I walk her to her door, and because she doesn’t have a key, she has to ring her own doorbell.
A little over a minute later a guy answers. He rubs his hand over his cropped hair and squints into the sun. “Oh, hey…um…” His eyes dip to his waist where he’s sporting nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. “Sorry, I’m…” His bloodshot eyes take in Axelle from head to toe, and I almost pull her back to stand behind me, but luckily his gaze comes to me. “Who are you and where am I?”
Axelle giggles. “You must be the football player?”
“I’m the football player, yeah.”
“I’m Axelle.” She presses a palm against my chest. “This is Killian, and you’re at my apartment with my roommate, Mindy.”
His eyes light with recognition and he grins. “Oh, Mindy. Right. Shit, okay, yeah.” He steps back so we can enter. “My bad. Come on in.” He pats his hips where his pockets should be. “And my pants are…?”
Axelle grabs my hand and leads me through the living room, snagging her purse off the couch on our way to her room. “Don’t mind us. We’ll be in here and won’t bother you.” She closes the door behind us and whirls around to gape at me. “Oh my God, did you see him?”
“Hard not to. He was at the door damn near naked—”
“I know, right?” Her giggles mature into full-blown laughter. “We have to stay in here.”
“So what, now we’re being held hostage in your room until he leaves?”
“Well, duh! Yeah! This is a pivotal moment. How they handle this awkward morning-after will determine what happens from here on out.”
I tilt my head. “You’re serious.”
“Hell yeah, I’m serious. Think about it. This is the final taste, that last bite that makes you either A. want to go back for seconds or B. makes you want to move on to the next place.”
I can’t offer agreement. Obviously, I wouldn’t know. The fact that she does makes me grind my teeth.
Fuck. Play it cool, Killian.
I sigh and flop back onto Axelle’s twin bed, my feet hanging off the end. I remember the day we moved her in and Mindy asked why Ax got such a tiny bed. Blake had said, “It’s not tiny, Mindy; it’s built for one person.” He glared at Axelle, sending the very clear message that dudes were not welcome to warm her sheets. If he had any clue, he’d flip his shit.
She drops her purse on her bedside table and fishes out her phone. I watch her expression morph, her smile fall, and her brows pinch together as she clicks through what I assume to be text messages.
“Everything okay?”
Her gaze jerks to mine, and it’s as if she forgot I was even there. “Oh, yeah. It’s Clifford. Guess he must’ve been worried about me or something.”
“Ha!” Worried. Right. More like disappointed she wasn’t left alone and defenseless in his bed.
“You really don’t like him, do you?”
I stretch one arm up and prop my head on it. “No, that obvious?”
She laughs. “Yeah, it is.”
I shrug. What can I say? Just another dipshit in the lineup of total dicks that compose Axelle’s dating life. The good news is none of her relationships have ever been serious. I know she’s working hard to fill the void her dad—or dads—left behind, and as much as I want to confess that I’m in love with her, I know she’s not ready for it. I’ve got one shot at winning her, and jumping too soon will make me another one of her hole-fillers. Literally.
“Why are you blushing?”
Fuck. My face is burning up. “I’m not. It’s hot as hell in here.” Has nothing to do with thinking about filling your ho—
“I’ll turn on the fan.” She hits the switch on the wall, and then her fingers fly over the keys of her phone. She’s texting the prick back, and if I know Ax, she’s apologizing for doing nothing wrong.
God, I hate that guy.
The five-tone chime from Close Encounters of the Third Kind sounds from my pocket and I grab my phone. I don’t even care who’s calling, anything to take my mind off Axelle kissing Clifford’s ass via text message.
“Hello?”
“Killer, where the fuck are you?” I check the caller ID and see he’s not calling from his cell, but from his office.
I sit up at the demand in Cam’s voice. The guy has no conversational tone. He could be reading Shakespeare, and it would sound like he’s commanding an army. “Blake and Jonah told me to take a day off.”
My explanation is met with silence, which makes my palms sweat.
“Wait. What are you doing there? It’s Saturday.”
“Came in to talk to you, but your training partners seem to think they run this organization.” He mumbles something I can’t make out before dropping a pretty hefty f-bomb. “How fast can you get here?”
Cam says jump; I say how high and at what velocity. “Ten minutes.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Um…can you give me a heads up—?”
The line goes dead.
I tuck the phone back into my pocket, and Axelle’s still texting. Now her fingers are really moving, and a hint of anger pinches her usually smooth forehead.
“You think Mindy and Naked Heisman are done out there?”
She peers up at me and smiles. Fuck, she always manages to take my breath away. “No clue.”