Page 7 of Man Advantage

Cam, though… My God, every inch of him registered, and the way my mind short-circuited whenever I looked at him—that went way beyond catching an eyeful in the locker room or checking out a teammate wearing a particularly nice suit.

Because it wasn’t just his body. Yeah, he was hot as hell, but whenever he smiled, my train of thought completely derailed. Time had been incredibly kind to his physique and his gorgeous face, but there was so much more to it than that. So much that I hadn’t even considered while I’d eagerly awaited his arrival.

He carried himself differently now. As a kid, he’d been a little shy, and he often moved or sat like someone who didn’t want to be noticed. A complete wallflower except around his closest friends.

Adult Cam walked with his back straight. Shoulders square. The wallflower was a distant memory, replaced by someone who didn’t hesitate to look the world in the eye.

Which… like everything else about him today… scrambled my damn brain. I barely recognized him, and yet I also couldn’t see anyonebutCam. As if the whole time we’d been ugly duckling kids, it had been a foregone conclusion that Cam would grow into this confident, sexy man who was just so damn?—

“Trev?”

I shook myself and met his gaze. Oh fuck. Had he been saying something? Had I?

He cocked his head, though there was humor in his eyes. “You zoned out. You still with me?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just…”Thinking things that would make this arrangement way too awkward.I cleared my throat. “Trying to remember if there was anything else I needed to tell you.” I laughed nervously. “There’s probably a lot. Like… about my kids, for one thing.”

“That would be a good start, yeah.” Some nervousness entered his expression. “I’m, uh… to be perfectly honest, I don’t have a ton of experience with little kids. I took this job because I’m seriously desperate, and I’ll absolutely follow your lead, but if you wanted someone with years of experience as a nanny…” He grimaced.

I waved my hand. “I didn’t have shit in the way of experience before we adopted them. You’re someone I can trust. We can figure out the rest.”

That seemed to catch him off-guard. “You… haven’t seen me in years, though.”

“No. But I know you. And our friends know you.” I paused. “Look, I’m desperate, too, but these are my kids. I wouldn’t just grab some rando off the street and leave them alone with them. You’ve always been good people, and our friends who’ve still been in touch with you all this time would’ve told me if there was some reason to think you’d changed in a bad way.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “I’m, uh… I’m glad they put in a good word for me.”

“They rave about you all the time. And Jake’s the one who reached out and said maybe you and I could help each other.” I hesitated, then decided to be a little more candid. “I’ll help you, you help me, and I finally get to see you again. Kind of seems like a win all around, you know?”

His eyebrows rose, as did some color in his cheeks. “Oh. It’s, um… It’s great to finally see you again too.” Dropping his gaze, he murmured, “It’s been way too long.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. I wanted to askwhyit had been so long. Why every attempt I’d made to reach out to him had come up empty.

But now wasn’t the time. He was here, and we’d have plenty of opportunity to catch up. It didn’t all have to happen ten minutes after he’d walked in my front door.

“Anyway, uh…” I cleared my throat. “Let me show you your room, and then I can take you downstairs to the home gym.”

That brought Cam back to life, and he looked at me with wide eyes. “You have a home gym?”

“I’m a professional athlete,” I said, chuckling. “Comes with the territory.”

“Ooh, sweet.” He grinned, a little cautious mischief entering his expression. “So, do I get to teach your kids how to do burpees and squat with proper form?”

I snorted, pretending my head wasn’t spinning as that trace of my old friend—the shy but devilish kid I’d grown up with—peeked through. “If you can get a pair of high-energy six-year-olds to sit still long enough, be my guest.”

“Pfft. I’ve trained teenagers hopped up on pre-workout. Challenge accepted.”

“Oh my God.Anyway.” I gestured down the hall. “Follow me.”

He did, unaware of my heart doing wild things and my stomach doing somersaults. I really needed to get it together. He was going to be living here, after all. In my house. And I couldn’t afford to have him leave because he caught me staring at him with nostalgic hearts in my eyes. Or getting a badly timed hard-on. Or both.

Dude. Seriously. Get a grip.

I held on to my dignity, at least enough that he hopefully didn’t notice my brain spinning out, and took him up to the top floor. The boys’ bedrooms were at one end of the hallway, the guest room was at the other, and mine was right in the middle. I took Cam to the guest room, pushed open the door, and flicked on the light. “It’s all yours.”

He stepped in, and his lips parted as he looked around. “Dude, this isn’t a room—it’s asuite.”

I chuckled. “I mean, kind of?” Pressing my shoulder against the doorframe, I scanned the room, which… yeah, it was a suite. There was a small living room area, a full bathroom, and a bedroom. One kitchenette shy of a small apartment, really. “We set it up this way for my ex-mother-in-law. She…” I waved a hand and shook my head. “It was better to do it like this than not, let’s put it that way.”

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