I was getting close. I could tell just by looking at her. It had been a little over a week since our ‘talk’ in my apartment, and I’d gone out of my way to make her as crazy as possible. I stopped by her apartment every day with different excuses. There was the time I couldn’t find my phone and needed her to call it so I could track the ringtone—complete bullshit. Then I was out of milk. That one was true; however, I left out the fact that I had no intention of drinking it, and poured it right down the drain when I got back to my own apartment.

Fortunately I could use work more often than not as reason to see her, so my attempts at seduction weren’t becoming obvious. I made damn sure never to wear a shirt whenever she was around so I could watch her eyes heat as she stared at my naked chest like I was her favorite meal. Catching her with that hazy, lustful expression made me hard enough to pound nails every goddamn time.

I took every opportunity I could to touch her or get close enough for my breath to fan along her neck. I brushed against her, grabbed her hips, moved the hair from her shoulder or tucked it behind her ear, anything to get that skin-on-skin connection. And it was finally fucking working.

There was no chance of her hiding the way her chest stuttered with each broken breath whenever I was close, or how her pupils dilated and her cheeks flushed. Her arms and legs would break out in goose bumps, and she’d bite down on her bottom lip as if to suppress a moan every time my fingertips skated across her skin.

She wanted me. She craved to be fucked again. But that was just a start. I needed so much more than that. I needed all of her. The only time in my life I’d felt complete was when we were together, and I knew that feeling would never return until she was mine in every way.

The muscles in my arms began to tremble and strain as I lifted the bar over my head one last time.

“That’s enough, bro. Any more and you’ll drop this goddamn thing and crush your trachea.” Killian helped me lower the bar onto the rack with a loud clatter. “Jesus, man, what’s your deal today? You’re pushing yourself so hard you’re gonna break something.”

Heaving out a much-needed breath, I sat up on the weight bench and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Tate wasn’t the only one going a little crazy this past week. I’d only had two options to blow off steam these past several days: jerking off and working out. And if I jacked my dick one more time, I was afraid I’d chafe the damn thing. So working out it was.

“Just working off some stress,” I huffed, leaning forward and placing my forearms on my knees.

“And does this stress have anything to do with a certain sexy redhead giving you a killer case of blue balls?” he asked, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“For fuck’s sake. Can we be done now? I feel like I’m gonna hurl,” Mason whined, pulling the key from the treadmill to bring it to a stop. The gym in my building wasn’t all that big, but it had everything I needed to get in a good workout. And the bonus was that not many people used it, giving me the privacy I craved.

With Garrett on a short vacation slash honeymoon with Gwen and Liddy, the rest of us had been kind of out of sorts. Once he got back, we’d be able to get back to work, but until then we were pretty much bored out of our minds. That was the only reason I could think for why Kill and Mace had shown up at my apartment earlier this morning and decided to work out with me. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Killian or Garrett to hit the gym with me, but Mace would’ve rather volunteered for a vasectomy than exercise most days.

Killian rolled his eyes in the long wall of mirrors that extended out in front of us as he moved to the free weights. Picking up a set of dumbbells, he began curling. “That’s because your miserable ass is hungover,” he grunted. “A-fuckin’-gain.”

None of us knew what the hell was going on with him, or why he was trying so goddamn hard to drown himself in booze, but he only seemed to be getting worse since Will’s death. And we didn’t have the first clue how to help him.

“Will you just get off it already?” he grumbled before sucking back a bottle of water. “I’m fine. Just having a little bit of fun.”

“Yeah, well you better get your shit together before we leave for Europe,” I warned. “Last thing we need is for you to cause an international scandal in the middle of a fucking tour.”

He overhanded the empty bottle into the garbage can with more force than necessary as he snapped, “I said I was fine! Jesus Christ, get off my ass.”

“Then stop giving us shit to worry about,” Killian bit out.

Mace wiped the sweat from his brow with the small white towel he’d tucked into the waistband of his shorts, then tossed it into the laundry basket near the door. “I’m out. I’ll talk to you guys later.” Then he disappeared.

“Fuck me,” Kill mumbled once the glass door shut behind him. “I don’t know what his deal is, but he’s spiraling out of control.”

I sighed and stood from the bench, moving to join Killian at the free weights. “We’ll try and get this sorted once Garrett gets back in a few days. Maybe with Tate back we’ll be able to get him square.”

“Speaking of Tate being back….” He gave me a smirk that I wanted to punch off his smug face.

“Nope, not going there,” I grunted, starting on my bicep curls. “What’s happening between me and Tate is no one’s goddamn business.”

The humor instantly fled his expression at my comment. “You said the same fuckin’ thing ten years ago, and look what happened. She was our friend too, asshole. She was our family. You weren’t the only one who lost her back then. If you do something to screw this up, so help me—”

Slamming the weights back onto the rack, I turned and shot him a killing look. I wanted to rage, to plant my fist through his face for getting in my business, but another part of me knew he had a right to be concerned. Tate hadn’t just been mine back then, and she wasn’t only mine now. I might’ve had her in a way the rest of them never would, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t just as important to the other guys as she was to me.

“I’m not gonna screw this up, okay? I’m trying to fix it.”

“Yeah well, I just hope you know what you’re doin’,” he warned. “Same shit happens now that happened back then, I’m not sure the band’ll survive it.”

With those ominous words, he turned and started out of the gym, leaving me alone with my miserable thoughts.