Chapter 17
Noah
Halston is a small-ish town, and I suspected that it was probably here due to the college campus. There were plenty of eateries and bars. Small shops and a general college vibe in the town itself.
I was in a booth in a bar, nursing a soda and a restless mind.
I’d taken my friend’s car to drive away from the college and think. I could have done that in the pub on campus.
I wondered if he would need the car. Would he notice it was gone? What if he had an alert or something? I sniffed. Well, I could see the car from where I’d parked it, and so far it was cop free.
Still . . .
Me: I borrowed your car
There was no sign he’d read it, so I set the phone down and thought about grabbing another soda or a bucket of wings. The whole bar smelled like grilled chicken wings, and even though I had eaten earlier, it made my mouth water.
I ordered from my table and skipped the second soda.
I’d stick to water. I wasn’t broke, but I liked to be careful with my money.
I’d worked too many crappy jobs over too many summers to make sure I had some savings, so I tended not to be careless with my money.
I’d need to work through the summer after the semester ended. But then again, that was just normal.
Why had I not declared for the Draft? It was a question that haunted me since all this shit began. Because I knew I needed one more year at a D1 school, I needed more tape before I declared.
I was doing a generic business degree that the program advised was a ‘good foundation’ for all athletes.
The server brought my bucket of wings and topped off my water glass.
The first bite was worth the splurge. Tangy, succulent, delicious. I grunted in appreciation.
“Good?”
I looked up as Briar slid into the seat opposite me.
It took a second for my brain to catch up.
“Yeah, they’re definitely addictive.” I dropped the bones and picked up another one. “I’d offer you one, but—”
“You’re hungry, and you don’t share food?” she asked, amused. When I said nothing, she smiled wider. “You’re so stereotypical male. You remind me of Mason sometimes.”
“And that’s a problem?” I asked, noticing how she watched me lick my thumb clean of BBQ sauce. “Tell me, do you watch your brother’s tongue the way you watch mine?”
Her face flushed red, and I felt a thrill of satisfaction as she dipped her head, hiding behind the curtain of hair. “You’re an ass, Matthews.”
“Yep.” I picked up another wing. “In all seriousness, do you want one?”
She looked up at me from beneath her lashes. “I do. But—”
I pushed the bucket toward her. “One. Maybe two,” I allowed.
Her eyes flashed with irritation. “So generous,” she murmured, reaching for the bucket, glaring at me when I pulled it out of reach.
“I am generous, I’m sharing. Don’t be ungrateful . . . or greedy”
Briar pulled her hand back, her eyes narrowing on mine. “Keep your wings. If you choke, I’m going to sit here and watch you die, and then I’ll finish the bucket myself.”
I let out a loud laugh, and she looked away as she smiled in turn.
“That is next-level brutal.” I wiped my mouth and pushed the bucket back slightly. “Offer still stands: one. Two if you’re nice.”
She already had one in her hand, and I watched in fascination as she sank her teeth into the fleshy part of the wing. “What constitutes nice?”
“Head.”
I don’t know why I said it, but it was worth it to watch her spit her chicken out as she coughed in surprise.
I reached for another wing, not hiding my amusement. “That was fucking priceless.”
Briar grabbed my water, tossed my straw aside, and gulped down half of it. When she had recovered, she defiantly reached for the bucket and took the whole thing over to her side of the table.
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“That might be three wings,” I mused.
“So one for politeness, two for head, and three for sex?” She took another drink of my water. “I don’t know if you’re generous or easy?”
“Definitely generous.”
She cleaned up her mess and then ate another wing, the gleam in her eyes challenging me to say something.
“So . . .” She wiped her hands on a napkin. “Why are you here?”
“Same reason as you are.”
She squinted. “Unlikely.”
“Why is it unlikely?”
“Well, I was here for my yoga class.” She looked me over. “Can’t see you fitting into the class.”
“Yogaist.”
“Not a word.”
I shrugged. “Don’t care.”
She was going to argue, so I tapped the bucket. “You get one more.”
Briar looked between me and the bucket. “It’s the last one.”
“I know.”
Our gazes held over the table. She reached for the bucket, then pulled her hand back.
“I can’t eat your last wing.”
“Suit yourself.” I reached in, took it, and ate it in three bites. I saw a look of outrage that she didn’t hide in time. “What? I offered it.”
“I didn’t think you were serious,” she scolded.
“See what thought did?” I used the wet wipe that came with the order. I don’t know why I used it. Those tiny squares are never enough to properly clean your hands.
“I need to wash my hands, they only ever give you one of these, what’s the point?”
Briar looked at her own hands, which had no trace of sauce or chicken. “Yeah, good idea.”
I leaned back and looked at her. “So did you just come over to eat my chicken?”
She looked away. “I don’t know why I’m here,” she admitted. “The chicken’s just a bonus.”
“Not my company?”
That earned me a flat stare. “I choked, and got robbed of a wing, so what do you think?”
I nodded solemnly. “The company was better, I hear you.”
Her huff of displeasure almost made me smile.
“Why are you here? Digby’s serves water and chicken wings.”
It was my turn to look away. “Yeah, I needed a change of scenery.” I looked at the street. “Where’s the yoga class?”
Briar leaned forward, pointing behind me. “It’s held in the gym just up there.”
“Gym?” I twisted in my seat to look behind me. I couldn’t see anything that screamed gym. “What’s the gym like?”
She blew out a breath. “I dunno, it’s a gym. It’s got weights and shit.”
I scanned her body quickly. At ‘work’ she wore baggy shirts or jumpers and loose-fitting pants; tonight she was wearing yoga pants, a form-fitting T-shirt, and a simple navy zip-up hoodie.
She was slender; her baggy shirts had been hiding any curves she may have been carrying.
Not that curves were bad — curves were very, very good.
“You look like you know your way around a gym.”
Briar looked down at herself and back up at me. “I know my way out of one, is what you mean. I’m there for the yoga class. The machines, weights, sweating, and grunting can stay in their lane.”
I finished my water, not offering her any, and knowing I probably should.
“That doesn’t exactly scream gym.”
“It’s on the upper level,” she explained. “It’s not one of those places with fancy machines and things, more like bench pressing and weight bags, that kind of thing. Mason used to go there to let off steam.” She flicked her hair away from her face. “Or something. That’s how I know about it.”
I turned to look over my shoulder again. “Weight bags?”
“My God, Noah, do you want me to take you there?” she snapped irritably.
“Actually, yeah, I do.” I slid to the end of the booth. “Let me wash my hands and pay. You good to wait?”
She looked like she was going to argue, but instead, she gave a sigh and then nodded. “Just make it quick.”
“Yep.”
I made it really quick, but she still wasn’t where I left her when I came out the washroom. I found her outside, leaning against a wall, texting on her phone.
“Thought you’d ditched me,” I told her gruffly as I approached.
“Happen to you a lot?” She didn’t look up from her phone, but I saw her smile.
“More than I should admit.”
That made her look up, a frown marring her forehead as she looked at me to see if I was lying, speculation in her eyes.
“You get ditched on dates?” Briar snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“We’re on a date?”
Her face flushed again, and I was beginning to enjoy her discomfort too much. “No, you know what I mean.”
“Nope. Pretty sure you said we were on a date.”
Briar jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “If that’s the caliber of your chat, I can see why you get ditched.”
“What? You wound me,” I mocked with my hand on my heart. “You got food, water, I paid, what more can you want?”
Briar was grinning. “A bucket to myself? Not sharing a water glass? Not choking on your chicken?”
My eyebrows rose. “Well, we haven’t got to that part yet, things don’t usually move that fast on the first date, but if you’re offering . . .”
“Shut up.”
I didn’t hide my smirk as we walked down the street.
“Stop laughing at me,” Briar grumbled, digging her elbow into my side.
“You make it really easy, though.” I nudged her back, and she scowled up at me.
“Ugh, why are all jocks dicks?”
“Nothing to do with being an athlete here, you tell anyone what you said, man or woman, they’re going to laugh.”
“You’re still a dick.”
“Life’s full of us.”
She muttered something under her breath that was too low for me to hear.
We stopped at a doorway. It was quite dark, and I looked around for any obvious sign of a gym.
Briar was unperturbed and opened the door, jogging lightly up the stairs, and I followed, trying very hard not to be the typical guy who watched her ass.
I heard the familiar sounds of a gym, and when she opened the door at the top of the stairs, I was hit with the smell of stale sweat, fresh sweat, an air freshener that was clearly not doing its job, and the sound of drum and bass playing lightly over the low hum of people.
My eyes widened as I looked around. There were treadmills, elliptical machines, weight benches, weight bags, and at the end of the room, several mats and beside them, a ring.
The gym ran the whole floor, and while it had people in it, it wasn’t crowded.
This was exactly what I needed. “This is awesome.”
Briar looked up at me. “Really?” She didn’t push. She pointed to the mats beside the ring. “Yoga class.”
I nodded, already moving toward the weight bag. I tested it with a simple jab.