Page 29 of Ashley & the A-Listers

Fuck!

Ashley didn’t have time; she was going to be late.

She sought the safety of her car and beelined to work, leaving just enough seconds on the clock to complete the opening chores.

And the whole time she tried to forget the tattooed hands and that smooth voice and what that hot beta possibly looked like under his sweater.

Because she had to face something much worse: her childhood ex-best friend.

“That’s a stupid idea,” Ashley told Cameron later that morning. “I’m not sparring with Dylan.”

“Why not?” Cameron asked, arms crossed as he stood strong on the mat.

Dylan was across the gym, sitting in one of the chairs and reading his book again.

A man with muscles like that should not also be able to use the brain behind those pretty eyes. It just wasn’t allowed. Cosmically.

And yet there he sat, flipping the pages every few minutes and doing his best to give Ashley the space she’d asked for.

Maybe she should spar with him. She bet he wouldn’t look so good all frazzled and surprised as she took him to the mat.

Warmth flushed through her and she changed her thoughts,quickly.

“He’s hardly getting on my nerves right now. There’s no reason for it,” she finally said.

“Give him about half an hour,” Cameron muttered.

The alpha himself was heading toward the other side of the gym, and Ashley focused her attention on the omega, rolling her eyes.

“Cameron, we’ve got seven weeks until you need to be a pro. We cannot slack off right now,” she scolded, imagining her career flushing down the drain because Cameron looked like a hack on set. Distantly, she heard the door chime as someone entered the gym.

“Oh, come now, I think we can make an exception thisoneday,” a warm, amused voice called out.

Ashley turned to find the exact same very attractive beta from the coffee shop inside the gym, hands casually tucked in his pockets, a smile tugging at his full lips and twitching the curved mustache on his upper lip. His sweater was removed, and her suspicions from the coffee shop had been correct—he was fit, with muscled arms beneath a tee tight around his biceps.

“River?!” Cameron practically shouted, and tore off across the gym at breakneck speed to launch himself at the beta.

She glanced at Dylan, thebodyguard,but he was the opposite of alarmed, watching on with something like pride at the obviously familiar newcomer as he stuffed his keycard back in his pocket.

If he wasn’t on alert, she probably didn’t have to be, and good thing, too, because Cameron collided with the tall beta—River? His sweater was thrown over the arm that was holding a takeout container of coffees. The opposite was covered in a sleeve of tattoos that curled around Cam’s hip, flexing as they embraced. River rocked back only a half step.

Ashley watched River’s expression turn utterly soft as he leaned in, clutching Cam close and dipping his head to his neck. Scent marking. Affectionate.

Hmm. Cameron Thomas was known as a single, very eligible omega.

Cameron was not hugging this guy as if they were pals, slotting together so naturally. She glanced around the gym, noting the few other clients were busy with their trainers, paying no mind to their corner, before allowing herself to study them more.

They were quite the sight. Where Cameron’s hair was just long enough to run fingers through, River’s was shoulder-length and unruly, a dirty blond to match the slightly darker mustache on his upper lip.

They hugged for a solid fifteen seconds before Dylan spoke. “Good luck getting him to doanywork now,” he called out.

“You don’t seem surprised he’s here,” she remarked.

Dylan shrugged. “He texted me last night about flying in.”

A surprise for Cameron, then? And Dylan had helped?

A knot formed in her brows to pair with the one forming in her chest. For some reason, the idea of it was… touching?

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