Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
I cock my eyebrow, throwing him a look. He’s fucking determined to piss me off.
That’s why he has a place in my grandfather’s heart and lives in his house—with me—rent-free. My grandpa thinks I need people around who piss me off once in a while.
“You’re her family,” he points out.
“Yeah, not her boyfriend.” I let the bar fly and stand up, grabbing my towel and wiping off the sweat. “I want my cousin to do exactly what she wants.”
She always did anyway. I’ve never held influence over her.
I grab some chalk powder, rub it between my hands, and leap up to the bar, pulling my chin over it again and again.
“She’s pretty,” Farrow says behind me. “Not really sexy, but—”
“I disagree,” Calvin pipes up. “Those tomboys are attractive as hell. When you got one underneath you, it’s like you’re discovering something completely new that’s just for you. Something you weren’t really seeing before.”
I grip the bar tightly, the memory of the blanket moving with her hand running through my head.
“Her hair stuck to her wet skin,” he coos. “The smoothness of every inch, that hot tongue…
I pull my chin up once, twice, three more times, my jaw hard.
“Everything goes soft,” he tells us.
I heard a little moan escape her this morning.
“And then you flip her over,” T.C. shouts. “Yank her up onto her knees, and show her what the hell she was really built for.”
A round of laughter goes off, and I release the bar, falling back to the floor. I jerk my head side to side, cracking my neck.
“Are we sure she’s a virgin?” Calvin asks.
I don’t know if he’s asking me, but T.C. replies instead. “I hope she is.”
“I hope she’s not,” Calvin retorts. “They’re easier to get into bed if they’ve done it before.”
I twist around, whipping my towel off the rack where I tossed it. Farrow watches me.
Constin passes by, taking a seat at the rower. “I don’t like things easy.”
I swipe my phone off the weight bench where I left it and head toward the treadmill. I leap up, starting to press buttons.
“She hangs around a lot of guys,” Calvin adds. “At that track, her dad’s shop… I mean, Noah Van der Berg lives in her fucking house, for Christ’s sake, and the girls love him. I bet they’d love to see him in a towel as much as she probably has.”
What the fuck? I turn my head, glaring at Calvin.
His face falls. “Sorry, Hunter.”
They get back to work, and I kick up the speed, starting to jog.
I can’t be thinking about this now. I can’t be worrying about the guys around her. We should be concentrating on the upcoming game.
She’s going to distract us, and I’ve waited for this. I’ve waited a year to meet my brother on the field and win. Our game against the Pirates is a week from Friday. That’s what we should be concentrating on.
I blink long and hard.
I just need her to go home.
My phone lights up, and I look down, seeing Kade’s name on the screen. My heart skips a beat, and I step off the belt, stopping the machine.
I avoid most calls from home. Simply because I don’t want to be reminded of how much I miss them. My parents, my uncles and aunts, my sister…
I lose nothing if I avoid this one, too, but yeah, this is what I waited for, isn’t it? It’s Rivalry Week.
I swipe and hold the cell to my ear, hearing silence for a few moments.
“You never answer,” he says finally.
“You never try very hard.”
“Shouldn’t you be in class?” he asks.
Amusement curls my lips. So that’s why he called now? Because he thought I wouldn’t be able to answer and then I’d have to call him back?
“Team workout first period,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Probably.”
I smile a little, despite myself. Kade always did whatever he wanted. I hated him for that.
But he never pretended to be sorry for it, either, and for that, I envied him.
“So, I had a fun idea,” he tells me.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I was thinking you should get a haircut.”
I stand there, listening. My hair isn’t long, but it was never coiffed like his. Maybe I would’ve liked to comb it as a kid. Style it, even. But once he started getting on my case when we were eleven if I didn’t look like an exact replica of him, I decided I’d never style it again. I comb it with my fingers.
“Get some decent friends, smile once in a while…” he taunts. “Borrow one of my T-shirts that smells like me... Maybe then she’ll look at you.”
I squeeze the phone, hearing him laugh under his breath.
Dylan doesn’t matter. She’s not a factor in what goes on between him and me. I should tell him that.
But he wants me to argue because it puts me on the defensive.