His grin softened immediately, the cocky tilt easing into something warmer. “Better,” he said gently, like my laugh was the prize he’d been chasing all morning.
I shook my head, still smiling despite myself, guiding him through the stretch sequence, palms braced on his hips and shoulders. My insistence at professionalism was bordering on torture. His breath hitched every time I adjusted him, and mine wasn’t much steadier. It was its own kind of torment, touching him like he was mine and pretending he wasn’t. Now and then, I’d catch him staring at my lips.
When we finished, he sat up, towel slung around his neck, I could see something clawing its way out “Same time tomorrow?”
I tried my damnedest to keep it cool and distant. Instead, my voice came out needier than I meant. “Yes.”
He lingered, a little before grabbing his grey zip up hoodie. He started to put it on slowly, hesitating a little at the second arm.
“So… you still jet-lagged?”
“Completely,” I admitted before I could stop myself. “Woke up at three convinced it was morning.”
Damn it, he was disarming me.
“Same,” he said with a grin. “Watched three hours of late-night infomercials. Know a disturbing amount about vacuum sealers now.”
A reluctant smile tugged at my mouth. “Tragic.”
“You should’ve texted,” he said quietly. “Could’ve kept each other company—as friends, obviously.” His tone was light, but the look in his eyes was anything but.
I sighed. “You don’t give up, do you?”
He smiled then, completely boyish and hopeless.
And because I was weak, because that look was killing me, I gave him a small one back. Just enough to let him breathe.
“Guess I’ll see you later,” he murmured before leaving and closing the door behind him.
His presence lingered long after. The warmth of where he’d been, the electricity he always seemed to leave in the air; it lit something I didn’t want to name.
I pressed a hand to my chest, my heart pounding somewhere underneath it.
For fuck’s sake, Orla. How many times do you need to tell yourself to pull yourself together?
Chapter 22
Tyler
I was feelinggood this afternoon.
My leg rehab was going perfectly thanks to a certain someone. It was getting stronger by the day. I’d spent the afternoon in conditioning sessions—speed work, lifting, footwork drills—and for once, I was nailing absolutely everything.
I should’ve felt on top of the world. And I did, mostly, but there was still this hollow ache I couldn’t shake.
My mind kept circling back to my session with Orla that morning. The way she’d tried and failed to keep her guard up around me. The way her laugh slipped out even though she’d done everything in her power to smother it. After the way she’d shut the door in my face last night, I loved that I could pull that reaction out of her—I loved it more than I had any right to.
Even the way she wouldn’t look at me for longer than two seconds because she knew damn well what would happen if she did. She had no idea how far under my skin she was. Fucking stitched into me.
I stayed at the gym longer than I probably should’ve this evening. Told myself I needed the distraction. Really, I justneeded something to drown out the urge to knock on her door and kiss her again. I even toyed with asking her to grab a drink with me, but I chickened out at the last second. Mostly because I wasn’t sure I could handle another rejection from her so soon.
I’d been down there so long that I barely registered the woman hovering around the weight rack until she cornered me. Blonde, leggy, exactly the type I used to lose entire weekends with. She had on one of those matching pink gym sets that made women look like they were heading to a photo shoot rather than a gym. Normally it would have had my pulse racing like wildfire. She smiled, touched my arm, and said something about grabbing a drink later.
A few months ago I wouldn’t have thought twice. I’d have had her in my room before she even finished the sentence. Now, though? The thought actually made me wince. These days there was only one woman that existed in my world.
I stepped back, out of range of her expensive smelling perfume, muttering something about an early start. She looked surprised—hell, so was I—but the idea of taking anyone back to my room when Orla was sleeping ten steps away felt disgusting. Like betraying something that didn’t even exist yet, but already mattered.
That was my sign to head back upstairs.
