Chapter 6 #3
“Both!” Lauren responds. “But more my husband, and I’m about to rip him a new asshole. How did he not tell me this?”
“Maybe he didn’t realize?” Sierra offers. “Does he know that Jackson and Nate were together?”
Lauren levels her with a look. “Does anybody not know about that?”
“It doesn’t seem like Josh to purposely sublet a place three doors down from Jackson to her ex-boyfriend,” Sierra says, always the peacemaker.
But she’s right, it doesn’t seem like something Josh would do, which is why I’ve found it impossible to reach out and bring it up with him or Lauren this week.
Lauren looks at me. “Did you ask Josh why he did this?”
I shake my head. “I’ve had kind of a crazy week. I figured we’d talk about it tonight.”
She pulls her long hair to one side and winds it around her hand before dropping it. Her lips purse into a line beneath her adorably upturned nose. “I’m going to call him right now and find out what the hell was going through his head.”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I tell her, but I suspect my voice gives away how hard it is to lie about my feelings on this matter.
“Like hell it’s not,” she says, her voice fierce as she stands. “I’ll be back.”
I watch her retreat toward the rear hallway where the bathrooms are, and I am momentarily distracted by the back of someone standing near the stage with the live band.
His hair is a familiar sandy color, a little longer on top but closely cut as it tapers to his neck.
His wide shoulders tower over the head of the woman standing next to him, and he throws his head back and laughs, a gesture that’s so familiar even though I haven’t seen it in years.
No. He can’t possibly be at the same bar tonight.
And then he leans down to say something to his date, and I sigh with relief because it’s not Nate.
Petra leans toward me. “What’s it like working with Nate?”
“Super uncomfortable.” In my mind I picture his proclivity for taking off his shirt so I’m forced to notice every hard-earned muscle in his upper body.
I try to forget how frequently I’ve had to touch him, especially the ways I’ve had to use my own body to stretch his out to prevent injury after a workout.
Suddenly, this sweater dress feels like a bad idea.
I’m so hot I bring my hands, cold from my drink, to my cheeks.
“I tried to get out of it,” I admit. “I tried to switch places with someone else, but . . . I guess there are some questions about whether my loyalty lies with the team, or with Marco, and having me train Nate is a litmus test of some sort.”
“That’s such bullshit,” Sierra mutters.
“Having to work with him adds insult to injury after what he did to you,” Petra says as we see Lauren heading back to the table.
I nod, pissed off even though I understand that the point of our work is to build the best team possible, and Nate is one of the best. I’m even more pissed at myself for the way my traitorous body just reacted to the thoughts of Nate’s body.
He’s been here for less than a week and is already waking up long buried memories.
“What’d Josh say?” Sierra asks Lauren, and though I’m interested in her response, I’m scanning the crowd because I have that prickly feeling along my shoulders and neck that I only get when I’m being watched, and in the back of my mind, all I can think about is that Nate might have shown up here.
“My husband is incredibly distracted right now, and is a complete and utter fool. Jackson, I’m so sorry,” she says, reaching across the table and taking my hand.
My eyes snap back to her. “He literally didn’t put two and two together.
Like he didn’t realize that this Nate, the one replacing him on the team and the one he agreed to sublet our condo to, was your Nate. ”
“He’s not my Nate,” I insist, at the same time Petra asks, “Distracted about what?”
Lauren looks at Petra. “Oh, uh, just this whole process of building the house. It’s been ridiculous, all the freaking decisions.
And there were quite a few things not done how Josh wanted, so since we’ve moved in he’s been focused on working with the contractors to get everything right.
” She looks back at me. “But that doesn’t excuse this.
I never should have put Josh in charge of subletting the condo with everything he’s already doing at the house. Do you want me to evict Nate?”
I smile, a little laugh escaping as I take in all five feet five of Lauren and picture her trying to kick Nate out of his new digs.
“You know what, it doesn’t even matter,” I say, because I’ve finally accepted that I’m not going to get out of training him and still keep my job.
“We work together all day. It’s not like we’re going to be hanging out at home too.
” But in my mind, all I can think of was the way Nate’s eyes grazed over my body in the elevator earlier tonight.
It was a look I recognized, even as I’d tried to so hard over the past years to forget it.
This has the potential to be so, so dangerous.