Page 11 of The Comeback Pact

When I’m him, the anonymity gives me that armor back. I can be myself. I don’t have to worry about how the relationship is going to work out because it’s fake anyway. It’s like hooking up with jersey girls. They only want to add me to the list of players they’ve slept with. They’re not looking for the real thing.

Lately, though, I’ve been talking with Kenna more, and it’s started to feel like the real thing. Today, our banter turned almost sexual.Almost.

I should pull back. Real feelings never get me anywhere good.

“So?” Aidan asks as he tugs the door open to the weight room. We’ve had to use the general weight room because the one in the football building is getting a revamp. Players from other sports have complained that we’re taking it over, but when you have a bunch of guys that need to get their workouts in, I’m not sure what they expect us to do.

“I’ll figure it out,” I tell him.

Right now, I want to lose myself in the routine. Sweat cures a lot when you’re me. Working out is when I can shut my brain off and focus on the present.

I grab my weightlifting gloves and belt from my bag before I toss it onto the ground next to a rack. It’s leg day, so I search up my Heavy Lifting playlist and put it on repeat. It’s an eclectic mix of music from “Eye of the Tiger” all the way to “Lose Yourself” by Eminem.

Aidan and I rotate in and out. I rest while he lifts and vice versa, and then we both spot for each other.

We’ve been doing this since he was QB2, so we don’t even have to talk as we get our workout in. A few sets later and sweat already starts gliding down my temples. My muscles tense and push, then rest. Every once in a while, my mind will wander to Kenna. How she felt when I steadied her in front of me in the hallway outside of the pool. The douse of heat and electricity that rang through me when we touched. The smile she put on my face when she said boobs were whipped cream. Of course, my mind had immediately gone toVarsity Blueswith the iconic whipped-cream bikini scene, but I couldn’t tell her that. If she even got an inkling that she was talking to a football player, she’d crucify me.

I put the bar up on the rack, breathing heavy.

“You only did nine,” Aidan says.

Shit. This incognito relationship I have with Kenna is a distraction. A distraction that won’t go anywhere because no one will ever be able to penetrate my armor. Hell, no one will everwantto penetrate my armor, and especially not football-hating McKenna Knowles.

From this moment on, she’s just the girl Coach needs me to get to practice. That’s it.

I turn the volume up and double down on my focus.

It’s just me, the music in my ears, and my screaming muscles playing a tense dance for the next hour.

I lift the bar for my last squat and grit my teeth, my legs shaking uncontrollably. As soon as I get it up, I move it to the rack. Aidan’s right there, a fist outstretched. “Yeah, man.”

I fist-bump him and then grab my sweat towel to wipe my face down.

“Leg day,” Aidan calls triumphantly.

I take a step, and my legs give out a little. You know it was a good lift day when your muscles feel like Jell-O afterward.

My water bottle comes sailing through the air toward my head, and I snatch it before guzzling some down. Aidan grins at me. The dude will throw anything—footballs, water bottles, towels, condiments when we’re out to eat. Literally anything that’s not bolted to the ground.

His gaze flicks up, and he grimaces, immediately turning toward me. “Oh shit. Walking ball of rage just outside the weight room...”

I peer up to find Kenna’s thin frame pulling open the door. My stomach tenses. Hope builds in my chest, but it dashes as quickly as it came when she sees me peeking over at her and rolls her eyes before changing direction.

For a brief moment, I thought maybe she was coming in to see us. Hell, I thought maybe she was coming in to seeme.

She makes a straight play toward the bulletin board hanging in the corner of the room. People post shit there, but I’ve never really bothered to look since this isn’t our usual workout spot. She takes one of the small papers and uses the pen that’s attached to a string to write something. After a second, she shakes it, then tries to write again.

A cute, small growl escapes her throat before she flings the pen and searches for something else to write with but comes up blank. She’s about to walk out when I march toward my gym bag and take out a pencil I have in the side pocket. I meet her just at the door. “Here,” I say, offering it to her.

She looks at the pencil and then at me. I only have it because I used to be really meticulous about writing down my workouts, but I’ve been on the same routine for about a year now that’s really working for me, and I know it by heart.

“No, thanks.” She sniffs.

“It’s just a pencil,” Aidan speaks up from the other side of the room. “It won’t bite.”

She sneers at him and then back at me. I’m well aware that sweat is still dripping down my face and there’s a massive wet mark on my collar that darkens the front and back of my shirt. Adrenaline from my workout is coursing through me, and my mind is telling me to say more. Joke with her. Tease her. For fuck’s sake, flirt with her.

But I don’t do any of those things. Instead, I move the writing utensil closer to her and lift my brows like I’m goading her.

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