Page 12 of Six Wishes

“I have no idea.” And I am completely honest about it. “We ran into each other at Mud Duck’s last night and…”

“And they kissed!” Hunter interrupts me and grabs Brooke’s arm, squeezing the hell out of it by the way Brooke is wincing. “Someone took a picture,” Hunter whisper yells, her eyes going to the doorway to make sure no one is eavesdropping. “I saw them on Insta!”

“Oh my God,” now it’s Brooke’s turn to gasp and look at me in shock. “You made the Insta gossip rags?”

“The H-Wags page, Brooke!” Hunter answers for me.

“No!” Brooke slaps a hand over her mouth.

“Yes!” And now they’re going back and forth about it like I am not even in the room.

“You two are being ridiculous,” I tell them but neither one is listening. “Stop it!” I add when Hunter goes into great detail while describing to Brooke the picture she saw posted last night.

“Hunter,” I snap, “you told me that you could barely see anything in that picture! Where are you now getting all these details?”

“Oh, well, it’s actually not that bad of a picture,” Hunter seems to be embarrassed now by the whole thing, just as she should be, I think to myself.

“Hunter,” I hiss at her. “You lied!”

“No, it’s not like that,” she tries to reassure me. “I just didn’t want you to freak out about it! You two looked so damn hot together, it’s unreal. Like, I got uncomfortable looking at the picture,” she starts fanning at her face.

“Wait,” Brooke seems to be confused now, more than before I mean. “I thought that you and Brian,” she starts but she’s not quite sure how to ask. “Were you and Brian… I don’t know… I do know that Brian likes you a lot,” she finally finishes saying what she wants to say about our teammate.

“Yeah, well,” I actually blush now as the memories from last night start flooding my brain. “Brian was about to kiss me last night when Van swooped in, literally,” I emphasize to them, and their eyes get bigger, “Grabbed me and kissed me stupid. Right in front of Brian, and God, and everyone else who happened to pass by.”

“Wow,” Brooke’s face breaks into a wide smile. “That is so romantic! We should tell Maci about it,” she turns to Hunter for approval, “so she can put it in a book.”

Maci is my friend Alison’s little sister who is a romance writer. I know that Brooke gave that career path some consideration at some point, but then decided that it wasn’t for her. So now she lives it all vicariously through Maci Roberts Stone.

“What is Van doing here today?” Hunter finally thinks of asking.

“He says that he’s got a house on the lake here…”

“He does??” Brooke is all ears now. She and her husband live here too, and her best friend with her family also live two houses down. “Where? What house?”

“Not sure. I didn’t ask,” I shrug.

“Should we…” Brooke points toward where the main area of the gym is. We can hear some heavy equipment being banged around in there.

“Yes, let’s do it,” I turn on my heels and they follow me. We all need to get over this weird infatuation we have with Van Boyd and get on with our lives.

Unfortunately, that’s a lot easier said than done. Because when we are met with the image of a shirtless Van Boyd lifting weights, sweat running down his face and body, we all freeze in place. I’m pretty sure he just heard the lump stuck in my throat that I am trying to swallow.

“Lord have mercy,” Hunter whispers behind me.

Yes, indeed.

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