Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
I grin. “Can imagine it,” I nod, knowing plenty of the dancers from being granted access to his world. “You, giving Leo a back massage.”
“I’d rather cut off my hands.” He lies back on the bench. “He’d probably give me the saw.”
“Match made,” I tease.
“In hell.” He wraps his hands around the barbell, about to lift it, but the door opens. Our heads swing over to Joana Oliveira. She’s fitting in AirPods, but as soon as she sees Beckett, she moves slower to put them in her ears.
She’s my best friend’s sister. Twenty-one, like Luna. Jo has been crashing at SFO’s studio apartment where Oscar stays from time-to-time. It’s down the hall from the Cobalt brothers, so I’m not surprised she’s using the building’s gym.
Beckett lets go of the bar. Sitting up, he fixates on her face. “What the fuck happened to you?”
Jo has two black eyes. A nastier bruise blemishes the golden-brown skin of her cheek, and her lip is split. I’m less concerned than Beckett ‘cause I’ve seen her look worse.
“I got my ass handed to me,” she retorts, coming closer. “You want to watch it? It’s all over YouTube.” She’s a pro-boxer. Her bigger fights are televised. “Go get off on another girl knocking my lights out.”
“I’m not a sadist.” His voice isn’t biting.
She takes out her phone. “Must’ve mixed you up with Charlie.”
“Also not a sadist.” Beckett looks her over. “I wouldn’t take pleasure in watching a woman get punched in the face.”
She’s approaching me for some reason. “I would’ve thought that’d be the highlight of your year. Joana’s face meets the floor.”
“I’d enjoy throwing you on a bed more.”
It falters her stride.
“Or I’d push you against the wall—I think you’d like the wall,” Beckett says, his voice so sensual and smooth, if I were blindfolded I’d believe he was fucking her out in the open.
Jo has lost her bearings. Their eyes are locked.
My guy has a way with the ladies. Seen it time and time again. But this one is supposed to be off-limits. Oscar’s sister and all.
Still, I’d ship it. Mostly since I’ve been sensing how much he likes her.
Jo recovers fast. “Or maybe the only thing I’d enjoy,” she says slowly, “is my knee in your groin.”
“So you’re the sadist then.”
“No.”
“No?”
“How’s that mattress on your back? Still heavy?”
Beckett gives me a brief look like, see, she’s a borderline brat. Then says to her, “Why? You want to test it out.”
“That lumpy overused thing?”
I try not to laugh.
A smile pulls at his lips. “If that’s what you have to tell yourself.”
Ignoring him, she spins to me. Phone still cupped in her hand. “Do you know someone named Zale Dubicki?”
My brows catapult. “Tricky Dicky?”
Beckett makes a what the fuck face. “Who?”
“Tattoo artist from Old City.” From the first place I apprenticed. Same place where Scooter works. “What are you doing with Tricky Dicky?”
“Frog is setting me up with him. Technically the guy she’s talking to, Scooter or whoever, is setting me up with his friend. It’s a double date. She said you might know Zale, so I could pick your brain about him.”
Fuck.
I scrunch my brows, eyes tightened ‘cause I’m witnessing the start of a five-car pileup. “Your brother know about this?”
She glowers. “Do not involve Quinn or Oscar, please. You’re supposed to be the cool one.”
Oscar is gonna lose his shit and not in a funny ha-ha way. He thought Frog could benefit from getting to know another girl around her age, especially since she lost Luna, so he gave her Joana’s number. Well, now Frog has roped Jo into her Scoot situation.
I stand in a casual lunge and grip the racked barbell from behind the weight bench. Best thing I can do is have Jo trust me. “Been the cool one. Still the cool one,” I assure her.
Beckett rises off the bench and rotates to me. “What’s wrong with Tricky Dicky?”
Jo snaps, “Why does there have to be anything wrong with him?”
“With a name like Tricky Dicky?”
“You’re literally called the bad boy of ballet. I wouldn’t touch you with a fifty-foot pole.”
Oof.
He makes a face like her math isn’t mathing. “But Tricky Dicky is in reach?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “He’s probably great in bed.”
I cut in, “You okay with him being thirty-five?”
“Thirty-five?” Jo’s face falls. “No, he looks like…twenty-five, tops.” She shows me his photo. He has two tattoo sleeves, dark shaggy hair, and a septum piercing. He’s clean-shaven and thin, which makes him appear younger.
“He’s just skinny,” I tell her.
Joana reexamines the pic. “No way.”
“I’m telling you, he’s in his mid-thirties. He’s older than Scooter.”
I’m not gonna judge the age-gap. I have a decent-sized one with Luna, even more so if I count the years she’s mentally missing. Sometimes, I do feel it—just in the fact that I’ve already experienced things she’s currently grappling with, and that extends beyond sex.