Page 6 of Captivating

“Jamie doesn’t run,” Noah laughs.

“Or tackle,” Maverick laughs, then ducks out of the way.

“Or sing,” Maddox adds.

Lilah’s eyes bounce between them, then look at me for what feels like the first time all night, waiting to see what I’m going toadd, but it’s my turn to hold my hands up in surrender. “I didn’t say a word.”

Her pretty blue eyes narrow.

There was a time when I knew exactly what this girl was thinking just from a single look.

But not anymore.

“Well, I may not be a professional fighter or play football like you two assholes, but I have to stay in shape for my job too, and not just because every inch of fat on my body gets scrutinized. So you can all suck it,” she growls and storms into the other room, leaving the five of us in her wake.

“That was hot,” I murmur, and Maddox elbows me.

Noah shakes his head and throws a bottle cap at Jamie. “Fucking moron.”

“How was I supposed to know I’d hit a nerve?” Jamie asks and finishes his beer like he just saw his life pass before his eyes. “I was just kidding.”

“Some asshole wrote an article about Lilah gaining weight last month, and she’s been a little sensitive ever since.” Noah drags his hands down his face. “We needed this break. We’re fucking tired.”

I’d like to get a hold of whatever dick wrote that article and use him for a practice dummy. Show him what happens when you pick on someone your own size for a change. Lilah might be tiny, but she’s got curves for days. Perfect curves a man can grip.

Fuck.

“How long are you home?” Maddox asks as he tosses a few more bills to the center of the table.

Asshole always wins at poker.

“A few months, maybe. Not sure yet. We’ll hammer it all out when we meet with management next week.”

Jamie says something, but I tune him out and, as if tethered to her the way we were a decade ago, decide to take my life in my own hands and follow the feisty woman.

She’s tucked into the corner of an L-shaped sofa with a gas fireplace crackling in front of her, the cobalt blue flames nearly the same color as her closed eyes. Huge windows dominate every wall, and her face is lifted toward the stars shining through the glass.

She’s fucking stunning.

Something about her like this hits me right in the solar plexus.

We’ve managed to avoid each other for nearly ten years. We may have been at the same parties and functions occasionally but never in a small group. Especially not this group. In high school, it was always us. Noah, Jamie, Maverick, Lilah, and me.

She called us the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But the truth is the only war I would have rained down on anyone would have been for her.

Maybe I shouldn’t have broken that streak by coming tonight. It probably wasn’t my smartest move. But when Jamie called...I don’t know. I just needed to see her. To make sure she was really okay after the news broke about the bomb found at the last stop on her tour. I knew what I was told. But knowing it and seeing her alive and breathing are two very different things.

None of that seems to matter as I sit down next to her. “I don’t remember you being such a ballbuster in high school.”

She bats her long, dark lashes up at me, and that pretty blush comes back out to play. “There’re a lot of things you don’t remember.”

“Damn.” I hold my fist over my chest. “Shots fired.”

Not that she’s wrong. Not completely.

She drags her eyes from the top of my head slowly down my body before her lips tilt up into the sexy smile I’ve seen ona million different magazine covers over the years.Practiced. Fake.“No shots. Just the truth.”

“You want the truth? Truth is I remember everything, princess.” I take the bottle of tequila out of her hand, and she bristles like I knew she would.

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