Page 24 of The Change Up
Chloe gets to wear whatever she wants, but I don’t like her walking around a hotel in the middle of the night alone. Guys would take advantage of the situation and blame it on her becauseshe’s asking for it.Hell no.
She hits the button to call the elevator, and I know there’s no way I’m going to make it out in time to ask her where she’s going. So like a creep, I continue to watch to see what floor she lands on.
Floor two.
With a deep sigh, I quickly toss on a pair of athletic shorts, CTU T-shirt, socks, and running shoes. I glance at the alarm clock on the table between Hudson and me, one forty-five. Swiping my phone and keycard off the table, I hurry to the elevator, closing the door quietly behind me.
I guess I’m heading to the gym.
Ican’t catch a break.
Seriously. Not only am I forced to be with the baseball team all semester, but now I’m forced to be next-door neighbors with him every road trip.
Why must Coach go in alphabetical order? Why can’t he just exclude me and stick me on the end? Or I’ll even take another floor like the rest of the coaching staff, trainers, and equipment team.
I must’ve done something in my past life to warrant such awful karma. Is it because I used to wish the kids growing up would get lice or have explosive diarrhea in school? I used to wish awful things on the bullies, especially in elementary school right after my mom left us.
Karma really is a bitch.
And why did he have to stand in front of me in nothing but a pair of boxers? Isn’t that a weird thing to be wearing when you’re sharing a room?
Of course, he just had to bang on the door as soon as I got out of the shower. The bathroom was full of steam after my long, hot shower, and I didn’t want to leave the room. It seriously felt like a sauna and after this weird travel day where I fell asleep on Ty Billings—ugh, don’t even go there Chloe—I just wanted to enjoy a little self-care.
But typical me, I forgot to adjust the temperature in the room. I think the staff set it to the Antarctica setting because I swear I could see my breath. The extreme temperature change had my body reacting with nips so hard they could cut glass.
Whatever you have to tell yourself, Chloe Mariano. The hard nips had nothing to do with the Adonis standing in front of you.
Sighing, I hit play on my Spotify playlist and up the tempo of the treadmill. I tried so hard to fall asleep tonight, but sleep kept evading me. Every time I was about to drift off into a sleepless state, images kept popping into my head.
First, it was the dreadful ‘show-up-naked-in -front-of-everyone dream.’ You know, the one where you’re running late, so you rush through your routine only to be caught standing in the nude in front of your peers. Or for me, it was arriving at the baseball game and walking into the dugout in front of the entire baseball team…naked.
That is the worst dream and completely unlikely to ever happen.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, images of Cody standing before me captured my thoughts. Only this time, he appeared in the doorway separating our rooms, but he swapped his boxers for a towel hung low across his hips. That perfectly defined ‘V’ led straight to the Promised Land. His tall, lean, chiseled body was on full display. Abs cut so deep that I wanted to drop to my knees and run my tongue over the edges.
The Promised Land? Get a grip, Chloe.
I couldn’t get the image of him taking in my body out of my head. His eyes darkened from his usual hazel color to dark forest green with specks of gold that heated as his arousal ignited. The way his eyes kept trailing my body had me wanting to damn it all to hell and jump the man. It has been so long since I’d been touched by someone other than myself. But tonight, with Hudson watching us like we were his own personal soap opera, was not the time.
My body turned warm as images of him hovering over me, naked, tangled up in the sheets, were starring in their own movie in my brain. I felt the slickness start to coat the inside of my thighs as the ache grew in my center. As badly as I wanted to slide my hands underneath the satin material of my panties, I was not going to get off on the idea of Cody.
Even as I attempted to read my latest romance novel, I kept picturing the main character as him, despite the character not being described as anything like Cody. He was taking over my whole damn mind, and I needed it to stop.
In the end, I decided to go work out my frustration on the treadmill. This brings me to where I am now, continuing to up the speed to past five as “Power” by Kanye West blares in my AirPods. I need the distraction. If I run a couple of miles, I’ll hopefully be exhausted enough to finally get a few hours of sleep.
I watch my body in the mirror in front of me as I assess my form. I’m a runner. I love the high that comes with pushing my body. My only problem is the more I run, the more my form starts to deteriorate, the more my body closes in on itself. I’m still perfecting my form, and as I watch myself, I keep an eye on how I’m positioned so I don’t lose my form. I usually prefer to be outside, but hitting the treadmill is a nice change of pace. I can also really watch my form and figure out at what point I start to close myself off instead of running tall and relaxed.
Mile one is within reach, and that’s when I notice I’m no longer alone.
Cody freaking Jacobs is standing in the doorway of the hotel gym in the middle of the night.
I can’t catch a break.
Instead of stopping, I hit the increase speed button again, pushing myself to a tempo I don’t typically run unless I’m in a road race. Try as I might, my eyes can’t help but follow him as he enters the gym. He’s still behind me and instead of climbing onto a machine, Cody grabs two free weights and makes his way to the edge of the bench.
He sits and begins to curl the weights that are gripped tightly in his hands. His jaw is set tight, and I know it’s not from the weight. He can lift a lot more than what he is right now, but considering there’s a game tomorrow, he must not want to tire his muscles too much.
The two of us continue our workouts without a word passing between us. Quite frankly, I have nothing to say to him. The whole point of me coming down here was to escape him and the thoughts of him. Instead, I try not to watch him in the mirror as his corded muscles tighten and the oh-so-sexy veins protrude in his arm.
