Page 89 of One More Time

“Hey, baby, guess what?”

“What,” Tyler pouted, and I couldn’t help the smile. Even angry he was fucking adorable.

“Even professional chefs burn their hands sometimes. You juggled cooking while trying to recite the entire chapter on muscle composition.” Tyler huffed, and I caught it with my lips, kissing him hard enough to wipe that adorable frown away.

“Go sit down and relax for five, baby.”

“I have to take Jamie to his class then I have to write an essay for my sports psych class, and I need to practice my stick handling because I lost that pass from Mouse earlier when I shouldn’t have. And I want to re-watch the tape for Harvard’s game before we play them again.”

I leaned my head against his in exasperation. Did I mention the other reason we weren’t having sex was that my guy didn’t know when to stop? If he wasn’t studying, he would help his brother, carting him to and from practice. Then he was watching tapes or playing with a stick and puck. His need for perfection on every field made me realize that he had little time for anything else.

Though every time I got him alone and tried to talk to him about it, he would drop to his knees and suck the words right out of me. Before I could reciprocate, he would crash only for his alarm to wake us up at fuck-me-o’-clock to do it all over again.

“You need a break, Ty. You never stop—ever.”

“I can’t. The moment I drop the ball, everything will turn to shit, Hunter.”

I’d be lying if I said we hadn’t had this conversation before.

“You sit down and do your essay,” I commanded. He looked at me, posed for a fight. I could sense the words on the tip of his tongue. “This is not negotiable. James; you got your stuff together? I’ll take you to practice.”

“Yep! It’s only an hour's class, though. Tyler was going to stay and watch.”

Crap on a broomstick. “I’ll watch and record it for him. He needs to do his essay.” Jamie shrugged and hitched his bag over his shoulder.

I saw Tyler’s mind ticking, but I had him cornered. I kissed him quiet. “Essay. Now.”

“But—-“

I dropped my voice so Jamie didn’t hear. “The only but you get is from me, tonight. Let me help you, Aussie.”

“Ugh, fine.”

With a final kiss goodbye, I left his dorm room and took Jamie to practice.

I don’t know why it had taken me so long to ever watch his brother fight. The kid was good—real good. I could see the trainers thinking the same thing.

I gave him a broad smile when he stepped up to me after. “Dude, that was awesome.”

Jamie shrugged, which made me laugh because it was so much like Tyler. There was something about those boys that had them undermining how good they actually were.

“So, this is your dream—to be an MMA fighter?”

Another shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”

In the short time I’d known Jamie, I realized he wasn’t a man of many words. In his early teens—he was exactly that: a man trapped in a teenager’s body.

“You guess?” I shook my head. “You are so much like your brother. You just whooped that guy’s ass and he has to be at least five years older than you.”

Jamie chuckled. “He just had bad form. You see it in guys who have come from boxing to MMA. They can throw a punch like a boss but don’t have the technique from learning multiple disciplines. Give him a few years at the gym and Johnny will show him.”

It didn’t escape me that he was purposely avoiding answering the question.

“Jamie…”

That earned me a signature Riley eye roll. “I don’t know. I thought I would fight competitively for a while. Then I’d become a volunteer firefighter like Dad and help him run his gym. But we had to sell it. Mum couldn’t run it, Tyler didn’t know how and I was too young. So, one of the coaches bought it off us. I haven’t told Tyler any of this but it fell apart after it sold. I worked there, but Holden found another gym smaller, more professional kind-of how we once were, you know? I know if I told Ty this, he would stop everything to reclaim the gym and then give me my dream. It’s what he offered in the first place: to quit hockey and run the gym until I was ready.”

My eyes blew wide. Tyler giving up hockey? I couldn’t imagine him without it, though I knew he would have done it for someone he loved.

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