And love didn’t mean you went and allowed another guy to kiss you, or worse, kissed him back.
Groaning, I slammed my hand into the pillow next to me, then fluffed it up again, only to be paralyzed by the onslaught of lavender and vanilla all over again.
“Damn it.” I shoved away from the bed and glanced at my nightstand. It was six in the morning, a better time than any to go work out, especially since I knew that David would be long gone from the gym by the time I got there. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to keep myself from kicking his ass if I got the chance. At the very least, I might offer to spot him on the bench only to let all the weight fall onto his chest—or his neck.
Good to know I was contemplating murder.
A vision of his arms wrapping around Blake made me clench my fists tightly at my sides. Right. It would be worth it, just to see the dumbass helpless look on the bastard’s face.
“Two more,” David’s friend DJ said, his fingers lightly touching the bar as David made a loud, giantlike moan and thrust the weight up. “One more!”
David’s legs nearly came off the ground.
Was the entire basketball team that inept at proper lifting? Or just David? It looked like he was using every cell in his body to try to will the bar back up. It would seriously make my day if the bastard let out a fart and someone just happened to tweet it. Oh, the hashtags I could come up with. I was already irritated that David had gone off-schedule and was working out during my time, but whatever.
I returned to my push-ups and heard more yelling from David’s general direction.
“Good burn, good burn,” DJ said. I heard backslapping, and probably ass-slapping. I didn’t miss that part of organized sports—the culture, the way weight lifting and training ended up almost being a religion. It wasn’t healthy, and it was one of the things that made me thankful that I was on a different path, even though it wasn’t the one I would have originally chosen for myself.
I had finished my last push-up and collapsed onto the mat, evening my breathing, waiting for my heart rate to come down, when a pair of flip-flops stepped directly in my line of vision.
Black-and-white 1992 Adidas flip-flops in a size nine.
Slowly, I raised my head, then pushed myself to a sitting position on the mat. “Yes?” I kept my voice curt, irritated. That wasn’t hard to pull off, since I was exhausted from my workout and extremely pissed off. Love or no love, she’d still kissed another guy.
Cheating was cheating.
Period.
Blake’s wavy hair was pulled into a low ponytail, and she was sporting black-rimmed glasses. I’d had no clue she even wore glasses. A generous amount of midriff was showing, compliments of her low basketball shorts and her very high and tight pink sports bra.
I could only imagine how many guys in that exact moment started stacking on the weights in hopes of impressing her, not realizing she wasn’t the type to be impressed by that. I should know.
Athletes saw through shit like that, especially when you couldn’t even pull the damn bar off the rack.
“Blake,” David yelled across the gym.
I clenched my teeth and tried to keep myself from seriously losing my shit. Why the hell was she here?
“Listen.” Blake ignored David and leaned down, her voice low. “I need to talk to you alone.”
“Didn’t you get my e-mail?” I stood abruptly and toweled off my neck. “We’re done.”
“No, we aren’t.” Her lower lip trembled as she placed a hand on my forearm. “Ian, I love you. I’m sorry about the kiss. I can explain. It wasn’t about you. I was confused.”
“No shit,” I said with a hollow laugh. “Look, you did us both a favor.”
“Oh?” It was her turn to look pissed as she jerked her hand away and crossed her arms, pressing her tits high enough to give any dude looking our direction sexual fantasies for hours.
“Yeah.” I quickly tugged her arms down and pinned them at her sides. Better. “Our projected success rate . . . it wasn’t good. So unless you want to take a fifty-fifty chance”—I shrugged and nodded toward an approaching David—“you should go for the one you’ve wanted all along.”
Damn, how had I never noticed how stupid his walk was? Straight lines, amigo, straight lines.
Blake’s eyes narrowed. “All of that’s changed. You know that.”
“It’s the sex,” I explained. “A chemical reaction occurs that bonds you to a person emotionally when you have sex. Give it a few days before it’ll wear off. So will I.”
“Ian,” she said again, this time with more desperation. “I’m telling you I love you, and you’re pushing me away. Don’t you care about me at all? Maybe even a tiny bit?”
Yes. I cared too much. And in that moment, regardless of what she said, regardless of how she felt about me, I knew I was going to have to make the choice for her.