Page 99 of My Fiancé's Brother 2

He shook his head. “BUDs is too intense. We have tonight off, and tomorrow when they put us through the most insane exercises, I would rather not be hung over.”

His discipline impressed me. “Good for you. Is it going okay?”

“It’s what I expected.”

He looked behind him. “My pool partner just took off after some chick. Wanna play a game?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m a terrible pool player.”

“Just play a round with me so I can hold the table.”

I glanced over to where Harper and Jackson were engrossed in their dart game. My teeth ground. “Sure. Why not.”

I kept my back to Jackson and Harper. I didn’t want to see them. It made me feel too bad. Mark racked up the table and then let me take the first shot. As promised, I was terrible.

“Tell you what, I’ll give myself a handicap,” Mark offered.

“What is that?”

“I have to sink all of my balls and two of yours.”

“That sounds like cheating to me.”

“Not at all. It'll even the playing field a bit.”

We started to play. I could barely hit the white ball, much less hit the other balls with the white ball.

“Want a tip?”

“Sure.”

“Hold your cue like this,” he leaned over the table and demonstrated. “And you look down the cue like this. See how this creates a line?”

I leaned awkwardly over the table. He moved beside me and adjusted my elbow, my hand and then my fingers around the cue.

“Loosen up your grip here, you’ve got a death grip,” he teased.

I started to laugh. “I can’t help it.”

“I’m going to need to get some pliers to loosen you up.”

I put my head down, laughing as he tried to pry my fingers off the cue. He looked over my shoulder. “Yup. See how the cue makes a perfect line towards the white ball?”

“Yes.”

“Now gently, just slide it back and shoot.”

I did as instructed and managed to pocket one of my balls.

“I did it!”

“That was fantastic. Now you get to take another shot.”

I moved around the table. “Like this?”

He came over and looked over my shoulder, adjusting the cue. “There.”

I took the shot and watched as the ball rolled towards the pocket. Suddenly a large hand stopped the ball.

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