Page 31 of Forever Defiant
I looked around quickly, checking to see that no one was nearby, and back up at Mike. “Mike, I need to confess something, and I don’t want to offend you.”
He grinned. “You know nothing about football,” he supplied with a conspirator’s whisper.
I bit my lip. “Who told you?”
“You have the same expression on your face as my sister does when I talk to her about stats.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “But that’s good, right?” he asked. “The article is something about the player, not the stats, so you don’t need to worry about not knowing everything. Right?”
He was giving me an out. I nudged him with my arm. “Yeah, but I think if I’m doing a feature about the ‘man behind the stats,’ I should probably know yours.”
He laughed and started writing in my notebook. He handed it to me moments later. “There. Now you can’t say you don’t know.”
We were back in the facility, and Mike led me into the largest gym I’d ever seen in my life. “Holy crap.” I looked around. “Is this for everyone in the athletic department?”
“Nah, this is just the football team’s.”
Jesus Christ. Players were scattered everywhere, and coaches or trainers were beside them, barking orders or monitoring them. It was all sobusy.Where did they find the energy?
“This way, Hadley.” I followed Mike into a smaller room full of metal, benches, and more metal.
It was half empty, and I breathed a sigh of relief. This was better than the practice field. That thought lasted five minutes before I had the grim realization that the weight room was worse.
So much worse.
Mike was doing his lifting workout, a trainer passing him regularly, shouting orders, which meant I was tucked against the wall out of the way, like a very determined shadow recording his reps... while Dustin benched directly across from us.
There was nowhere else to look. It wasn’t like he’d picked it on purpose. He had looked as pissed off as I felt that this was his only option.
His bar clanged against the rack; he sat up, sweaty, flushed, arms ridiculous in that unfair-genetic-lottery way that made my jaw clench. He wiped his face with his shirt. I looked away so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.
“You good over there?” he asked, smirking.
Of course he’d seen me ogling his abs.
“Shut up,” I snapped. “I’m working.”
“Sure.Working.Looked like you were overheating, Peterson.”
“I’mworking.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore him.
He lay back down and lifted the bar. I couldn’t ignore him. But I should. But those shoulders and those arms... Mike pretended he didn’t hear any of our bickering, bless him.
“Now it’s locker rooms, but you’re not allowed in there.” Mike looked embarrassed.
“I have no desire to walk in there,” I told him honestly. I needed out of this building, fresh air in my lungs, air that wasn’t packed with testosterone.
“So we done for the day?” I waved my hand in the air to the room. “With, you know, this.”
Mike half nodded. “Yeah, until four.”
What?“Four?”
“I have classes, then we’re back at four and stay until six, for film study and practice.”
I don’t think I kept the horror off my face. “You do itagain?”
