Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 95340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
I need to think.
I sink into steaming hot water, letting every muscle and all of my senses embrace the heat. It immediately soothes, seeping into my tired, exhausted muscles.
I let out a long-drawn-out sigh.
Tip my head back against the headrest and close my eyes.
The locker room is quiet now. The only sound the gentle hum of the motor water and the occasional splash of water from the jets.
But…
…despite the tranquil surroundings, my mind is anything but at ease. My roommate’s words echo in my head, his sage advice stirring a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that I can’t seem to shake regardless of the fact that I’m trying to relax and clear my head.
Lizzy.
The mere mention of her name sends a jolt of misery coursing through my veins, igniting a rush of emotions within me that I can’t ignore.
Guilt.
Longing.
Loyalty.
When Sully taunted me by suggesting I had to fend her off—as if she were a stage-five clinger—the rage I suddenly felt. The urge to leap to her defense.
That fucker said it on purpose to get a rise out of me, and it worked.
I'd known from the moment I met Lizzy that there was a spark between us, an undeniable something that crackled and fizzed with every conversation, every shared laugh, every stolen glance she threw my direction.
All new to me.
I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing, and it seems that everyone knows it.
This is why I shouldn’t be hanging out with her. I’m fucking it all up, and now she wants to know why we’re only fooling around, and I don’t have a good answer for her.
And despite the pull I feel toward her, I'd been hesitant to act on it, unsure of whether I was ready to take that leap of faith.
See? This is why I should have stayed on my own fucking porch.
And let her paint her room herself.
And not taken her for ice cream.
Or kissed her under that streetlight.
How the hell do you go back from that once the launch sequence has been activated?
“Fuck.”
I raise my head, wiping the drops of water from my brow.
Glance around the room and only see a few stranglers, the trainer in the training room working the muscles of one of my teammates—and lock eyes with Sully, who’s sitting across the way, on the seat opposite, watching me.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
“Dude. Piss off.”
He laughs. “No bueno, you can’t escape me.”
“Why are you such a goddamn pain in my ass?”
“Um. If I was a quitter, we wouldn’t be the top team in our division, would we, you motherfucker?”
No, we wouldn’t and how dare he bring up statistics.
“You’re welcome,” he adds, a shit-eating grin on his face.
I close my eyes, shutting him out again. Let myself drift back to the memories of Lizzy—the late-night conversations we had that night she crashed at our place, playing Strip Connect Four with her and quitting before we were both completely naked, falling asleep to the sound of the squirrel in her wall.
Her laugh.
Her pretty smile.
Her great tits and ass.
Ugh!
Shoot me now.
“You’re thinking about her right now, aren’t you?” Sully’s voice drifts to my side of the hot tub, interrupting my thoughts.
“Shut up.” Pause. “Stop talking.”
He chuckles.
His laughter echoes in the tiled chamber that is the cavernous space of the locker room, my stolen moments to be alone with my thoughts derailed.
But I settle in to having Sully here.
He’s ready to jump on a conversation when I open my eyes.
A smile crosses my mouth at the idea of him mother-henning me. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m grateful for the annoying shithead.
A true friend.
My body relaxes.
Shoulders slump.
Is this me letting my guard down?
Is this the walls I'd built beginning to crumble? Doubtful; but maybe whatever this feeling is inside my gut is all this uncertainty being replaced by vulnerability.
That cannot be good.
I’m too big and strong to be vulnerable.
Too hairy.
Too tall.
Ha ha.
Lizzy had a way of seeing straight through me, peeling back the layers of my carefully constructed facade to reveal the raw, unfiltered truth beneath. Translation: at some point, I might be able to tell her what’s eating away at me, this little secret I have that I haven’t told a single soul.
God, no.
Why the hell would I tell her I’m a virgin? Do I look like a freaking idiot?
On the other hand, for the first time in a long time, I find myself wanting to tell someone. Dumb, hey? Like what would I even say to her? Being a virgin is one of my greatest insecurities—having someone leave me because of it is a fear I cannot damper. But if you don’t get it, you don’t get it, and I have no idea what she’d say or how she’d react so you know what?
I’m not saying a word.
Water laps gently against my skin, the jets beating into my aching back; it aches less and less the longer I sit here.