With Every Heartbeat

“What the fuck is wrong with you today?” He nudged his elbow into Noel’s forearm.



“Hmm?” Noel ripped his gaze away from the baseball diamond not far from our practice field. “You know, if you guys won’t tell me which baseball player had that picture of Aspen on his phone, I can find out other ways.”



Ten groaned. “Jesus, man. Can’t you just let that drop? I told you we took care of it.”



Noel shot him a glare. “Would you be able to let something like that go? He was spreading around indecent pictures of my woman. Damn it.” He stopped running and ran his hands through his hair as he continued to stare daggers across the football field to where the baseball players were also having an afternoon practice. “It was one of those fuckers...right...over...there.”



Eyes hardening with intent, he began to stride that way when Ten caught his arm. “Whoa, man. We haven’t finished our laps yet.”



“Screw the laps. I need to kill that bastard. I need him dead. Right now.”



“No, you need to screw your fucking head on right. It won’t do your woman any good to expose yourself, which would, in effect, expose her. Now keep running.”



Noel gritted his teeth, shook his head as if to fight off his rage and then started running again. Ten and I fell into step on either side of him.



“I wonder if the fucker got the picture from Marci Bennett.” I knew Marci was the girl who’d taken the picture of Noel and Aspen together. She’d gotten Aspen fired...because she’d wanted Noel for herself. “What if she’s spreading them around to everyone? What if—”



“She’s not,” Ten assured him.



Noel and I glanced at him together. “How do you know?”



He snickered. “Because the picture on that phone was a fuzzy shot of what the Coach posted on the board in the locker room. And besides, I deleted all the pictures off Marci’s phone...when she was putting her clothes back on.”



My mouth fell open because that was the first I’d heard of this.



“You fucked her?” Noel exploded. “The bitch who ruined Aspen’s career? What the hell, man?”



“Hey, I needed a reason to get access to her phone. And I’ve learned they’re more willing to let you take naked pictures of them after you screw a dazed smile onto their face.” He shrugged. “Actually, the me-photographing-her-nude thing was her idea, but hey...she was handing me her phone, so who was I to say no?”



When both Noel and I continued to stare at him as if he was insane, he lifted his hands. “What? I did it for you, man.”



“You keep any of those naked pictures of her?” Noel finally asked.



Ten choked out an incredulous sound. “Really? You want to see her titties after what she did to your woman?”



“No, asswipe. I want to use them as leverage in case she had any more of me and Aspen that you didn’t get off her phone.”



“Oh. Well, I’m pretty sure I got them all. She was pissed as fuck when she realized what I did.” Ten shrugged. “And anyways, I’m already one step ahead of you. I forwarded the least flattering ones of her to myself and I’m already using them to keep her quiet.”



“Damn, man,” Noel murmured as we finished up our mile run. “Thank you.”



I was a little impressed that Ten had gone to so much work for Noel, too. He had his annoying moments, and a lot of them, but he could always be counted on in the friend department. Which made me feel kind of crappy.



I hadn’t done anything on that level to help Noel. In fact, now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure if I’d done anything for him at all.



The whole idea still had me bummed when I went to pick Cora up later that evening. It was my one night this week I had off work to be with her, and of course there was a frat party she wanted to attend. So I planned on having a miserable evening, watching her drink and dance with her friends while I listened to all the jocks around me brag about how amazing they were. I wouldn’t even have Ten there to keep me any company because he had to work, and Noel had stopped attending parties when he’d hooked up with Aspen and taken in his younger siblings. None of the other guys I worked with had ever done the frat-party thing. So yeah, I planned on being bored and abandoned most of the evening.



When I arrived at Cora’s apartment, I was already antsy and uncomfortable about spending an evening surrounded by...people. But then Zoey opened the door for me, and my anxiety level went through the roof.



She had her hair up in another perky ponytail, and she was wearing glasses. She looked freaking adorable in glasses.