Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Noah’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t argue.
So, they both live here. Or close, anyway. Green Street Guy is younger than Quinn and Van der Berg. But probably only by a year or two. I gathered that much.
Noah drops to the ground, does one pushup, but then the other one drops down in front of him, eye to eye.
“Last one to twenty goes home?” Green Street suggests. “Now.”
He might be a little younger, but he’s bigger. Maybe an inch taller, but broader too. Like he was an athlete.
As a Motocross racer, Noah would try to keep his weight down.
“You sure?” he grins.
“I’m sure. You ready?”
“Almost.” Noah looks up. “Quinn?”
I find her in the mirror.
“Lie down on my back,” he instructs her.
Excuse me?
She stops mid-exercise, and I think I see her gaze dart to me, but it was too quick to tell. “No.”
“Please?”
He says it so fucking gentle, and even after all this time, I know Quinn hasn’t changed. She finds it hard to disappoint people.
My muscles burn as I watch her set the free weights down, lower to him on the floor, and press her chest into his back. The tips of her shoes rest on his heels as she layers her forearms across the back of his shoulders.
“Like this?” she asks, and I wait for her to look at me again. She doesn’t.
Noah smiles. “Perfect.”
“Set?” the other one snips.
“Go,” Van der Berg announces.
Everything tenses as I watch both young men dip and rise, pushing their body weight—and in Van der Berg’s case, Quinn’s too—up off the ground.
Again.
And again, both bobbing up and down with damn near the speed of a bullet.
Quinn smiles, her stomach probably flipping because that’s what happens when we ride rides. What the fuck…
Looking across to Green Street, her eyes shine. A few people stop to watch, one taking out his phone and filming.
“Hey,” Lance blurts out at my side. “You’ve been doing that same exercise for about a hundred reps.”
I pause. Huh?
I remember the bar in my hands and drop it, just noticing how hard I’m breathing. My arms are on fire.
I turn my head over my shoulder, watching with my friend as Noah bounces and she starts to slip.
“Hold tight!” he shouts, excited.
She clutches his shoulders, squeezing her eyes shut and laughing, even as he slows around number twelve. The other one outpaces him and Van der Berg winds down more and more, losing strength, but he and Quinn beam anyway, even knowing they’ll lose.
Smart kid. He didn’t need to win, and Green Street knows it as he finishes first but isn’t happy. Van der Berg didn’t need to prove his manliness. He created an experience with Quinn. His own. His and hers.
Other people will make her happy.
“I win,” Green Street says as they all rise.
“Did you?” Noah dusts off his pants. He takes Quinn’s hand, helping her up.
“Better not let the mayor see his sister riding your back,” the other one warns. “Or…maybe he should.”
I grab my towel as he gestures to the security camera in the corner behind Van der Berg’s head.
“I’d be more worried about the other half of her family tree,” I interject, taking a seat at the arm press again. “One Trent will kill you both, the other will hide it.”
I didn’t mean to say it—or insert myself—but she’s not getting a quality workout with these two dipshits anyway. I know, in the basement of my mind, that I’m full of shit, but it’s a good enough excuse. She’s busy, and she’s here to workout.
Lance takes his cue, stepping off to make a call, and I begin my reps, not looking at either kid.
“Who are you?” Van der Berg asks.
But Quinn responds before I have a chance to say anything.
“This is Lucas Morrow.” She stands at the lat machine, elbows pinned to her waist as she just moves her lower arms, pushing the bar down. “He used to babysit me.”
Babysit?
I dig in my brow. Why would she say that? As if I’m so much older.
And these dickheads don’t need to know my name.
I rise and lean down, changing the pin on her machine to add more weight. “It wasn’t babysitting.” I lift the corner of my mouth in a smile. “It was my pleasure.”
“Morrow…” someone whispers.
I stand up straight, eyeing Green Street. He zones in on me, brows pinched together, and I can see the wheels turning in his head. My pulse throbs in my neck.
“How’s everything coming with the house?” Quinn asks me.
Noah touches her shoulder, giving her a nod as he takes his loss and leaves.
When he’s gone, I reply. “It’s going well.”
“Do you think it will sell quickly?”
Her eyes shine, wisps of hair falling around her cheeks and shoulders from her ponytail. I intended to give her the hat back, but…it’s nice to see her face.
“Why?” I ask. “Anxious to be rid of me?”