Page 37 of Until You're Mine
Chapter Twenty-One
Shane
I nursed my beer, determined to take it slow, at least until I got my eyes on Brooklyn. I wanted to get my hands on her, but with her brothers and the rest of the team around, I’d have to get creative.
A tap on my shoulder had me turning around, a wide smile on my face. “I knew you couldn’t resis—” I hit the brakes when I saw it wasn’t Brooklyn. Instead, a girl with long brown hair stood behind me. Pretty in the conventional sense of the word, but I wanted unconventional.
“You’re right, I couldn’t resist.” She placed her hand on my shoulder and leaned closer. “Buy me a drink?”
My shitty luck chose that moment to display itself, Brooklyn walking in with Finn, just in time to see the girl hanging on me. An ugly, bitter part of me wanted to use the opportunity to see if I could make her jealous, the way the toxic emotion churned through me every time she mentioned her boyfriend. But we didn’t get a lot of time away from the gym, and I didn’t want to waste it playing games. “I’m sorry, but I’m waiting for someone.”
She propped herself on the stool to my left and crossed her legs, making her skirt creep higher on her thighs. “I can help you pass the time.”
It’d been a while since someone had so blatantly hit on me. It’d happened a lot more a few years ago, when I’d been more recognizable. The stool to my right slid out with a scraping noise, and I did a double take when it was the very woman I’d been hoping for the first time around. And holy shit, did she look gorgeous tonight. Her hair was extra curly, her lips extra pink, and her shirt highlighted one of my favorite assets of hers.
“Here she is,” I said, turning fully to face Brooklyn. I did my best to convey that I didn’t want to be in my current predicament.
Brooklyn wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was a bitch.”
The brunette’s smile tightened and then she excused herself and went back to her group of friends.
Unfortunately, Brooklyn immediately dropped her arm. Not that that stopped Finn from scrunching up his brow as he looked at us. “I’m his buffer for all his fangirls,” Brooklyn said. “You know how they get.”
“Well, send them my way,” Finn said as he took the next stool over. He and Brooklyn ordered drinks, and by the time the bartender slid them across the bar, several of the guys from our team had trickled in, including Liam. He seemed more relaxed here, but I wasn’t delusional enough to think he wouldn’t care about me getting close to his sister.
So much for getting to spend time with her.
“So, was she not your type?” Brooklyn sipped from her drink, and for the second time this week I had trouble pulling my focus away from the way her lips wrapped around a straw. “The brunette from earlier? She was super pretty.”
“Yeah, but can she do a single leg takedown with a sneak-attack sweep? Or an arm bar?”
“So you’re saying you like them butch,” she said with a laugh.
“That depends. Would you call yourself butch?”
She pursed her lips and gave me that look that usually preceded a not-so-gentle reminder that she had a boyfriend. I got it. I wasn’t great at boundaries—as demonstrated a couple of nights ago in the hallway at the gym—so she felt the need to keep reminding me, but it sucked every single time.
“Would you seriously want to help me land a girl for the night?” I locked my eyes on hers, challenging her to tell the truth—to admit that she would care. With her this close, her familiar floral scent flooding my senses, I couldn’t even think about other girls. I hadn’t been able to get her off my mind since the day her laugh earned me a smack to the side of the head, and it only intensified by the day.
“Hey, we’re going to move to a table near the back,” Finn said. “I ordered a couple of pitchers, although you—”
“I’m stopping at this one.” Earlier today I’d told them I’d take the contract for the smaller fight, which meant this would be my last taste of alcohol for a while. My whole diet was about to get that much stricter, as well as my training.
Brooklyn ended up across the table from me, too far to touch unless I stretched out a leg. For a bunch of guys who claimed they wanted to kick back and relax for a night, there sure was a lot of talk of upcoming fights, both the team’s and the big league title fights, along with a debate about which protein shake was the best.
“Hey, Knox,” Adam hollered from the end of the table. “You got a fight lined up yet?”
“It’s in progress. Sounds like I’ll have to start at the very bottom again, but that’s life.” I sipped my beer, trying to savor the last inch as I convinced myself I wasn’t too good for the bottom, even if it’d take longer to get where I wanted.
Brooklyn curled into herself, and I wondered who’d said what. I replayed the conversation but couldn’t find anything that should’ve caused that reaction. But now she, Liam, and Finn were exchanging glances that spoke of information the rest of us weren’t in on.
The subject changed again—well, same topic but not pointed at me—and I stretched out my leg and tapped my foot to Brooklyn’s. I pulled out my phone and typed a message to her. A simple one, with just the word “Now.”
A smile curved her lips before she schooled her features and shot me a look that was heavy on thebehaveimplication.
I had no intention of behaving.
Brooklyn pushed away from the table. “I can’t drink this shitty, cheap beer anymore. I’m going to grab a real drink.” I wanted to offer to get it, or to go with her, but both would cause suspicion, and this was bullshit. It was hard to talk to her at the gym, hard to talk to her now, and I wanted to go somewhere alone, even if all we did was talk.
