Page 46 of Hard to Fake

“You do,” Clay offers from the massage table.

“Yeah? You can tell that with your view of the carpet?” I toss because he’s face down.

Jay chuckles, the sounds ending with a tight exhale.

Never quite get used to the ice water.

The timer on my phone says I have another five minutes.

“I told this woman we’re done hanging out,” I say.

“Didn’t think you were that into anyone.”

“I wasn’t. She wanted something I can’t give her.”

“You’d be surprised what you can give when you find the right person.” Clay’s voice is muffled by the headrest.

We were stunned when he met Nova and decided someone mattered as much as basketball.

“We can’t all have your moody-broody thing sending out a signal to every girl in Colorado.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

Jay and I exchange a look. “You were begging for someone to see past the tattoos.”

A grunt is our only response.

I chuckle. “I’m not looking for a person who completes me. I have a lot of friends.”

Jay shifts in his tub. “It’s different when you meet a woman who makes it so you never look at anyone else.”

“You talking about…”

I almost say, “Chloe,” but trail off. The massage therapist has heard a ton of shit, but it’s better not to be talking about relationships with other people in the Kodiaks organization around, even though neither of them was with the club when they dated.

The idea of another person who sees you and laughs at your jokes and makes you smile, someone to take care of and go on adventures with is attractive.

But I know what it's like to lose people you thought were fixtures in your life.

This team is my family. They’re everything to me.

Clay’s propped up on his forearms, staring straight at me. “It’ll happen when you’re not looking. Most inconvenient fucking place. And her smile will light you up.”

Brooke’s face appears in my mind.

I agreed to be her fake date because I want her to know I have her back at that reunion. It’s easier to look Jay in the eye and say his sister’s going to be fine when I’m ensuring it myself.

And when she admitted to me about getting cut off by her family, I was incredulous on her behalf. I’ve had to live with the uncertainty of not knowing if you’d have enough, and I don’t want her to feel that way.

I want to show her I care.

About her, about something.

And yeah, maybe I like having an excuse to be close to her.

Which is not what I signed up for, or what she did. She wanted someone to play the attentive date for this sorority reunion. Not someone to glaze over in practice imagining whether it’s as much fun to argue with her naked as it is clothed.

I should be having her back in the daylight, not imagining all the things we could do in the dark.

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