Drew catchesme outside the training room a few days later.
Because apparently being six-foot-four and built like an oil rig gives a man the confidence to ignore every social cue God ever invented.
He’s leaning against the wall with his wrists taped, one ankle crossed over the other, sleeveless hoodie hacked off at the shoulders like he got in a fight with fabric and won.
He straightens the second he sees me.
I keep walking.
He pushes off the wall.
I walk faster.
He falls into step beside me anyway.
“You mad at me?”
I cut him a look.
“You almost started a fight in the training room.”
“Almost.”
“That is not the word you should be emphasizing.”
He runs a hand over the back of his neck, jaw tight, less smug than usual. Interesting.
“Okay,” he says. “Fair.”
I stop so abruptly he has to check himself not to walk past me.
We’re in that ugly little side hallway between treatment and strength, all cinder block and fluorescent light and institutional gloom. It smells like athletic tape and bleach and old adrenaline.
I turn to face him fully.
“You do not get to interfere in my life because I tuned you down.”
His eyes stay on mine.
No grin.
No football-boy charm.
No fake Texas accent.
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
He exhales once, hard through his nose.
“Because I’m not wrong.”
Up close, his eyes have specks of blue-green I’d never noticed before… tiny flecks—the same hue the water turns at my favorite beach when the sun hits just right.
“That is a truly unbelievable quality in a man who has spent less than five total minutes in my good graces.” I retort pretending I wasn’t just lost in his eyes for split seconds.
His mouth almost twitches.
