After a bowl of cereal, Romeo followed me to my room and lay with me on the floor while I tossed a football over my head, wasting away the morning with nothing at all.
Slap.Slap.Slap. The rhythmic noise of the pigskin against my palm was comforting but not distracting. The entire week replayed in blots of gray moments with Jack being the only thing in color.
Romeo lifted his head, got to his feet and stretched, then padded out of my room, probably as tired of my mood as I was. I tossed the football a few more times, then let it drop and slipped my hands behind my head.
Was I jealous of Jack? Maybe that was why I couldn’t get him off my mind. He was pretty stacked for a soccer player, but so was I. It’d never been a competition like that, but if I had to guess, we were evenly matched physically.
He didn’t seem to care about popularity, and even though I was well-liked, I didn’t either. Being nice just made people like me, nothing wrong with that. Okay, so maybe I was a bit jealous people left him alone. Everywhere I went, someone had to say something to me. It’d never been a problem before I had some heavy shit I wanted to be left alone to think about.
Still, even if that were it, that didn’t explain why he hated my guts so badly, or why he got a rise out of me every fucking time, or why I couldn’t simply walk away and be the bigger person as I could with anyone else.
“Fuck.” I rubbed my eyes. “This is too deep.”
Eventually, I had to move, had to get shit done. I pocketed my to-do list, then chased Romeo around the house before I finally got him into my truck.
The dog groomer’s place was the front rooms of the woman’s house. She accepted Romeo’s leash with a smile and told me when to come back.
Next stop was the dry cleaners for Daddy’s suits. I pulled off the little two-lane road into the short strip mall and parked. The sun was bright overhead as I crossed the lot and ducked under an awning. Just before I reached the shopfront, the door ahead of me opened, and out walked none other than Jack Rutledge with an armload of hangers draped in paper and thin plastic.
“Can’t even get away from you on the weekends,” I growled. With anyone else, that’d have come off playful, but not him. My voice was too deep, too much bark, no matter if I wanted it that way or not.
Jack lowered his gaze to my feet and back up, nostrils flaring and eyes darkening. The heat in my cheeks changed, grew hotter and colder at the same time, and then he leveled me with that indifferent glare he was so good at. It had only been seconds, but he couldn’t hide that initial spark at seeing me. But this was what I hated most. This was where it got confusing.
Yeah, I got off on his reaction and loathed when he hid it from me. But why, dammit?Why?
“What? Did I ruin some new prank plans of yours? Going to sabotage my dry cleaning? You’re running out of good ideas, Winters,” he mocked as he lifted his arm higher. He probably meant to bring attention to the clothes or that I was too late for those stupid plans, but it only highlighted the toned arms in his sleeveless shirt. A soccer player shouldn’t have arms that defined.
He smirked at my silence, drawing my stunned gaze to his parted lips.
Shit. Where was my mind drifting off to?
I threw his smirk back in his face. I didn’t know what he thought he knew about me, but that didn’t change the fact that I got under his skin just as badly.
“Jesus, calm down, Jack.” I went for the blatantly sarcastic high road. “Did they not starch your ass how you like it?”
“Me and my ass are just fine, but I appreciate your concern.” He shoved my shoulder, but there wasn’t any force behind it. As if he realized he didn’t want to touch me a little too late, he only glanced his palm across my delt, then grimaced.
I grinned, loving any sort of emotion I could get from him. With his eyes boring into me, fuming more with every second, I skimmed over the area he touched with my fingers. “Ah, so youarein a good mood. I barely felt that.”
“Know about my moods, huh? Stalker,” he fired right back.
“Oh, no stalkin’ required. You’ve only got the one mood—‘asshole’—but it’s got range.”
“You’re a little too focused on my ass right now.”
“Where else should I focus? It’s that thing on top of your neck, right?”
“You’ve got me confused with Ty.” He shrugged, and fuck, the combination of his flowing muscles and the lazy blink of his dark lashes sort of fried my thoughts for a minute. I almost let a chuckle slip. A smile made it, but I snorted and played it off ascockyinstead. Hopefully.
The corner of his mouth ticked, for once breaking that infuriatingly even expression of his.
“I’ve never confused you with Ty.” The reply lacked all the animosity of my previous jabs. Or maybe it wasn’t meant to. The last few seconds made no sense at all, and I could only swallow hard when he stared. I opened my mouth as my brain tried to fill the thickening silence with some witty something that sounded more like me.
When nothing came, Jack rolled his eyes and walked away. “Fuck off, Cal,” he threw over his shoulder.
I slipped my eyelids closed and tried for a deep, calming breath to forget he’d just called me Cal, not Winters. Why did that hit differently? It was my name, after all, but I really couldn’t remember him ever saying it.
My name in his voice echoed between my ears, growing deeper and breathier each time. The fuck? I startled and blinked my eyes open just as Jack pulled out of a parking space in a Lexus I didn’t recognize.
