Page 60 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

But as we headed off to the gym showers and rinsed off, my thoughts were running on overdrive. My mind was swirling now, thinking aboutotherguys getting in the tub with him, which was definitely going to happen at any of the parties he threw.

Guys who certainly would want to fuck him just as much as I did.

I ran my hands along my body in the shower, rinsing off the lathered soap under the hot spray of water. I let my palm run along my cock, imagining if it was Mason’s instead, then doing a U-turn right out of that headspace because I didn’t need to end up jerking off in a gym shower.

I wanted to be the one getting in a hot tub with Mason.

Or in bed with him.

He wasn’t mine, but… he was stillmine.

Sort of.

Fuck, not really, though.

I cut the water and grabbed a clean towel. I scrubbed at my face, drying off.

The worst of it was that Elliot hadn’t just ruined things between us—he’d also burnedme, and my ability to trust anything. I was still healing from the deep wound he’d left, as if hookups and dating were some mine-filled war-zone.

I was fucking tired of it. And I wasn’t going to let it rule my life.

Maybe what Ireallywanted, beneath everything, was simple.

I wanted to ask Mason out on a date.

…And then watch him squirm and blush and freak out, telling me a bunch of shit about why we couldn’tpossiblydate—and then probably go on a date with me, anyway.

“Yo,” Andrew said after we got dressed again, finding me outside the gym lockers. “Max said I should roll through the Hard Spot. Half off domestics until seven, and Robbie says he’s down. You want to come?”

I shut the locker beside me with athwack.

“Fuck yes, I do.”

Whiskey felt like liquid fire in my throat as I downed my second shot of the night.

It was just me and Kane at this corner of the bar right now. Right now Max was on his half-hour break for the night, and Andrew and Robbie had gone with him to grab some sub sandwiches at the diner across the street.

I’d resorted to talking about the weather with my brother, because I kept specifically avoiding bringing up Mason.

We talked about how Tennessee was hot.Like, fuckin’ scorching, lately.

How the summer was good, but winter was good, too.Hockey, Christmas. Mmhmm.

We’d even freaking talked about how the sky was blue today.Right? Yeah. Very blue!

“Mason said you helped him out the other day,” Kane finally mentioned as he was changing out the cartridge in the soda gun.

My ears perked up immediately.

“He did?” I said instead, thumbing the rim of my shot glass.

Kane nodded. “You took care of his horses while he was fucked up on allergy meds or something?”

“Brought him some consolation food after I heard about the shitty newspaper story. He was falling asleep on those meds pretty soon after. He tried to throw a party that night, actually. I talked him out of it.”

And he was adorable, for the record.

He snorted. “He’s unstoppable. He was in here last night, in peak form.”

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