Page 41 of Chasing Clouds

“Liar. Trouble in paradise?” He grins at me and I shoot him a piss off look.

Jack got the full story of what happened at the wedding the morning after he met Camille. I knew there was no way he was going to let it go, so I filled him in on the way to the gym. He of course howled with laughter at the mental image of me stopping a wedding, but not once did he call me an idiot. Instead, he just smiled and kept his thoughts to himself.

“Things are fine.”

“Then why are you so antsy?”

“I don’t know. I just am.” Letting out a sigh, I dig around for my phone in my bag and start searching the Internet for photos of us from yesterday. I can’t find any, and that surprises me; usually paparazzi post things immediately. Instead, I type in Camille’s name and scroll through the images. I pause when one of her and her sister pops up. It’s older, and they are younger, maybe fifteen? I’ve never known identical twins before, and it’s uncanny how similar and how different they look at the same time. Looking at Clare, I find I’m resentful for Camille that the bulk of family responsibilities have fallen on her while her sister left to do her own thing. What kind of person does that?

“By the way, I plan on doing extra cardio today, so I hope you don’t mind sticking around a little longer.”

“Not at all. You go ahead and work out all that pent-up sexual frustration you have going on.” He smirks.

“That’s not it.”

“You sure? Because if I were living with a girl who looked like that . . .” He shakes his head.

“Dude.” My tone is laced with warning.

“What? I’m just saying.” He shrugs his shoulders and his smirk stretches to a full-blown smile.

Ignoring him, I resume looking through the photos. There are so many of her and Patrick, my jaw clenches and my teeth grind together. Extra cardio will be good for me; I really need to clear my head to figure out what my problem is, and I really need to burn off the extra calories from dinner last night.

Three hours turns into five. I rotated through the core areas of my workout: weight lifting for strength, full-body exercises for explosiveness, and treadmill blocks for speed and endurance. Sweat is dripping off every inch of me, and by the end, I’m physically depleted.

“You all right?” Bryan asks as he comes to stand in front of my treadmill. He wraps his towel around his neck as I hit pause three times and the belt slowly comes to a stop.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I grab my bottle and chug the remaining water down.

“You sure?”

That’s when I know I need to shake this mood off. It’s never a good sign when your quarterback wanders over to check on you.

“Yep. Camille and I went out to dinner last night and I fell off the diet. Needed some extra time today to take care of that.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me, and in return I rub my stomach and wink at him. Shaking his head, he walks away, and I drop my gaze to the ground.

All athletes know to leave it all at the door. It’s instilled in us as kids to the point that it becomes a habit; that way mistakes aren’t made, injuries don’t occur, and games aren’t lost. Today, I didn’t leave it at the door. Shit.

Feeling like I need some clarity, insight, or something, I break for the locker room. Throwing my towel down, I reach into my bag for my phone and hit Nate’s name.

“Bro,” he answers on the third ring.

“How’s it going?” I smile, already feeling better.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He chuckles.

“It’s going fine.” I sit down in the chair in front of my designated space.

“Fine . . . that’s it?”

“Well, yeah. What do you want me to say?” I prop my feet up on a shelf inside the built-in cubby.

“You have a beautiful girl living with you who happens to be your wife—things should be better than just fine, and I know for a fact this girl is awesome to hang out with.” There’s a slight tone to his voice, and it causes me to wince. Letting out a deep breath, I brush off the guilt and remind myself that if he’d wanted her bad enough, he would have gone after her.

“Okay, let me ask you: when you’ve spent time with Camille, how did she act?”

“What do you mean?” Street sounds from around him—sounds of home—echo through the phone.