Chapter 14
brANDON
Monday morning comes faster than I’d like with travel to our away game taking up the entire weekend.
The iron plates clank together as I add another twenty-five to each side of the bar, the sound echoing through the otherwise quiet gym at six-thirty a.m. Morning workouts are my religion—the only place other than the field where everything makes sense.
And right now, I need some sense in my life.
“Yo, Mask Boy! You need a spotter?” Chris calls out from the bench next to mine, his grin wide enough to swallow a basketball.
“I’m good,” I grumble, sliding under the bar. The guys have been giving me shit all week for the face mask thing with Tate.
“You sure?” Jace chimes in, abandoning his triceps pull downs to smirk at me like an asshole. “Wouldn’t want you popping a blood vessel in that pretty face of yours. Gotta keep that skin glowing for your girl.”
Damon squints as he peers at me from beneath the pull-up bar. “Your skin does have an extra glow to it this week. Normally, I would think it’s because you got laid, but the scowl you’re sporting tells me otherwise.”
“Fucking hilarious, all of you.” I flip them the bird before I tighten my grip on the barbell.
“What am I missing?” West asks, and hallelujah, there’s at least one person who doesn’t know my business.
Chris slings a towel around his neck as he saunters past with a shit-eating grin. “Oh, not much. Jace and I just dropped by to check on Pretty Boy here and caught him with some girly fruit mask all over his face because he was having a ‘spa day’”—he makes quotes with his hands—“with Tate.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. Like you wouldn’t do the same for Charlotte.”
Jace guffaws. “Worse. I’m pretty sure I saw him leaving his room the other day and going to the bathroom in her underwear.”
“Hey, I look good in pink, okay?” Chris says, completely serious. “And they were silk. Silk is fucking soft. Don’t knock it ’til you try it, gentlemen.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass on that,” I mutter before I grit my teeth and do another rep.
“Did she say anything about how her weekend with Ethan went?” West asks as he plops down on the bench beside mine with a pair of fifty-pound dumbbells.
I glance over at him, then focus back on the bar. “She came to my place wanting to spend time with me, and you think I wasted it talking about her fucking boyfriend?” I ask, feeling my frustration mount as I push the barbell off my chest with a hiss.
Jace shrugs. “You were so worried about her Friday night, it would make sense if you asked.”
“I sure as hell wouldn’t have asked,” Damon says, and when I glance at him, he adds, “I’d go batshit crazy if Avery had been with another dude and detailed her weekend for me.”
I push the bar up with a grunt, trying to dispel the image of Tatum with Ethan from my mind by gritting out two more reps.
“Do you guys actually talk about that stuff?” Chris asks, a furrow in his brow as if it just occurred to him.
I feign ignorance because I don’t want to think about it. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sex stuff.”
“Hell no.” I sit up, wiping the sweat off my brow before chucking it at him. “Besides, I’m the only one who would have anything to say.”
“You sure about that?” Jace asks.
No. But I shoot him a glare, unable to even consider the possibility.
“Well, even if they’re not intimate now,” he continues, “she’s moving schools for him. Seems like they’re serious. So, unless, she’s made some sort of vow to save herself, it’s probably only a matter of time—”
“Just drop it,” I snap, not wanting to think about what he’s saying because I know he’s right, and it’s exactly what I was afraid of when Ethan got her wasted Friday night.
“Did anything promising come out of your time spent acting like a girl on Sunday?” Chris asks, changing course.
I press my lips into a tight line as I recall our spa day. I’m still unsure what to make of it, but I don’t know if her feeling my boner and freaking out qualifies as promising. Either way, I’m not sure I want to tell the guys.
“Can we just shut up and lift?” I snap, averting my gaze.
“Something happened, didn’t it?” Chris asks, and I can all but feel his eyes on me.
“No.” I stand, turning to the rack of free weights.
“You’re getting all squinty-eyed.” Chris points.
“What? No, I’m not.” I glance over at him, trying to keep my eyes wide open to prove a point.
Jace crosses his arms over his chest as he tips his chin in my direction. “You’re still doing it.”
“Looks like you have to take a shit,” Damon chimes in.
“I don’t look like I have to—You know what? I don’t even care,” I say, heading for my water bottle resting on the bench, mostly so they can no longer see whatever the hell my face is doing, seeing as how I have no control over it.
“West, doesn’t Brandon look like he’s staring into the sun?” Chris asks.
West peers over at me, and the more they look at me, the more I feel my expression shriveling like a prune. “He does look a little . . . cross-eyed, maybe?”
“Eat shit. All of you,” I snap before I take a pull from my water bottle.
“Ugh. I hope that’s not the face you make when you’re avoiding telling Tatum how you feel.” Chris grimaces. “If so, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“There’s no we,” I say, screwing the lid back on my bottle.
“We told you all that primping girlfriend shit would backfire.” Chris shakes his head, and I hit my limit.
“It didn’t backfire!” I slam my water bottle down, the metallic clang echoing off the walls with enough force to make everyone jump. “She felt my fucking dick, okay?”
Damons chokes. “Um, what?”
“I thought about what you guys said”?I wave between Jace and Chris, pissed off with their meddling?“and I knew you were right. So, I washed all that shit off my face and gave her a massage.”
“What kind of massage?” Chris asks, his eyes bright.
I cut him with a look. “A very thorough back and neck massage, which got me hard, because she was moaning and shit. And then she accidentally touched it when she shifted positions, and he thought it was time to come out and play.”
“Yeah?” Chris crosses his arms over his chest. “Did she like it?”
I growl as I drop down to the closest bench and rake a hand through my hair, thinking about how she just stared at me before she fled in a panic.
“She completely freaked out. Happy now?”
My friends go silent. Four pairs of wide eyes stare at me, like I’ve grown a second head.
“When you say ‘freaked out’ . . .?” Chris starts.
“She locked herself inside the bathroom and wouldn’t come out for a good twenty minutes.”
“Oof.” Jace winces.
“Damn,” West mutters.
“Did she say anything?” Damon asks, looking almost as upset as I feel. “How did you get her to come back out?”
“I apologized, told her I was sorry, and when she finally emerged, I didn’t know what to fucking do, so I just gave her some bullshit excuse about it being my body’s natural reaction or some shit.”
Chris grunts, and I know I’m screwed. “Dude, that was your chance, man. You should’ve just laid it all out there.”
I throw my hands up. “What was I supposed to say? Sorry I got a boner because you were moaning, and all I could do was picture what it would be like with me on top and you writhing beneath me?”
“Yeah,” Chris drawls like I’m stupid.
“What happened to backing off and being a friend and supporting her through this thing with Ethan?”
“I never supported that plan,” Chris points out. “That plan is bullshit.”
Fuck. Maybe Chris is right. Maybe that plan is bullshit.
“No. You’re doing the right thing,” West reassures me. “Just stick with the plan. Let Tatum figure it all out on her own.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose, because I’m more fucking confused than ever and have no idea what the hell I’m doing.
“Hold up,” Jace says, waving a hand in the air as if to clear it. “Let’s dissect this a bit more. How exactly did she look at you before the freak-out?”
“I don’t know . . . she looked . . .” I think back to her expression—eyes wide with shock, parted lips, the hitch in her breath. “Thrown off guard? Surprised, I guess.”
“Or was she impressed?” Jace suggests, and I give him props because it makes me feel a little less like an asshole.
Chris rubs his jaw as if thinking, and his expression is so serious, I’d laugh if we weren’t talking about my dick. “He might be onto something.” He wags a finger at Jace. “I mean, she’s used to seeing you as her best friend, right?”
I nod, hanging onto his every word, because if there’s any glimmer of hope in this situation, I’m all ears.
“But maybe once she felt your massive schlong, it made her view you in a new light? Maybe instead of just seeing you as her buddy, she saw you as a man? A man with needs. A man who could give her everything she never knew she wanted but is starting to realize she does.”
Damon snorts. “What?”
“Shhh,” Chris continues. “All I’m saying is that kind of realization with someone as sweet as Tatum can fuck a girl up. She probably panicked because for the first time, she wasn’t thinking about Ethan. She was thinking about you.”
My stomach twists. As ridiculous as it sounds, I desperately want to believe what he’s saying. That maybe her freaking out wasn’t her rejecting me—maybe it was her realizing something she wasn’t ready to admit.
“Or,” Damon cuts in, “she freaked out because she has a boyfriend, and she felt weird about it.”
I slump back on the bench because he’s likely right. “Wow. Thanks, bro. Way to kick a man when he’s down. You just couldn’t let me have a win, could you?”
Damon. “Sorry. Just being real.”
“Well, real sucks,” I mutter, under my breath. I hope like hell I didn’t screw everything up.
Chris leans forward, eyes blazing. “Then change the damn game. Stop being the safe option. Be the guy she can’t ignore. The guy who makes her lock herself in the bathroom because her whole world just tilted sideways. Stop being so fucking passive.”