Chapter Nine
CADEN
It seemed that each week was tougher than the one before. Perhaps that was the true college experience, but I wasn’t terribly burdened by the workload. It was a dickhead with a grin that I had problems with.
But the dickhead with a grin had been right about one thing.
By the end of the following week, I noticed the tension Beckett had talked about.
It seemed that even Avery, who perpetually looked like he neither cared nor wanted to hear more, felt awkward around us.
And Beckett had unloaded that responsibility squarely on my shoulders.
So on Saturday, a few hours after our excruciating morning drills — thanks partly to the embarrassing defeat the night before — I broke down and did a thing.
The mood in the basement was so sour that you couldn’t breathe.
Nobody was playing table soccer or the old arcade games.
Everyone was sitting around and stewing in resentment for yesterday’s loss.
Part of the unspoken blame was directed at Beckett and me, I was sure.
We just didn’t play well together. It had been fine in the past when there was Riley between us.
Now, though, things were different. I couldn’t follow his ridiculous logic and he considered me a tame and predictable player.
The morale was low as fuck. And I couldn’t keep ignoring a little bit of responsibility for it.
“Captain,” I said a minute after I had scanned the situation in the basement. “Wanna join me at the gym?”
Beckett looked up without hiding his surprise. “What for?”
I shrugged. “We might be friends—” it pained me to say that, knowing full well that nobody believed it.
“—but we’re not in sync. I figured Riley and Cameron conditioned together to align their heads.
It’s worth a shot.” I was deliberate about giving this speech in front of an audience.
After all, I doubted that Beckett and I could ever be on the same page about anything.
I was doing this for the sake of our teammates.
If they saw some effort on my end, they would reward it by putting more effort on theirs.
“You know what, Jones? That’s an excellent idea,” Beckett said. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I was happy to let others think he meant it. “You guys could follow Caden’s example and see how to get better aligned.”
I left the basement before anyone made a reply. It wasn’t the most diplomatic way, but Beckett had never had those talents, no matter his beliefs.
We got our stuff and met in front of the team house ten minutes later.
The weather was getting progressively colder with each new day.
Early mornings and late evenings carried fog, although early afternoons such as this gave fake warmth.
The gold and amber leaves were falling off the branches.
The sun was just not that intimidating any longer.
The walk to the gym was silent. Beckett had given enough acknowledgment and praise for my plan in front of the guys that we practically had nothing more to talk about. I certainly wasn’t planning on sharing secrets.
Beneath a fine layer of calm politeness, our animosity remained unchanged.
His loud breathing annoyed me while we walked at a fast pace.
The way he ground his teeth made me want to speak up.
The perpetually lousy mood and the continuously poor performance on the ice enraged me.
And the fact that our captain was doing little more than sulking about everything, drove me close to madness.
We reached the gym and found it fairly empty. Down in the locker room, we were the only people present. We had unfortunately gotten keys to the lockers that were side by side, but I decided it wasn’t a battle worth winning. And Beckett didn’t speak up, either, when we got the keys.
I took my clothes off and slipped into shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt.
Beckett wore a gray hoodie and matching sweatpants, impersonating a wealthy coach.
The self-assured stride was an obnoxious sight.
He walked in front of me, his shoulders moving like he was wading through stormy seas.
His hips swung back and forth, making his firm, round ass pretty much bounce.
Why did straight bros have firm asses, anyway?
I cut that thought in its root. I had no business looking at the flashy moves of his peachy butt and I definitely had no interest in a straight bro, even if he wasn’t the most obnoxious guy on the planet.
“How do you imagine this working out?” Beckett asked.
I weighed my options. There was one thing I wanted to tell him, but I needed to find a better moment. So, I decided to be smart about this. “I dunno. Riley never explained the details. I think we should do a regular workout, but together.”
Beckett shrugged. “Suits me.”
We started things off with some warmups.
For thirty minutes, we were on treadmills, speed-walking and running.
Riley had once complained about the way he and Cameron had been competing with one another while conditioning.
I tried my best not to fall into that trap.
Beckett ran eight miles per hour, so I figured I might match his pace. He didn’t seem to notice or care.
When sweat broke over my body, I signaled Beckett to start the cooldown. My calves seared, my heart pounded, and I focused on breathing to keep the oxygen supply up. If I had to give it to Beckett, I’d admit his stamina was on par with any professional athlete. But that would be all.
It was in the rest of our conditioning session that Beckett and I were forced to cooperate.
And it was excruciating. For one thing, he really could have put on anything other than those gray sweatpants.
The neon lights cast a soft but unmistakable shadow on one side of his bulge.
And that was all good and fine until I lay on a bench for a chest workout and Beckett spread his legs and bent down just above my head.
The whole point of conditioning together was to lend strengths to one another and push our limits by teaming up.
He went all in, helping me with the extra weights I’d put on the bar.
But that also resulted in a lot of movements on his part.
Whenever I pushed the bar up, Beckett straightened his back, which made his hips move forward.
The sweatpants held no secrets. The constant movement was grinding, Beckett’s hips thrusting back and forth, the shifting of the tight fabric dragging his balls wherever the sweats left enough room.
It was impossible to look away.
And when I was finally done, I thought I was free of this stupid temptation.
But it was Beckett’s turn to lie on the bench and lift.
And I couldn’t have predicted how much worse things would be.
As he laid flat on his back, his ass on the edge of the bench, and his legs spread to ground him and provide balance, I let my gaze waver.
It followed the creases of Beckett’s hoodie all the way to the tight sweatpants and the hill that was his crotch.
My breaths became shallow. My throat tightened. I gripped the bar just as Beckett did, but I was so distracted by my view and my swirling mind that Beckett needed to snap at me before I returned to the present. “Jones, will you let me lift this thing, or should I just leave you to it?”
“Oh.” I relaxed my biceps and let him lift, adding only a little help whenever he pushed the bar up.
The rest of the session was no better. When we got to the incline bench to lift the EZ bar, I positioned myself in front of Beckett to help him raise it if he needed me.
But because he was leaning over the bench, the mirror behind him gave me an excruciatingly good view of his thrust-out ass, hugged tightly by the stretchy sweatpants.
And the other way around wasn’t an improvement.
Having to bend over the bench and stare right at Beckett’s crotch once again had me sweating before I even lifted the weights once.
Some relief came in the form of calisthenics.
But not much. We could plank side by side, which mercifully limited my view, but we still needed to rest at the same time.
And Beckett’s idea of resting for a hot minute was to stretch.
Wherever the guy saw a bar, he lifted his leg.
He would bend over with a gymnast’s ease, stretching and doing splits on almost all surfaces.
Every break we made seemed to escalate things further. When he hopped up to hang from an overhead bar, his hoodie couldn’t cover him, and his abs were in plain sight. When we wrapped up our pushups, Beckett straightened and bent over to touch his toes. There was no escaping him.
I had never worked out with Beckett before. In fact, I’d only ever worked out with Sawyer and Riley, but even that had been rare. Our schedules and preferences often meant I had to work out by myself. And that was for the best because Beckett was more of a distraction than a reliable partner.
Things reached their crescendo close to the end of the session. We were taking turns with the T-bar row. While Beckett was having his turn, I was walking around the quiet, empty room. And because this had been the case for the past hour, I allowed myself to look at my enemy while he worked out.
Bending down and pulling back up, Beckett worked with heavy weights, his torso always tilted forward and his ass thrust out.
We were both exhausted and sweaty. His sweatpants had pulled down a little, revealing a dark blue strip of fabric from his underwear.
Blocky red letters spelled out some luxurious brand I’d only heard in commercials.
He was facing away from me, so I slowed down and watched him.
There was no reason a despicable guy like Beckett Partridge should be blessed with those glutes. The roundness and the firmness were in a harmony that tickled all my instincts. Worse still, he wore clothes that emphasized just how firm his ass was.