He felt better the second he stepped into the building, and the familiar smell washed over him. This was his comfort zone, the one place he was in his element. Not even bothering to turn on all the lights, he changed his shoes, then grabbed his ball and dribbled up and down the court a couple of times, loosening up his muscles after days stuck inside the house. Feeling nice and limber, he started his own training routine, pleased when he started working up a sweat, some of the worry and anxiety melting away.
He'd stripped down to just his tee-shirt and a pair of shorts when he experienced the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching him and turned to find Maddie standing across the gym staring at him from the shadows. Her eyes were filled with what he could only describe as desire, which surprised him at first, then filled him with warmth and an answering need that took his breath away and woke the dragon sleeping inside him.
Cursing his reaction, he didn’t move, striving for control over the determined creature who was beginning to make its demands known by sending waves of desire cascading through him. His entire body began to tingle, need began to throb deep in his loins, and when Maddie started toward him, that look still in her eyes, his breath caught in his throat, and his hands began to itch with the need to touch her.
For a second, he thought she was going to march right up to him and kiss him, but she stopped a few feet from him, then let out a long sigh. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” she said, the desire fading from her eyes. “This isn’t good for either of us. Maybe we can call a truce, so we’ll just go back to ignoring each other.”
He was filled with disappointment and it took a few seconds for his body to catch up with the reality of what was happening.“Fine with me,” he finally managed to croak, hoping she didn’t know what he’d been thinking. “I don’t want to fight with you either.”
“Okay then, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing,” she said, then hesitated for a second. “For what it’s worth, you were right about Thomas, he’s kind of a creep. I don’t know what it is about him that makes me uncomfortable, but I won’t be seeing him anymore. I was hoping you could not rub it in or anything. I don’t want to make him feel any worse than he’s already going to feel.”
“You’re too nice,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But I’ll lay off him, he’s not worth it, anyway.”
“Thanks, Walker. I’m tired of all this drama. We’re too old to behave this way,” she said, smiling at him and making his heart do flip-flops. “Well, I should really be going, I’m supposed to be doing inventory, we missed it when the school was closed, and we’re out of just about everything in the training room.”
“I’ll be here for a while longer, just holler if you need any help,” he said. “I’m pretty good at moving boxes and stuff.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I think I can handle it,” Maddie said. “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.”
He watched her walk away, a new wave of disappointment washing over him. The warmth that had slowly settled over him, like a soft, fuzzy blanket, faded away, and he let out a long sigh. It was getting harder and harder to ignore what he felt when Maddie was around. He didn’t know how much longer he could fight what was happening inside him, and seeing the desire in her eyes just then only made it that much harder.
Shoving Maddie and her intoxicating green eyes to the back of his mind, he jumped back into his training routine, hoping the physical exertion would help clear his mind. Back in the shadows, though, there was someone else watching. When Thomas was sure that Maddie wasn’t coming back, he steppedout of the gym and started for the front door, full of his own disappointment. Things weren’t going the way he’d hoped; he wasn’t winning Maddie over like he’d planned, and she wasn’t falling for his lines like the other girls did. It was time to up the stakes, time to get serious and if someone got hurt in the process, he couldn’t be blamed.
***Maddie***
Maddie stood in the doorway of the training room, the pep band playing in the gym, the coach’s pre-game speech well underway in the locker room, and the crowd so worked up they were yelling and shouting with the cheerleaders. It was a little bit overwhelming, but she was beginning to feel some excitement for the game, especially now that the tension between her and Walker had eased to a distant dislike. They didn’t talk, they didn’t look at each other, they didn’t acknowledge the other one existed, and it was working just fine.
She still wasn’t ready to tell him about Justin, a long way from it, but at least they could be in the same room together and not start a war. Thomas, on the other hand, was still a thorn in her side; he wasn’t giving up on trying to get her to go out to dinner with him, and it was becoming a problem. She’d told him no for the tenth time just before the game, and he made a passive-aggressive comment under his breath that she’d get what she deserved, but denied saying it when she challenged him.
If it didn’t stop, she’d have no choice but to go to her supervisor and report him. She would hate to do it, but it was starting to feel like she was being harassed. With a sigh, she turned back to the training room, shaking her head at the mess she and Carol had left, wondering where to start cleaning up.Grabbing the garbage can, she started with the trash, figuring that once it was out of the way, the rest would be easier. However, it was clear as soon as she got started that the mess was worse than she thought.
Putting her hands on her hips, she looked around, surprised to see a pile of clothes in the back corner, the leftovers from someone’s dinner stashed on top of a cabinet, and a big puddle by the ice baths. With a big sigh, she decided that men were pigs and got back to work. Carol came in a few seconds later, her arms full of supplies, but froze in her tracks when she saw the mess, then started backing out of the room.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she said, pulling Carol back into the room. “I’m not cleaning this up all alone.”
Between the two of them it didn’t take that long to clean up the mess, but it was clear to them both that there had to be some new rules. “I’m not doing this again, there’s no reason for it,” Carol fumed as she mopped up the water. “One of them even changed their clothes in the corner and left them there. I don’t know about you, but I’m not picking them up.”
“Mop around them, we’re not their maids,” she said, shaking her head. “I want to be a physical therapist, not someone’s mother.”
The game had just started when they finally made it into the gym and took their places behind the bench with their equipment, but it didn’t take long for the excitement around them to soak into her, and she forgot about the mess. Only a few minutes later, she was jumping to her feet and cheering with the crowd, surprised by how much she was enjoying herself. The first half of the game flew by and before she knew it, Carol was elbowing her in the ribs and pointing to the hallway that led to the training room.
“It’s almost halftime,” she shouted over the noise. “We should head for the locker room soon so we can get set up.”
She looked over at the scoreboard, then back at the game. “There’s still a few minutes left and the score is tied,” she said, wincing when Walker was fouled and knocked to the floor. “Just let me watch these free throws, then we’ll go.”
“You don’t have me fooled for a second, you don’t care about the free throws, you just want to watch Walker,” Carol said, nudging her. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but who am I to stand in the way of true love?”
“It’s not love…” she tried to protest, but the look on Carol’s face stopped her. “That was all in the past, okay…he’s over me…I’m over him…”
“Right…” Carol said, shaking her head. “But no matter how many times you tell yourself that, it doesn’t make it true. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. I hope someday I find a man who looks at me the way Walker looks at you.”
She felt her cheeks turning red and looked away, too embarrassed to argue with Carol anymore, but her eyes instantly found Walker at the free-throw line. Her body filled with warmth and the zing of attraction made it hard to breathe for a second as she watched him lining up his shot. Unable to tear her eyes away, she couldn’t help but remember what it felt like to have his strong arms wrapped around her, and she would never forget the feel of his heart pounding under her hand or the glorious feeling of his fingers on her bare skin.
Her entire body began to tingle and a wave of warmth washed over her as the images flashed through her mind, memories of that one perfect night they’d shared together. Feeling her cheeks begin to burn again, she tried to stop her train of thought. Then out on the court, Walker froze just as he was about to shoot and looked over at her, his eyes full of confusion. When he saw her, the confusion turned to surprise, then pleasure, and another wave of warmth spread through her.
A second later, he broke eye contact, let the ball fly, and it went through the net with a swish. The crowd exploded into excited cheers, but she was too shaken to do anything except stand there, her body throbbing, her need surging through her. Sitting in front of her, Thomas scowled up at her, then glared at Walker out on the court, the anger radiating off him thick in the air. But she didn’t notice; all she saw was the man she still loved.
The gym was filled with noise, but it got even louder when Walker stole the ball from the other team when they threw it in after the free throws, and she began cheering right along with them. Dribbling up the side of the court he was about to pass right in front of her when she noticed Thomas slowly sliding forward in his seat and sticking his foot out into the court. It only took her a second to understand what he was going to do, and she started screaming at Walker, trying to warn him, but there was too much noise and commotion, and he couldn’t hear her.
