Page 22 of Shut Up and Score
I step into the sensor-activated spray, hoping the water hits hot.
It doesn’t.
Ice cold slams into my chest and back. I flinch, but I deserve it. Doesn’t help anyway.
I close my eyes and seehim. His perfect backside. That sinful smirk. Every bit of it is clinging to my memory.
Still fucking want him?
Yeah. God help me—Ido.
I’m still fucking turned on at the sight of my ex-best friend’s ass.
At this point, I’m Karma’s bitch.
I clench my jaw and face the tile, trying to think of anything else. Stats. Plays. Film sessions. Tax forms. Homework. Hell,Jasmine.
None of it sticks.
All I can see is Micah—dripping wet, cocky smirk, that lean tatted body I never let myself look at for long when we were friends, now burned into my brain on a loop.
Voices echo behind me. The showers are starting to clear out, the guys filing into the locker room with towels slung low and loud complaints about classes or cafeteria food.
I don’t move.
I stay under the freezing spray, muscles locked, back to the room pretending it’ll hide the fact that I’m still hard for the one person I should be running from, not fantasizing about in a shared goddamn shower.
Micah’s voice drifts from a few feet over, low and casual.
“Careful, Taylor,” he says. “Someone might see the show you're still putting on and get the wrong idea.”
My breath catches. I glance over.
He's standing there, towel slung over one shoulder. Nothing else.
Not even pretending to cover up. Some things never change, and modesty never applied to him. I'm pretty sure hewantsme to look.
Andfuck, I do.
His back is still damp, muscles shifting beneath golden skin, water trailing down the line of his spine. Every step is a study in control—smooth, confident,taunting. His assflexes with each movement, round and perfect and just this side of obscene, and I swear I forget how to breathe.
He’s walking away like he doesn’t have a care in the world…as if I didn’t just get hard the second I saw him, and he didn’tknowexactly what he was doing when he turned around and caught me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, jaw tight, and let the water beat down over me. I don't have a reply. Because there’s nothing I can say that won’t be the wrong kind of honesty.
SIX
MICAH
Practice sucks.And I’m starting to second-guess my desire to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and get my literal ass handed to me by running drills. Or laps with Colton by my side. That’s a special kind of torture, even if I can get under his skin.
I’m halfway down the hall, earbuds in, hoodie up, and still vibrating with leftover adrenaline from my first practice—if you can call it that. I barely touched the ball, but my pride sure got a workout. And the fact that Colton was feet away from me, naked and hard, and I’m pretty sure I was the cause of it. Yeah… It's a lot.
I’m almost at the exit when someone calls out behind me.
“Hey! Micah, right?”
I pause, reluctantly tug one earbud out, and glance over my shoulder.
