“You couldn’t have thrown me a bone?” Jasper whines.
“You needs a bone?” Marcus asks, coming into the locker room with Graham.
“Maybe if Jasper got a different kind of bone, he wouldn’t be so grumpy,” Noah whispers.
Not all that quietly because we all hear him.
“I’m going to kick your ass.” Jasper punches him in the shoulder.
“That’s not my ass.” Noah grins back at him.
“Just you wait. When we’re done in here, it’s going to happen.”
“If you can catch me.” He winks at him before dodging out of Jasper’s reach.
“Can you two behave? I’m not at home. I don’t want to have to discipline you for behaving like children,” Marcus tells them. “Why can’t you be mature like Bode? Or Dax?”
I burst out laughing. “Who knew Bode and I would be the mature ones around here?”
Marcus takes one of the empty treadmills and starts his workout. “You’ve always been mature. Bode is a new development.”
“What can I say? Being a father does that to you.”
The dopey grin on his face tells us all he loves it. After discovering he had an eight-month-old son last year, he quit the playboy lifestyle and gave everything up for him. Even falling in love in the process.
That thought stings. All of the guys are starting to fall in love and find partners that are perfect for them.
Noah and Graham.
Marcus and Harper.
Bode and Stevie.
Hell, even Jasper is suspiciously happy.
When will it be my turn? At some point, I’m going to have to move on from Chloe and find someone to love. I don’t know if it will ever be the same, but I have to at least try.
Because she is adamant that she never wants to date another player. I could retire, but I don’t think that’s the point.
“You good?”
Bode elbows me in the side.
“What?” I look at him in the mirrored wall of the weight room. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“You were spacing out there for a minute.”
I smile at him. “What did I miss? Noah giving Jasper shit?”
“You’ve been relatively quiet this summer. What have you been up to?” Bode asks.
“Yeah. You hightail it out of your brother’s wedding and it’s like you’re ghosting us.”
Jasper snickers behind me.
“I didn’t ghost you guys. I texted you the next day,” I remind them.
“Only because we were bugging you,” Bode says.
