CHAPTER SIX
McKenna drops her clipboard at the same time my feet make contact with the floor, both of us drowning the sound of the other out.
“Where?” I ask Isaac. Anger boils up inside of me until I’m ready to pounce on him if he doesn’t give me an answer quickly. I’ll pull out his hairs one by one.
“I told you.” He leans back while I inch closer. “By the front desk.”
McKenna gasps.“The lobby? Is there a worse place to do something like that?” She turns on one of her long heels and heads to the direction she came from a moment ago.
“Wait. Hold up. I’m coming with you.”
She barely turns around and definitely doesn’t stop. “Well, hurry up. This could mean my job.” She sputters a bunch of swear words. The single phrase I pick up is a solid, “Fucking assholes.”
It’s a littlemelodramatic. Sure Knox is a complete asshole if he is signing someone’s boobs in the lobby, but a lot of athletes have done a lot of worse shit at sponsored events. As long as no one takes a picture and the media doesn’t find out, it won’t be the worst thing to happen here. Even for this two-week period. They’ve already had rooms broken into and a fist fight happen at the bottom of the hill.Those damn skiers again. The US committee puts aside money to buy photos off photographers before they submit them to papers. It’s one of those horribly held secrets everyone knows about but no one documents.
I’m wearing boots, but even in her tall heels, McKenna walks fast enough I have to hurry to keep up with her. “Knox is normally not one I have to worry about. He’s like your brother. Thetwo of them are great examples for the other guys. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened to make him think this is a good idea.”
I miss a step. I may have a small idea of what happened. Although, that’s not fair to me. Knox is the one who wasn’t in the room this morning. He is the one who snuck out this time, not me. Maybe this is his way of trying to show me how little I mean to him.
McKennacontinues her verbal tirade against Knox as we travel down the hallway connecting the viewing area to the front lobby. “If he thinks because he’s our best chance at a gold medal in the men’s snowboard cross that I won’t tear him a new one, he’s wrong. I’ve had it up to here with these guys.”
“I know,” I say because it sounds like she needs someone to agree with her.
“And another thing. He’sa senior member of the team. A co-captain! He’s supposed to be smarter than this.”
“I know.” I hope she doesn’t call them senior to their faces. No athlete wants to be reminded of their age and that they aren’t the youngest and fastest any longer.
A heavy steel door separates our hallway from the lobby, but it doesn’t slow McKenna down one bit. She barrels on through the door, slamming it openand giving us a grand entrance into the lobby.
Everyone stops. Even the workers behind the front desk. But especially the group of four girls, bottle bleached blondes with big boobs and tiny little waists, with a towering athlete in the middle of them.
The people in the lobby quickly go back to work, but four sets of eyes follow us as McKenna and I cross the distance.
Knox doesn’t even lookthe least bit concerned. In fact, his mouth curls into a tiny little smirk like he is enjoying himself. I’m not one for violence of any sort, but that man is lucky he still has an event to participate in or else he’d have to worry about me breaking an arm. Or leg. I’m not picky.
He pulls down one of the girls’ tank top — for his own health and safety stopping shy of the top of her bra — and thenhe removes a permanent marker he had hanging from his mouth and scribbles his signature across the top of her chest. Making sure to add a little extra flair on the swirl of the last letter in his name. My fists tighten into little balls. He doesn’t need a cheek to snowboard. He recaps the pen and smiles at the fan girl because he obviously has a death wish.
McKenna’s steps slow, which seems completelyodd to me because we’re finally almost there. Now is the time to pick them up and walk faster. If she and I worked together, we could definitely do some damage to Knox before security pulled us off him. But that’s not what she does it all. A few feet from Knox she stops, puts a smile on her face, and strolls over like there’s nothing important going on.
“Okay, ladies. Autograph time is over.We have to let our athletes get as much practice as they can.”
All the girls sigh, little tiny whines that sound like someone took their best toy away.
But they don’t know Knox isn’t their toy.
He’s mine.
I stop. My eyes search the space looking to see if anyone heard that. I’m pretty sure I said in my mind, but I’ve never felt such waves of jealousy before. I’ve never wanted to say the wordsout loud.
Knox is mine.
If there’s anybody’s boobs he should be touching. They are mine.
The anger and jealousy flares up inside and brings me to a halt next to McKenna where I’m unable to smile. Instead my mouth drops open as I process the feelings I’ve never wanted to process before.
“What’s wrong, Reagan? I’m just being me, right?”
My mouth falls further open and my face hardens. “Howcould you?”
I spin on the base of one of my boot heels and stomp back to the metal door McKenna and I came through.
“It got your attention, didn’t it?” Knox yells through the lobby causing me to jolt to a halt.
It doesn’t last long before my steps pick up again. It might’ve got my attention, but not the way he wanted it to.
“No, you’re not going anywhere. We have a lot to talk about.” McKenna’svoice travels the distance and is covered up when my hands make contact with the metal bar across the door we just left. The clanging sound drowns out whatever Knox says in return.
