Chapter Ten
MILLER
“He’s literally been on his phone for the past half hour.” Sanchez nodded his head in Jax’s direction. “Dude, I know this sounds insane, but I think . . . I think Jax’s texting.”
“It’s definitely something of Armageddon proportions,” I agreed, finishing my set and leaping off the bench so that Sanchez could start his. “He stopped midlift.”
“Jax,” Sanchez grunted as he heaved the bar from the rack, “doesn’t stop for shit, you’ve seen the way he works out. Like he’s being chased by fucking flesh-eating zombies.”
“Two more.” I had my hands under the bar just in case. “We should probably steal his phone.”
“It’s like we share a brain when we bro lift, man, because I was just trying to figure out a way to crack his code.”
“Birthday.”
Sanchez finished lifting and grabbed a towel. “Shit, man, this is Jax. Do you really think he’d still keep that as his password? He’s not lazy like us.” We both glanced behind us to where Jax was standing a good ten feet away.
Jax set his phone down and then cracked a smile.
“Did he—” Sanchez smacked me with a towel. “Did he smile? At his phone? Did you see that?”
I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Jax Romonov was texting a chick, and by the looks of his face, a smoking hot one.
“Jax!” I called him over. “You’re up.”
“Oh.” He coughed into his hand, dropped his phone onto his gear lying on the ground, and slowly made his way over. “Sorry, I was just . . . um. Texting.”
“Who?” Sanchez’s mouth widened into a smirk.
Jax scowled and lay down on the bench while I spotted him. “How about none of your damn business?”
He lifted the bar off the bench and started pumping out his reps. When he got to the last one, Sanchez came over, grabbed the bar, and slowly pressed it down until it almost connected with Jax’s chest.
Jax groaned in an effort to shove it back up.
“The hell, man!” he roared, arms shaking. “You trying to kill me?”
“Depends.” Sanchez grinned. “Who you texting?”
“This is two-twenty, you jackass!” Jax hissed, his face turning red.
Sanchez whistled. “Wow, man, I wasn’t aware. That’s really heavy. Isn’t that heavy, Miller?”
I coughed out a laugh. “Sure is.”
“Just tell us who you’re texting and I’ll lift the bar off.”
“This is, this is . . .” Jax kicked his legs out, flailed, gave up, and glared. “I’m telling the defense to take you both out by any means necessary next week.”
Sanchez yawned.
I sighed. “Who is it?”
“What are you guys doing?” Kinsey screamed, running over to the weight section with Emerson on her heels. “Stop it! You could kill him! That’s at least two-twenty-five. You know his max is only fifty over that!”
“He’s fine.” Sanchez pushed down harder. “Plus Miller’s hands are right underneath it, the bar isn’t going anywhere until he confesses who he was texting.”
“What the fuck is this? Middle school?” Jax rolled his eyes.
“Texting?” Kins’s eyes lit up, and in seconds she was by my side. “You’re texting?”
“I text all the time!” Jax roared.
The guy was getting pretty worked up over a few text messages. I would bet my entire contract that he was texting a girl. I just wanted to know who.
Emerson grinned from her spot behind Kinsey. “Maybe we should just grab his phone and see?”
“Give it here.” Kins held out her hand.
“Kins,” Jax’s voice pleaded. “Don’t you dare.”
“You locked me in a closet during prom,” Kinsey said as Emerson slapped the phone in her hand. “I’ll dare any damn time I want.”
“I can’t believe this shit,” Jax mumbled.
“Seriously?” I eyed Kins. “Do you know everyone’s password?”
“It’s her gift.” Emerson sighed. “She cracked mine in seconds, I don’t know how she does it.”
“Annoying as hell!” Jax roared, fighting against Sanchez, who was still laughing his ass off.
Kins quickly hit the pass code and then gasped out, “No way!”
“What!” we all exclaimed, nearly forgetting about a struggling Jax, before he yelped.
Sanchez pulled the bar off him and set it in the rack, and then ran over to Kins. We huddled around like kids with nothing better to do than gossip while Jax swore like a sailor on the bench, alternating between yelling at us and throwing a towel against the floor.
“Harley.” Kins quickly hid the phone. “Wow, brother, I didn’t think you had it in you. I mean I gave her your number because she said she wanted to apologize, but this . . .” Her grin was bright, hopeful. God, she was beautiful when she smiled.
I put my feelings on lockdown.
It was one thing to lust after her, to want her. It was quite another thing to want more—to think more was possible after all the shit I’d been through last year. I was too fucked up to be anything except her friend, even though for the last twelve hours my actions and my words had been completely opposite of the promise I’d made.
I’d promised because her face damn near broke my heart.
But after last night, her confessions, the couch.
I was back to square one.
Wanting her naked and underneath me.
More than once.
More.
Just, wanting more.
Damn it.
“Guys!” Kins locked the phone and tossed it to a pissed-off Jax. “By this projection, I imagine Jax is going to get laid.”
Sanchez started a slow clap while Jax’s face flamed bright red.
Emerson and I exchanged a high five while Kins did a little shimmy, her ass pointed in my direction long enough for my mouth to go completely dry.
Em elbowed me in the ribs. “You gonna make it?”
“Shut up.”
She held her hands up in mock innocence and winked.
It was my turn to blush.
“It’s okay, you know,” she whispered while Sanchez and Kins continued their relentless teasing of Jax, including planning his outfit for their date tomorrow night.
I played dumb. “What is?”
“Liking her.”
“Wow, we really have reverted back to middle school, haven’t we?”
Em giggled. “Um, we nearly got a teacher fired in middle school.”
“God, Mrs. Perkins was the absolute worst!”
“Remember when she told us we were going to end up in prison?”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and gave her a side hug. “Who the hell says that to eleven-year-olds? You cried for two days and told me you wouldn’t survive in a place that didn’t let you express yourself creatively.”
She groaned, tucking her head against my chest. Man, I’d missed Em so much, but it was different, holding her was different, like a piece of my life had returned, but not in the same way. We didn’t fit like we used to, we belonged together, just not in the way I’d always envisioned.
“Admit it, I was a nerd that you took under your wing because I was the only girl in school who brought extra fruit snacks.”
“The Power Ranger kind. Sometimes I still crave the blue ones.”
“You sick man.”
“They’re two for five dollars at the grocery store on the corner right now. I can maybe supply you with a few if you do me a solid.”
She peered up at me with those pretty brown eyes. “I’m not stealing the Bucks mascot.”
“That was high school, and you totally kicked ass in that YouTube video when they caught you in the men’s restroom with your foot in the toilet. Horrible hiding spot but who am I to judge?”
“Shut it.” She shoved me. “What’s this favor?”
“Find out why she’s been getting dizzy.”
Em frowned. “She being Kins?”
“Yeah.” I gulped, my eyes finding Kins like she was the only person in the room. “She got dizzy like she was going to pass out. Thankfully I’d already made her a shake with extra electrolytes and shit, I just . . . something seems off.”
“And you know her well enough to tell that.” Emerson said it like a statement, and then pressed her hand against my forearm. “I’ll find out, but have you thought of asking her?”
“She’d lie . . . besides, we’re just, you know, taking things slow with this whole relationship, almost like friends but more . . .”
Em choked out a laugh. “Suurre. So no naked time yet?”
I slapped a hand over her mouth. “Say that around Jax, and you know he’ll find a reason to have me killed.”
She pulled my hand away. “Fine, I’ll ask.”
Jax’s phone went off.
We all turned our attention to him, grinning.
“You gonna answer that?” Sanchez crossed his bulky arms over his chest. “Or just let it go to voice mail?”
Jax flipped us all off and answered the phone as he jogged out of the room.
“This just in,” Sanchez announced. “I’m inviting myself to family dinner tomorrow night. No way am I missing the shit hitting the fan. Hell, this might be better than football, our little Jax growing up and getting naked with chicks.”
Kins winked at me then joined Emerson at the free weights while Sanchez and I finished our sets.
I tried to focus on preseason warm-ups.
On the fact that practice started next week.
But my eyes, treacherous bastards, kept finding Kins and locking gazes with her through the mirror.
I was in deep.