Page 28 of Hard Hitter

Chloe offered a breathless thanks and I nodded, moving away for my own sanity. Eva was ten feet away, no doubt taking notes, and I didn’t need her getting involved.

Mac called my name from the starting line.

“Don’t chase any ducks into the pond,” I warned her. “I don’t have any more shirts to give you.”

“Good luck,” she called.

I could feel her gaze on me as I walked toward the rest of the group. Mac took my relative nudity in stride, but RJ grinned at me.

“Couldn’t find a way to give her your shorts too?” she teased.

I gave her a bland look. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on your boyfriend instead of my ass? He could probably benefit from some advice on how to use his legs in a forward motion.”

Shaw shouldered between us. “Hey, I can run.”

RJ patted his arm. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll bring you something nice back from the front.”

“Not all of us sprint for fun, Lorelai. I have other skills.” He caught the back of her neck and hauled her in for a kiss.

I looked away, feeling sort of pervy despite sharing a living room and kitchen with them. Now that they could date out in the open, they weren’t great about limiting their extracurriculars to the bedroom.

My attention drifted past Mac, chatting at another runner, and over to Chloe. She’d gone back to duck-sitting, wearing my shirt. The soft material draped over her curves, down past her thighs. A faint blush stained her cheeks, and I wondered if I had anything to do with it.

Shaw elbowed me from the other side, and I realized the organizers were doing a welcoming speech, marking the start of the race. RJ had joined Mac up at the front of the group.

The horn sounded, and we all took off. I wasn’t a speed demon like Mac or RJ, but Iwasan athlete with a certain amount of pride—I wasn’t going to half-assed jog a distance I could run in my sleep. Most of the pack fell behind me, but Shaw stayed even.

He slanted his gaze at me. “I recognize that look.”

I grunted, trying to focus on keeping an even pace. My specialty was explosive speed, not endurance, so I liked the challenge of spreading the effort over multiple miles. Shaw ran for fun though. He could afford to waste his oxygen talking, but I needed all of mine.

When I didn’t take the bait, he tried a more direct route.

“What’s going on with you and Chloe?”

“You want to talk about this now?” I nodded at the people running within easy listening distance.

Shaw shrugged. “Turns out I don’t care who hears when we’re talking about someone else’s love life.”

“Lucky me,” I panted.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but I’m here to listen if you want to work some shit out.”

I focused on the swinging pink ponytail of the girl a few yards in front of us. When Shaw and RJ were going through their stuff last semester, I’d said something similar to him. Had I known the support would come back to bite me in the ass, I might have kept my mouth shut.

But I didn’t. These guys were my real family. I could talk to them—about anything—without reprisal. The reminder loosened up some of the tension in my shoulders.

“Chloe is… Chloe.” I blew out a breath, then immediately regretted it when I had to suck in air.

“That shouldn’t make sense, but I get what you mean,” he said.

I highly doubted he knew what went through my mind when I thought of Chloe. Did I really want to clue him in? What did it matter when I didn’t plan to follow through on any of those thoughts?

“There’s nothing going on with us.”

“She’s hot,” he mused. “In a ‘might set fire to your belongings’ kind of way.”

The fierce urge to both defend Chloe and warn Shaw away took me by surprise. I choked back the angry retort at the last second, choosing deflection over direct confrontation.

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