the reception desk. "That brother."
Sabrina followed with her gaze, and thought maybe it was a good thing she was sitting, because otherwise she'd have fallen off the bench.
The guy signing in at the reception desk looked about six and a half feet tall and had muscles on his muscles, all wonderfully visible because he wore a tank top, shorts, and tennies with short socks so that even his extremely fit ankles were on display. He had short brown hair, a little darker than Emmy's, and a blinding smile that he bestowed on the admiring girl at the reception desk before coming farther into the gym.
He was tan. He was square-jawed. He was broad-shouldered. He was dark-eyed. He wasstupendous.Sabrina, dizzily, said, "That's yourbrother?"
"That is one hundred percent my brother. Hey, Luke!" Emmy waved vigorously. "Come on over here, I've got somebody for you to meet!"
