Page 28 of The Jack*ss in Class

We headed down the stairs and I stayed a step behind just to watch the sway of her hips and the way her round ass jiggled in all the right ways. “Oh, yeah. How is Baby Donk doo doo doo doo da doo?”

She shook her head but I saw the second smile of the afternoon. “Great, now I’m gonna have that song stuck in my head.”

When we walked out the front door, a chilly wind hit us both in the face. Gotta love Colorado winter. If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.

“See you later, Kingman.”

Shit. I’d just been dismissed. But...she did say she’d see me later. I could hardly wait.

For a full minute I watched her walk away and fully contemplated following her. Desperate much, Kingman.

Nope. Time to hit the gym like I was supposed to this morning. We had a lot of work to do before the combineand next week would be a short week since we were headed to watch the boys in the big Bowl game.

I still couldn’t shake the image of her face when she’d shoved that notebook away. Everybody got stressed, especially in their senior year of college, facing down the real world in only a few months’ time. But my delicious Tempest was usually so unflappable. I’d seen her face down our professor in a heated debate about Hamlet’s mom last week.

But this was different. This wasn’t academic stress. This was something else, something that made me want to fix it, even though she’d probably murder me for trying.

The weight room smelled like sweat, rubber, and ambition. I was supposed to be focusing on my bench press form. My numbers were good, but they needed to be great if I wanted to impress at the combine. Instead, I kept thinking about that notebook Tempest had tried to hide.

“Your left side’s dropping,” Gryff chastised while spotting me. “And you’re doing that thing with your face.”

I racked the bar and sat up. “What thing?”

“That thinking thing.” He tossed me a towel. “The one where your forehead gets all scrunchy and you look constipated.”

“Fuck off.” But I wiped my face, avoiding his too-knowing grin. Having a twin meant never getting away with anything. “I’m focused.”

“Yeah? What’s your target for the three-cone drill?”

“Uh...”

“Exactly.” He dropped onto the bench next to me. “Spill it. What’s got you more distracted than that time Hayes convinced you his cat could read minds?”

“Seven of Nine Lives totally knew what I was thinking.”

“Seven is a demon in a fur suit, and you’re changing the subject.”

I stood and started adding more plates to the bar, mostly to have something to do with my hands. “It’s nothing. Just this paper for Shakespeare.”

“Bullshit. You could write Shakespeare papers in your sleep.” Gryff’s voice took on that annoying sing-song quality that meant he thought he had me figured out. “This is about your hot tutor.”

“She’s not my tutor.” The plates clanged louder than necessary. “We’re study partners.”

“Right.” He snorted. “Come on, man. I’ve seen you quote Romeo and Juliet in your sleep.”

“That was one time, and I had the flu with a fever of a hundred and three, and we’d just watched Leo and Claire in that romantic disaster.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

I pointed at him. “You’re not allowed to quote Shakespeare at me. That’s not a thing we do.”

“Fine.” He held up his hands in surrender, but his eyes were dancing. “Heard some of the guys saying some of the KAT girls are going to be at the hockey house party this weekend.”

My grip tightened on the weight I was holding. “Who’s talking about Tempest?”

“Oh, it’s Tempest now?” His grin widened. “Not ‘thatannoying know-it-all’ anymore? And I didn’t say anything about her.”

I deliberately set the weight down before I did something stupid like throw it at my brother’s head. “You’re reading way too much into this.”

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