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Awesome! Thx

I smiled as I stared at the messages. I hadn’t struggled once. Apparently, not seeing people really helped my ability to talk to them. My gaze shifted to Chris, and I laughed.

He was sprawled on his back, starfished, snoring softly. The caffeine and sugar must have worn off.

He really was ridiculous, but the longer I stared at him, the more my chest warmed and the more I never wanted to look away.

Chapter Five

Christopher

I’d had to basically drag Jaxon out of bed; he didn’t do well in morning classes. I, of course, had already been up for hours, running around the pitch, practicing shooting, and then working out, all before my seven-thirty am class.

My muscles were burning and everything hurt. But no rest for the weary. Nope. I would do it all again tomorrow. Push. Push. Push. All until my ass was off the bench. It wouldn’t be easy. I was competing against monsters who were faster and stronger than the average human, and humans who were more skilled than I was. But I wouldn’t give up, even if it killed me.

Now Jaxon and I were parked outside of the auditorium classroom, with a massive coffee for me, and a moderate-sized coffee and a vegan werebear claw for him. As he ate the pastry in slow bites, I glared at him. I loved werebear claws, vegan or not. I wanted one so damn bad, but I was eating clean. I was working out hard. I was going to make it off the bench this year. Off the bench, I kept repeating in my head like a mantra.

I might not know where I would be in five years, and I blatantly refused to think about it, but I knew where I’d be this year: actually playing soccer.

People were slowly filing into the lecture hall. As this was a required General ED class, it was huge—one of the biggest classes in school. I had yet to see Aaron, but I wasn’t shocked. According to Witchipedia, ogres weren’t morning monsters, and I could confirm that. Of course, Witchipedia also said ogres craved human flesh—the younger the better—and that was completely false, so I took what the site said with a healthy grain of salt.

Finally, Aaron swept into view, and the second he did, Jaxon pressed against me, like he was trying to slide behind me and out of view. As big as Jaxon was, Aaron was even larger. His deep brown hair was done in three French braids hanging down his back and fully caught my attention.

From what little I knew, ogres had a lot of hair and it grew magically fast. They could cut it short and only a few days later, it would be long again. Most wore them in different braids, usually some Nordic or Celtic looking updo. But Jaxon never bothered, and I couldn’t help but think he would look hot with his hair braided back. However, he was hot already, so it probably didn’t matter.

“Hey,” Aaron called, smiling.

Jaxon pressed even more into me. I elbowed him, whispering, “The protein powder.”

He scrambled to open his backpack, nearly spilling his coffee, so I took it from him. Jaxon held out a green bag with his boring logo—just plain black with Ogre Protein on it. He really needed to revamp. I was going to convince him one of these days. Or just do it for him. It would depend entirely on my mood.

“Here,” he muttered to Aaron, and I nearly shouted in victory. After a single day, Jaxon was talking; I was a miracle worker.

“Awesome! Thanks, man.” Aaron shoved it into his bag. “See you in there.”

As soon as the door closed, I threw my arms around Jaxon and squeezed him as tight as possible. “You did so good, big guy.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, his large hand pressing against the small of my back.

I looked up at his face, and my eyebrows drew together. He was looking anywhere but me, and I swore his cheeks had lightened, like he was starting to blush. What was going on? He couldn’t be embarrassed that I was hugging him, right? I did that and more all the time. It had to have been Aaron. Just leftover attraction and all that. I pushed the thought of Jaxon having any sort of reaction to me hugging him out of my mind, though my pulse picked up and a worm of awareness wiggled in my heart.

Mentally, I squished that big, juicy worm with a rock. Not today, Satan.

Jaxon couldn’t be attracted to me. We were friends—best friends. It wasn’t possible. Besides, he was into Aaron. Yep. All sorted. No worm. No nothing. All good.

“Come on,” I said and pulled away from him, fighting the urge to clap his arm or tug him along with me. Maybe he just didn’t want me touching him in public anymore. “We need to get seats next to Aaron.”

“Yep,” he whispered, still not looking at me.

Tension pulled taut between us, and I wasn’t even sure why. We both refused to look at each other as we headed into class. My eyes swept the full room, searching for Aaron among the moving masses and the copious number of seats.

There!

Finally, I saw him near the middle of the class, but he was positively surrounded by people. There was no way we were going to be able to muscle our way through the crowd of adoring fans, let alone claim a seat beside him. I studied those standing closest to him to see if I knew anyone well enough to ask them to move.

Shianne in her shifted troll shape was right next to Aaron. I knew her okay, but not well enough to ask her to move, especially as she was making heart eyes at Aaron. On his other side was a werewolf I didn’t know more than by sight, but he was also gazing fondly at Aaron.

Shit.