When I don’t offer an explanation to Astrid’s question, Gage nods. “I was at the club.”
Her warm blue eyes flash with the most excitement I’ve seen from her in a long time. “Oh, really?”
The smirk he offers me makes me wish I were standing in the ring with him right now. I would wipe that right off his face before he even had a chance to get his guard up. “That’s where I learned about this place. From your bartender…”
“Oh, cool!” Atlas swipes away sweat from his face with his forearm. “I’m really glad you stopped by.”
“Don’t tell me you’re done?” Gage asks the question playfully. “You could push at least one more round.”
Atlas shakes his head. “Nah, but I have to save some for her.” He tilts his head toward me. “And trust me, she’s worse in the ring than you. A total hellcat.”
Gage’s lips twitch as he fights a grin. “I don’t doubt that for a second.”
Astrid laughs. “Did you know that on top of being a killer on the canvas, she also has a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu?”
What the hell is she doing?
The look she gives me tells me I should be thanking her for talking me up, but all I want is for her to shut her mouth and stop acting like she wants us to make a love connection.
Gage bites at the Velcro on his gloves and rips it off—one then the other. “Again, that doesn’t surprise me.”
It may not surprise him, but the fact that he’s here at all sure as hell surprises the fuck out of me. This man somehow got into what should have been an air-tight secure event and now just waltzed into the gym where Atlas trains and talked his way into the ring with him.
Who the fuck does that?
This man, apparently.
He definitely has an agenda that I can’t figure out.
I follow him from outside the ring as he walks around to the other side where his bag rests on one of the benches. Astrid leans in to talk to Atlas about something, and Gage climbs through the ropes and hops down, holding out his gloved hands to me.
“A little help?”
I scowl at him because he is perfectly capable of removing them himself now that he got the Velcro off.
They hang out in the air between us for a few seconds before he leans in. “They’re going to think you’re rude if you don’t help me.”
Casting a quick glance toward the twins, who are, in fact, scoping us out while they talk, I tug them free a little too forcefully. “You know there’s a word for what you’re doing, Gage.”
His brows rise innocently, but there’s absolutely nothing innocent about his grin. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Stalking.”
GAGE
“Stalking?”
My bark of laughter carries through the gym, and Atlas and his sister’s heads whip our direction, their attempt to sneak peeks at us while pretending not to be interested in our conversation completely blown.
Astrid gives me a little half-grin, then returns to talking to her brother while keeping an eye on us in her peripheral vision.
She definitely heard Bishop’s accusation and finds it as amusing as I do.
But the woman in front of me doesn’t find it funny in the least.
Bishop stands with her arms crossed over her chest doing her best to look intimidating—and knowing what she’s capable of, she should be—but it will take a lot more than that to scare me off.
Especially when I’m certain she feels whatever this is too.
