Page 87 of Just Friends
“As long as you promise you’ll tell us later,” Austen said.
“Fine, fine. I promise.”
“Deal.”
22
Jax
I laid under the late afternoon sun in a lounger by the pool. A light show played behind my closed eyelids, swirling stars and exploding fireworks. I studied the twinkling trails of light, hoping to find an answer when I didn’t even know the question.
Thwack.A hand swatted my chest.
“Pst. Hey. Big Rig.”
I cracked an eye open, my vision stained blue by the sunlight. “What’s up?”
“Couple rockets just got here,” Reavo said stealthily. “They keep looking over at you. Nine o’clock.”
I gave an obligatory glance to my left, where two girls in tiny bikinis leered at me across a dozen or so empty sun loungers. Caught staring, they scrambled to look elsewhere, and broke into a fit of giggles. Once their embarrassment subsided, they slowly turned their eyes to me again—this time, though, they wantedme to seethem looking.
I turned to Reavo. “Yeah, looks like you’re right.”
I closed my eyes and went back to soaking up the sun.
He nudged my shoulder. “Well? Aren’t you gonna go talk to them?”
I shook my head. “Nah.”
“The fuck?” he asked, flummoxed. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing, man.”
“You sure? Because the Big Rig I know would beallover two girls like that in a minute.”
“I’m sure, Reavo.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, his tone had changed. “Looks like you don’t have to go talk to them, ’cause they’re coming to you.” He pounded my shoulder. “Ya handsome fuckin’ bastard.”
I glanced over again. Sure enough, the long-legged girls came strutting my way, all smiles. A couple older men in the pool stopped swimming just so they could shamelessly stare at the girls’ strut past in their skimpy swimwear.
“Hey there!” the first girl, a dyed blonde, said warmly as she sat in the empty lounger next to mine.
Her brunette friend sat right next to her. “Hi,” she said, a little more shyly.
“Hi, girls,” I said.
Honestly, Reavo was right. Theywererockets—both very attractive girls. And I could easily see myself trying to wheel either of these hotties at the club … if I didn’t feel like my heart had a huge, gaping hole in it.
“Sorry to bother you,” the blonde said, and it was becoming clear that she was the more outgoing of the two. “But we were just having a discussion about you.”
“Were you?” I asked flatly.
“We were,” the brunette said.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it, but”—the blonde swept her eyes up and down my shirtless body and discretely bit her lip—“there’s something about you.”
“You look famous,” her brunette friend blurted.
