I can feel myself blush. “Yes.”
“It’s a perfect match!” Keanna says. She turns to the other girls. “We should totally set them up.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No freaking way. Clay is a total asshole.”
“Aw, he’s not so bad,” Keanna says. “He can be sweet.”
“I dunno,” Jenn says. “He is kind of scary.”
Keanna shakes her head. “That’s because you haven’t known him long enough. He once bought me flowers. He’s super sweet once you get to know him.”
“He doesn’t want to get to know me,” I say, turning my attention to the jet on the inside of the pool. I pretend to be super fascinated with it. “I’m totally fine being single.”
“We can’t force them together,” Jenn says. “I mean, is he even your type?”
I can’t help but picture Clay. Tall, athletic, covered in tattoos. That square jaw and the intensity in his dark eyes. “Well… I mean… he’s hot,” I admit. The girls all freak out at this confession. I shake my head. “But that doesn’t matter. He is a jerk and he’s always so quiet and scary and I don’t like him.”
“Give it time,” Keanna says with a wink.
I don’t know when my heart started pounding but now I feel flushed and embarrassed and all kinds of awkward. “Please promise me you won’t say anything in front of the guys about this, okay? I don’t like him. He doesn’t like me. Let’s not make it into something it’s not.”
“Hi, ladies.”
I freeze.
We all turn around and see Clay himself, looking absolutely gorgeous in a pair of black swim shorts and nothing else. His body is lean and rippled, and the tattoos stop at the top of his arms, leaving his bare chest a blank canvas of muscles.
Keanna’s eyes go wide. “How much of that did you hear?”
Oh God. I’m so nervous my ears have started ringing.
Clay nods politely at us and then walks toward the pool stairs. “Clay?” Keanna says.
He turns around and pulls out one of his earbuds. “Did you say something?”
I swear, the four of us all breathe a collective sigh of relief.
“Nope!” Keanna says with a grin.
Clay puts his earbud back in and steps into the pool at the opposite end of us.
“Holy shit, that was close,” Keanna whispers.
Now that the moment is over, my heart has started beating again. I let out the tense breath in my lungs. “You’re telling me.”
Chapter 9
Before I know it, I’m once again walking into an airport terminal. The last couple of years I’ve been on Team Loco has been filled with traveling and airports and too-small plane seats with no leg room, but you never really get used to it. This two week schedule of training camp nonsense is particularly brutal. We don’t stay in any one place more than one night before moving on to the next one.
I was looking at the itinerary last night and I wonder if whoever scheduled this thing was high when they picked the dates. We’re doing all five training camps in nine days, and then we have a full week off before Christmas. If it were up to me, I’d have scheduled them once a week. Or not at all.
But it’s not up to me. I’m just “the talent” as Marcus likes to say. I hitch my backpack on my shoulder as I make my way through the small Alabama airport. This place smells like cleaning chemicals yet it looks just as dirty as the parking lot. I can’t help but yawn as I walk. I got no sleep last night and it’s taking all of my energy this morning to stop thinking about the things that kept me awake.
I find the terminal and drop my backpack off next to a sleeping Keanna. Zach and Aiden’s girlfriends must have gone home because they’re not with her. I don’t really pay attention though because I’m not trying to make eye contact with a certain girl.
I find Jett and Aiden getting breakfast at the McDonald’s and I join them, loading up my empty stomach with hash browns and two bacon, egg and cheese biscuits.
“You look weird,” Aiden says, his mouth full of food. He acts a lot different when he’s not trying to impress his girlfriend. He’s not as polite or refined.
