Gayle turned toward Mac. “You read— What the hell is the matter with you?”
Since he could actually feel the scowl on his face, God only knew what it looked like. He sure wasn’t going to express the immense aversion he had for Milton on first sight—nor was he going to examine it. “So this is a mud race. You kind of left out that little piece of information.”
“Did I forget to mention it? Oops.”
“Since this is one of my favorite shirts, looks like I’ll be running without it.”
“Trust me, handsome, I won’t mind.”
Warmth spread across his chest, easing the aggravation. It was the first time she’d used her nickname for him since things had gone awkward yesterday…and she hadn’t called Milton by anything other than his name.
“I still would’ve come, you know,” he said. “I was thinking about doing the one in Atlanta this year.” Though that race was definitely more serious, since it was one of the most grueling mud races anywhere. Costumes were not encouraged. The one today was just a good-time race, which fit Gayle.
“You can line dance, and now you’re willing to wallow in mud. You can be such a stick in the mud, I just wasn’t sure how you’d react.” To soften the insult, she stuck out her tongue. “Take pride, handsome. You’ve surprised me. Twice. That doesn’t happen often.”
She started walking toward the tents and he fell into step beside her. “How often do you do these?”
“Whenever one is within driving distance. Rick is usually my mud buddy, but he bailed on me.”
“Rick?” How many men did this woman hang out with?
“He’s a co-worker.”
“You’re a meteorologist, right?”
“Yep.” As she came to a stop at a table under one of the tents, she dropped her backpack off her shoulder and handed it to the person behind the check-in desk. “If you’re taking your shirt off, you’re going to want to do it now.”
She leaned a hip against the table…waiting expectantly. A rush of heat ran over him. Yeah, he was planning to do this shirtless, but he hadn’t planned on doing a strip show right in front of Gayle.
“Come on, handsome. Take it off.”
Groaning, he yanked the shirt over his head, wadded it up, and stuffed it into the backpack that sat by his feet, then straightened.
“Holy. Shit.”
He glanced at Gayle, who was making it no secret she was gawking, or that she liked what she saw as her gaze slowly appraised every inch of his exposed torso. A part of him wanted to puff out, let her get a really good view, but he was enjoying having her eyes on him a little too much. Instead, he reached down, lifted his backpack, and turned to check it in. The woman behind the table had apparently been in the process of scribbling down something, because now she was bent over a yellow notepad with a pencil still pressed to the paper, frozen…and was openly staring, as well. He glanced around. A lot of women were. Heat crept up his neck. It’d been a very long time since he’d been the object of such ogling—or at least been aware he was an object of it.
“My. My. My, handsome. Those abs”—Gayle finally dragged her eyes away from his chest to meet his eyes— “should never be covered up. You really are doing a disservice to women everywhere by doing so.”
Despite his embarrassment at the blatant attention, her over-the-top compliment pulled a chuckle out of him. As he handed the backpack to the check-in woman, who had finally stood up straight, a slight caress feathered across his ribcage on his left side. He flinched away.
“Trust,” she said. “That’s beautiful.”
His tattoo. Fuck.
Without a word, he hurried past Gayle and out of the tent into the sun. Hands on his hips, he inhaled deeply, disturbed by the way he could still feel the slight brush of her fingertips across the inked skin.
Ally had thrown the word trust around like it was a religion. Trust your decisions. Trust your instinct. Trust it will all work out. Trust, trust, trust. Hell, she even had him putting so much faith in that damn sentiment he’d permanently altered his body.
A load of horseshit was what trust was.
Trust was no damn different than hope—two worthless emotions the human psyche had come up with to try and banish the bad. All it took was finally seeing the truth. He’d seen it. He’d accepted. Nothing could be trusted. Hope was meaningless. No amount of trust or hope would make a lick of difference.
Gayle ran past him and slapped something to his chest, knocking him from his morose thoughts. Automatically his arms came up to grab whatever it was as he looked down. His running bib. Lifting his head, he watched her sprint into the group gathering at the starting line. No awkward moment. No explanations. No puzzling stares. Damn, the woman was amazing.
I’m very familiar with the look you get.
Her words from yesterday echoed back. Was it possible she had been close to someone who had gone through something traumatic? Was that how she knew when to back off?