Page 76 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

“It’s complicated. If the Black Dogs get a whiff of where I am…”

“The dogs?”

His hands grip the edge of the table so tight his knuckles go white. “Forget I said that. It’s nothing.”

I wonder what that’s about, but I’m too caught up looking at him to question him.

Even tired as he is, he looks too handsome to be standing in our humble kitchen. His dark hair has grown a little since he moved in, his long lashes shadow his gray eyes. I want him to come, grab me and kiss me. I want to feel his hands on me again, his lips on mine. Taste that sweetness on his tongue.

Bad idea, Gigi.

“And you?” He scratches at the faint scruff on his chin. “You look… nice.”

“Thank you. I’m doing fantastic,” I say brightly. “I’m seeing someone. A beta.”

He goes still. His face, his body, every part of him seems to freeze. “You are?”

“Yeah, and it’s going great!”

I mean, it’s not a lie. We haven’t met again or even talked on the phone, but he wrote twice to ask how I am, and I replied asking the same.

Polite. Nice. Easy.

Casey pushes off the counter, steps closer to me. He smells amazing, the sweetness of him heavy with musk and pepper. “Good for you,” he whispers. “I should get back to work.”

“You shouldn’t work so hard.”

He gives a sharp chuckle. “So you said. Let it go, Gigi.”

“Casey—”

Shaking his head, he brushes past me and leaves the kitchen. A moment later, I hear his bedroom door click shut.

My eyes feel kind of hot. It’s the Travis thing, I tell myself. It’s fighting with my mom. It’s not the look in Casey’s pretty eyes before he walked out of the room, this feeling that I’ve somehow dealt him a blow he didn’t expect.

It’s what’s best for him. He needs an alpha or two. He needs a harem, not me.

He has to know it, too…

* * *

This is what I need to do. Cut those emotional, lusty ties with my non-boyfriends. Explain that whatever happened between us is over.

But when the time comes, when I find Zayne in front of me at the gym, I don’t know how to say it. It seems stupid all of a sudden. Why explain? Why say anything?

“What is it?” Zayne stops what he’s doing—which is adjusting a machine’s weights in the machine room—and straightens. “Gigi?”

Now, Gigi, do it. Tell him.

But what comes out is, “I wanted to know… how old you are. Your son is… not a child.”

Dark brows arch. “Definitely not a child.”

“But you…?”

“Zach is nineteen. I’m thirty-six.”

“But, Zayne?—”

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