Page 13 of Captivating

“I wasn’t—ow! Shit, Brynn . . .”

“Don’t be a baby.” Her eyes narrow as she moves her thumbs and positions her baby bump away from the table. “And I call bullshit. You’ve got a look, and you were mumbling...” She slides her fingers over the ball of my shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” She pushes harder, and I wince again. “Christ, Brynnie. If I wanted you to know, I’d have been talking to you instead of myself.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” She pushes me until my back hits the table, then works her way down my arm. “Fine. Keep it to yourself. But don’t think we haven’t all noticed you’ve been distracted lately.”

“Have not.”

“Now you sound like my kids, Killer.” She hooks me up to the stim machine and takes a step back. “ Any chance it has something to do with a certain Ryan girl?”

I ignore her.

Wrong move.

“I knew it. You’ve got a thing for Dillan Ryan.”

My head whips her way. “I don’t. But nice try.”

“Lilah?” This time she sounds more shocked and less excited. “Damn, little brother.”

“I don’t have a thing for Lilah Ryan. We’re friends.”

There’s no way she believes that line of bullshit. We haven’t been friends in years, and she knows it, but she doesn’t call me out on it either. “Whatever you say. But keep your head in the game. Dad will have your ass if you get distracted now.”

“Yeah... I know.” But even as I agree, my mind drifts to Lilah and those leggings.

I’m so fucking screwed.

“How’s training going, man?” Noah taps his beer to my water and pulls his hat down lower over his eyes as the two of us sit, nearly hidden, in the back corner of Maddox’s bar while Jamie dances with a few of the Kings cheerleaders.

I hold my water up again. “It’s going. Living like a monk. So, you know...”

“Nah, man. Not really sure I know how that one goes,” he laughs. Noah may have been quieter about it than the rest of us, but he’s been just as big a partier as all of us have. “But it sounds pretty shitty.”

“When I defend my title next month and win, it’ll be worth it.” I tell myself the same damn thing every day... when Dad and Hudson are giving me shit. When I’m shoveling down chicken and rice for the fifteenth day in a row. When everyone else is enjoying a beer and I’m sucking down water. “What the hell is going on with your living arrangements? Did you get moved back into your place? Or are you subletting it to Jamie?”

He takes a pull from his beer as the entire dance floor erupts when the song changes and Lilah’s beautiful voice sings “You Never Knew Me At All.” He cringes and moves further into the shadows. “That’s not what you want to ask me, Killer.”

It’s not.

Noah’s asked me what happened between Lilah and me more than once, but he never pushes it when I don’t answer him. He’s a good friend, but he’s her twin brother. That trumps good friend. He knew how close we were before they left for their first tour. And he knows we’re not now. And he’s never assumed I was some asshole who hurt her. I respect the hell out of that. So I ask him the same thing I always do. “How is she?”

“She’s stressed and tired and burned the hell out. We told the label we weren’t ready to go on tour last summer, but they own us for now, so we didn’t have a whole lot of say in it.”

“That it?” I push, not sure if I’m ready to hear the answer.

“She’s scared, man. Whether she’ll admit it to herself or not, she’s freaking out, and I’m worried. What happened... it was just... Fuck. It was too close.” He drags his hand down his face and looks away. “I’m worried about her.”

Lilah is the most fearless girl I’ve ever known. I hate to think of her being scared because she’ll never admit it. It’s not in her DNA.

“That why you’ve been staying there instead of at your place?”

“Yeah. But I’m going back to my place tomorrow.” He finishes his beer and pushes the empty toward Maddox, who’s stopped on the other side of the bar. “She figured out what I was doing and was pissed.”

Maddox drops three shot glasses in front of us, then takes a two-thousand-dollar bottle of bourbon off his shelf and holds it up.

“Fuck, Madman...” I nod because there’s no way I’m saying no to that bourbon, but I’m gonna be sweating this shit out tomorrow.

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