Page 41 of Dirty Dancer

“Water break,” Vaughn said. “Then we’ll reset.”

“Her arms are going to fall off,” Kellan muttered as Jasper rejoined us. I wasn’t so sure about that, currently Hellspawn fisted a bottle of water and she didn’t even show a sign of trembling.

“She can handle it,” Freddie said, absolute confidence underscoring every word. “Touring with her taught me a lot.”

He had all of our attention.

“She doesn’t quit and she has endurance for days. The harder something is, the more she’ll push. Each time I think it’s too much, she proves to me it isn’t.” He shrugged. “It’s wild.”

Frankly, I couldn’t argue with that. “Once we got into self-defense training, she was a lot like that too.” Get past her reserve and she was tenacious as hell.

“I don’t know why any of us would be shocked by that,” Jasper said, his tone far more self-deprecating than judgmental. “If she wasn’t this stubborn, she wouldn’t have survived.”

“You guys doing okay?” she called as she swung her arms and stretched them a little while pacing around her mark. She tapped a spot on the floor and Rome moved to add a small X with the chalk.

“We’re doing just fine, Sparrow,” Kellan told her. “Enjoying the view.”

She grinned.

“I like an easy audience.”

“Keep it up, Hellspawn,” I teased her and earned another of her laughs.

Rome said something to her and she turned to him.

“Can I ask you guys something?” Freddie said, shifting to face us rather than Hellspawn.

“What’s up?” Jasper asked, taking point like he always did with Freddie. The bond between the pair had always made Jasper a natural for Freddie to reach out to when he was in trouble.

Instead of answering immediately, Freddie glanced over his shoulder to where Hellspawn was counting off the paces between her mark and the target.

“I… Just, you know Boo-Boo and I are dating?”

“Yep,” Jasper said easily. When Freddie glanced at Kellan and me, though, we both nodded. The dating had become a little more formal, but they were spending dedicated time together.

Freddie didn’t follow-up his question with anything more. Worry raked its claws across my belly. The past few months had been good for Freddie. The time on the road, he’d been sleeping better. He wasn’t using, maintaining his sobriety seemed to be working and he just—seemed happier.

He was, right?

“Going again,” Hellspawn called. “Going to nail it on the first shot.”

“You can do it,” Freddie replied immediately. “You got this, Boo-Boo. Or you know, you could always do strip shooting, lose a piece of clothing for each arrow that doesn’t land.”

I snorted. Jasper groaned, but Kellan just shook his head.

“You wish,” was all she said before she rolled back up into her handstand. There was just something deeply sexy about how aware of her body she was and how much control she could exhibit.

“I want to do more with Boo-Boo than just date,” Freddie said abruptly, his voice pitched low and his attention on us. “I want… I want a real relationship. Like you guys have. I want to be able to have sex with her and not freak out.”

“Have you freaked out?” I didn’t think he had, but I still wanted to ask.

Freddie frowned. “No, but we also haven’t done as much as I would like…I mean…”

None of us prompted him. We let him sort it out. This was not a conversation he needed to worry about having, no matter how long it took him.

“Clear!” Vaughn said, though his attention was divided between us and Em. I had to wonder if Freddie had already had this conversation with them.

It was possible.

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