Nothing is ever going to be the same, is it?
Kyler hurried through his final repetition of bicep curls and replaced the weight on the rack. The tiny but functional gym was lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and every few seconds, a camera phone flash would go off, reflecting back at him. He pretended not to see them, but each one smarted. Home represented a place he could relax. Let his guard down. A place where no one would demand perfection from him. Maybe it couldn’t be that way anymore.
He loved the people of Bloomfield. The saying “It takes a village to raise a child” applied directly to his home town. Growing up, he’d been lectured by the local florist about the importance of proper apologies. Been told to tuck in his shirt by every senior in town at least twice. And he’d gone along with the owners of Nelson’s Diner to feed the less fortunate every year during the holidays. His greatest life lessons were wrapped up in this place.
But with camera flashes going off and people waiting outside for signatures, he suddenly felt like a stranger to everyone. Even…himself.
Lord, who was Kyler Tate anymore? Who would he be in Los Angeles? Would he be able to hold on to himself, his core, if coming home only fed him more of the same lack of reality?
Who was he kidding? The cameras might have bothered him once upon a time, but he’d grown accustomed to them. This was about Bree. Who would Bree become if he took her out of this place? Dance floors and halftime surprises were one thing, but if he loved Bree, would he be so intent on taking her to Los Angeles, knowing it could make her unhappy?
“Ky.”
He lifted his head and saw Bree in the mirror behind him. On cue, his gut cinched inward, heat rippling outward from his belly. No other woman had ever elicited the smallest percentage of his body’s reaction to Bree. Not ever. No one ever would, either, because his heart was connected to every part of him. His heart knew what it wanted and it wouldn’t waver.
So he would give Bree a happy life. One way or another. How he would do so remained to be seen. He’d come to Bloomfield to convince her that the attention and notoriety wouldn’t be so bad. That as long as they were together, the cameras would be irrelevant. At this very moment, he should be making light of their presence, hoping she would follow suit. Instead, he stood there and stared back at her, trying to telegraph every damning thought in his head.
I’m miserable. I hate the cameras because you hate them.
Here was the truth. Hiding from someone you love wasn’t an option because all you really wanted was them to come find you.
Bree’s eyes were soft, her head tilted. Kyler remembered that look from many an occasion. Sympathy shot through with steel. An expression singular to Bree and one an athlete like himself needed to be on the receiving end of frequently. It said “I understand, this sucks, but don’t even think about wimping out on me.”
He wasn’t quite ready to put his game face back on, so he looked away. “You here for a workout?”
“It would seem so,” Bree murmured, flashes going off behind her. “Hard to concentrate with all that ruckus going on outside, I bet.”
“It’s fine.” Kyler turned, watching her chew that sweet lower lip. “I can go if you want some privacy.”
“Since when do you care about that?”
She meant it as a joke, but the gravity of it wrapped around him like a giant squid. His mouth tried to issue a rejoinder, same as always, but it got stuck. Since when, indeed? Countless times since middle school, he’d dragged her into center stage, against her will. Now he was back trying to do it again.
“I…” Regret shone in Bree’s eyes as she shifted. Kyler immediately surged forward to reassure her, but she danced out of his reach. “I have a better idea than you leaving. You see, Heidi knows how to sit and look pretty—”
“I heard that!”
Bree winced at her friend’s distant shout but didn’t halt her progress toward the windows. “She means well, that sweet baby angel Heidi, but if she’d only known about these…” Bree tugged on a cord and a blackout shade dropped down, covering one of the windows. “You might have been more comfortable.”
One by one, his insanely beautiful ex-girlfriend lowered shades in front of each window, ducking her head to avoid the disappointed frowns from onlookers. Soon enough, the two of them were cocooned inside the tiny room, with only a bench press between them. The low beat of rap music matched the pulse drumming in his wrists, his neck. “Thank you.”
“Welcome.” For the first time since arriving, her gaze skittered down to his bare chest and Kyler watched closely, noticing her fingers curled into her palms. Her lips rolled inward. One of her shoulders twitched, like she wanted to shrug off whatever she was feeling, but her body wouldn’t quite allow it. Her tells all played out in a matter of two seconds and Kyler wished he could rewatch it over and over for the rest of his life. Hiding their attraction to one another had always been impossible. “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” she said finally, her voice throatier than before.
Suspicion had Kyler narrowing his eyes. “If you came down here for a workout, you’re sure as hell not dressed for it.”
“I work out in leggings all the time.”
“You’re wearing your doctor coat.”
“I…” She cleared her throat. “Have a tank top underneath.”
Kyler crossed his arms and waited, laughing under his breath as vexation flashed in her eyes. Bree’s hesitation was brief, before she unbuttoned the white coat and shrugged it off her shoulders. What she revealed had Kyler’s cock waking up with a vengeance, straining against the front of his shorts. “That’s not a tank top.”
“Sports bra, tank top. Same difference.” Her hands fluttered in front of the expanse of bare stomach between the white bra and the waistband of her leggings, as if wanting to cover herself. “I was running late this morning.”
Drawn to his counterpart by a force stronger than himself, Kyler skirted past the bench press and stopped in front of Bree. Taking a long inhale of her crisp morning dew scent and inwardly groaning at the effect it had, he slipped a finger beneath the strap of her bra, dragging the digit over the curve of her shoulder and down the slope of Bree’s back. And he circled her, watching the rise of goosebumps appear on her neck. Her back and arms. When she shivered, her head dropping forward, there was nothing Kyler could do to resist the temptation of her nape. His mouth hovered over it, breathing, but she turned and evaded before he could taste her.
Foggy brown eyes raked him. “Kyler—”
“What really brought you down here?” His tone was so low, the music nearly swallowed up his question. “I know when you’re telling lies, Bree Caroline.”
Her chin firmed but her eyes danced away. Goddamn. He loved her like this. Guilty and indignant. It signaled that he’d won a battle, she wasn’t happy about it and would compete twice as hard next time. That fire in her stoked his own like nothing else could. Not even football.
“Karen Hawthorne was out fixing her mascara in the rearview.” Bree crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Aren’t you the one who said we should be friends? Yes, yes, you did. And I was just looking out for my friend.” She sniffed. “She’s a viper, that one. Tried to steal Heidi’s man right out from under her nose.”
Kyler had nineteen female cousins and they’d haunted his house while growing up, so he considered himself pretty adept at deciphering girl code. Clearly he’d overestimated himself. “What does mascara have to do with anything?”
She shook her head at Kyler like he was a simpleton. “It means she was fixing to ask you out.”
“And you didn’t like that idea.” Satisfaction simmered in his gut. “Gotta say, I’m beginning to warm to this conversation.”
“Well, cool off. I was just being friendly.”
“I could eat you up in one bite in that outfit, supergirl.”
Kyler dropped his gaze just in time to watch her stomach hollow, leaving a tiny gap between her smooth belly and the waistband of her leggings. His attention dragged higher and was rewarded with the hardening of her nipples, the anxious wetting of her lips. The girl needed a good, hard ride as bad as he did. Unfortunately, she would die before admitting it, which meant a lot of finesse was required.
“Y’all, I’m going to—” Heidi popped her head around the corner, turning into the cat who caught the canary when she glimpsed Bree’s attire. “I’m going to run out for an iced coffee, so I should be gone about twenty minutes. I’ll be locking the door behind me, should that information be of any interest to you.”
“It’s not,” Bree called.
“Thank you, Heidi,” Kyler said at the same time.
Neither one of them moved as the lock clicked in the distance.