Page 109 of Wildest Dreams

“You can give yourself a second to recover, man,” he laughs as he pushes one of his hands through his dripping wet hair.

I crack my neck from side to side, giving him an emotionless glance before ignoring him. Water droplets trickle between my shoulder blades as I bend, heave, and flip the tire once again.

Yeah, Austin may be one of my best friends but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t about to dunk that motherfucker for the shit he pulled in the bar the other week. I mean, I really like the guy and he’s the best goalie that I’ve ever played with, but kissing on Aisling’s ankles while she was dancing all giggly around thatpole? Uh, absolutely the fuck not. Hence why when he came out here this morning to workout with the tire that Hunter decided to haul down from one of his dad’s mechanic friends’ garages in Larch Peak, I cracked out my knuckles and jerked my thumb toward the lake, not needing to explain why I wanted to trade a few punches with him seeing as he definitely fucking knows. So he just shrugged, ditched his cell, and then I wrestled that shit-eating grin off his stupid face.

When I’m two more flips away from where he’s sitting he rises to his feet, getting ready for his turn. I glance down at the rolled-up brown bag with my breakfast in it and I steel my jaw, motivating myself to finish these reps.

Austin glances up at me with a smirk that has me shoving the tire a little more aggressively than I need to.

“What?” I grunt, feeling the thick muscles of my quads bulge as I get into my final squat.

His eyes slide over to the lake house and then back to me.

“You trying to impress someone or something?” he grins. I toss the tire to the ground, hitting him with a look.

Goading little shit.

“Watch it,” I rumble. Then I clear my throat and add, “…yeah.”

He drains the last of his take-out coffee, eyes fucking burning with glee because he may or may not have seen me push my way through the fringe of the forest this morning – rather than, you know, thefront door of my cabin, so he quickly put two and two together about where I’d been trudging back from.

He doesn’t know the details, like the fact that I’ve spent the past four nights sneaking over to Aisling’s, wrapping her up in my arms, and tucking her into my chest as she falls asleep, but knowing part of my secret has made him suddenly extremely smug.

I wipe my hands on my drenched shorts and take his place on the log, inhaling half of a breakfast muffin before he’s even got his hands on that tire. I shove in the other half and then hunch my shoulders, clenching my hands between my knees, as I allow myself a quick glance over to Ash’s balcony.

She’s talking quietly into her phone, eyes on her sparkly nails, as if she hasn’t been stealing glances at our workout for the past thirty minutes.

I roll my shoulders, pop the top on a new coffee, and drink.

Austin puts on a real show of flexing his biceps when he reaches the end of his first lap, and I roll my eyes all the way to Alabama before begrudgingly checking to see if he actually caught Ash’s attention. Warmth spreads through my chest as she fully turns her back to his performance and I quickly dip my head between my shoulders, trying to hide the smug smile of my own.

My loyal girl.

“Damn,” Austin says, amusement tugging up the corners of his mouth as he starts flipping the tire my way again. “Maybe she actually likes you. Most chicks wouldn’t be able to resist these guns.”

“What guns?” I smirk, as if Austin isn’t literally two-hundred-and-ten pounds.

He frowns at me before quickly peeking down to check on his ‘guns’.

“Fully loaded,” he mumbles to himself, before giving me another scowl and shoving the tire back into the dust.

Grinning, I lift my coffee back to my mouth, only to almost spill the whole thing as I hear the front door of the lake house click open. My eyes fly across the water, breath halting in my chest as Ash pads down the porch steps, hair swishing over her shoulders when she flicks it with the back of her hand.

“Fuck,” I rumble, unable to tear my eyes off of her as she slowly makes her way around the head of the lake. She’s wearing shortie overalls, like she has every day this week so far, plus a little white tank beneath it which makes her tan look extra golden.

I’ve kept my word with Aisling since the first time I snuck over there. Our secret nights have consisted of me making us our blanket fort, squishing her between my biceps, and then kissing the hell out of her before we finally go to sleep.

Strictly kissing and cuddling – no funny business – before she wakes up at the crack of dawn and tries to shove me off of her balcony. I managed to scale down it once, just because I knew that it would make her laugh, but that shit is high and I don’t want to injure my ankle again, which means that I haven’t attempted it again since the first time that I tried.

She did like it when I climbed it though so maybe I’ll give it another go tomorrow morning.

At the same moment that Ash rounds the head of the lake, half of the cabin doors behind us creak open. Her brother and his teammates yawn as they thud down onto the logs, followed by Hughes, Tristan, and Shaw, because they all sensed the fact that there’s food out here at the exact same time.

There’s a whole load of grumbled “morning”s which I completely ignore, eyes still locked onto Aisling as she pats her phone over the denim pocket of her overalls. Then she saunters over to our half circle of way too many fucking guys.

Her eyes slide down to mine as I stare up at her, and my quad is instantly bouncing up and down, pounding the dirt beneath my boot.

She’s looking down at me with that aloof heiress nonchalance, even though we both know that I’ll be sneaking into her bedroom later tonight.

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