by Angel Lawson
Lea watched us like a tennis match, but I felt the wounds being picked at like a scab. It was time to go, so I left. Again.
3
Oliver
The warm city air hit me as I strode out of the bar. I ducked past the line of people trying to get in, a few women smiling in my direction. I only wanted one woman to grace me with a grin tonight, and she could barely muster eye contact.
I’d known going on a blind date was a bad idea, but Jackson assured me it was good for business and developing a relationship with someone as influential as RJ Malone. I saw his point, and it wasn’t like we were finding a lot of dates on our own. The business took up most our time, and thankfully, it left us with a valid excuse for our monk-ish lives. Things had never shifted back for either of us after the group split. Anderson was laser-focused, like always. Training. Competing. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Hayden spent the first year traveling across Europe before winning a spot as the first-string goalie on the Atlanta United Team. Increasingly, his face was everywhere from endorsements to celebrity events.
And Heaven? She’d been down the road from us but we kept our distance. We made a deal and despite the proximity, stuck with it.
Until tonight.
We should’ve known it was only a matter of time before we ran into one another, but a blind date? You couldn’t make that shit up.
It felt wrong going to meet another woman. It always did—had—since the day we forged our relationship with Heaven. We were just kids, but what we had? It was more. I’d known it then. I knew it now. Walking in that door felt like a betrayal, followed by a punch in the gut seeing her standing there; smiling, confident, and absolutely gorgeous.
It wasn’t the body of a girl that stood by the bar. It was one of a woman; it was like I thought I knew what she looked like, thought I knew her body, but there was a subtle difference—just enough to stop me cold. Long legs, the slight curve of her hips, the leanness of her arms, and sharp cheekbones were the make-up of an enhanced Heaven Reeves. I’d absorbed everything in a matter of moments, the way she wore her hair was up, twisted at the back of her head exposing the long, swanlike column or her neck.
I’d known I’d missed her, but not exactly how much until that moment, and now, after a bit of fresh air, I felt like a complete dick taking off like that. I’d never walked away from Heaven before. Not during the dark days. Not during the hard shit. Never—but that didn’t stop the wedge of time from separating us and changing everything.
We’d made a deal.
I reminded myself of this every damn day. I knew Jackson did as well. I know he floundered, brushing off the advances of our female clients, the accountant, the saleswoman that came once a month to demonstrate the new equipment. He’d had opportunities, we both had, and neither of us ever took the bait.
Except this one fucking time.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I expect it to be Jackson, but it wasn’t. Anderson’s name flashing on the screen. Did he know? I refused to believe Jackson called him. Not a chance.
“Hey,” I said into the phone, ducking into the alcove of a closed shop. I stood across the street from new, trendy lofts.
“Hey, man,” Anderson said. “I had a break and thought I’d check in—see how you’re doing.”
Yeah no, he didn’t know. Talk about coincidences.
“Everything’s good here. Busy. The industry is strong here and we’re picking up clients left and right.”
“That’s awesome.”
“How’s the training?”
“Same,” he replied. Anderson had been committed to an Olympic swim career since he was eight years old. During the last Games, that dream came to fruition. The next one was only a summer away. “Qualifiers are coming up. You wouldn’t believe the amount of food I’m eating right now just to keep my strength and energy up.”
“God, I’m jealous,” I laughed. “I’ve been on this low-carb, cutting diet. It sucks.”
“Sounds awful. I’ll eat some pasta for you.”
“Do that.” I spotted a figure walking down the street, the gait quick and familiar. I knew the swing of those hips. Fuck. I ducked deeper into the shadows. “Have you heard from Hayden?”
“Yeah, his tournament starts in two weeks. He said things look good for them to make a run at the championship this year.”
“Awesome.” Hayden’s skills only amplified when he got out of college. If he was a beast then, he was more like a dragon now. “We’ll catch the game this weekend.”
“Good, I’ll call then and we can watch together.”
My eyes were still trained on the woman walking across the street. She stopped and climbed the stairs toward the lofts. Did she live there? The instant she hit the top step I found myself avoiding traffic and crossing the street, following her up the cement staircase. What the hell was I doing?
“Oliver?”
“Yeah?” I realized he’d still been talking about the game. “Sorry, I ran out for a bit and was just dodging cars.”
“Huh, you have a date?” he asked, surprisingly.
Surprising that he asked and surprising that in theory, I did. “Uh, no. How about you? What’s going on with Caitlin James?”
“Nothing’s going on with Caitlin.” His voice was hard. “We’re just both repped by the same aquatic group. We have to travel a lot together.”
“Okay, got it.” The implication was clear. Anderson didn’t date any more than me or Jackson. Heaven entered the front door of the building by pressing a code. Against all instincts of self-preservation, I dashed behind her and caught the door before it swung shut. “Yeah, uh,” I said quietly, “I should probably go.” I heard her footsteps a floor up. Maybe two. I’d lost my damn mind.
“Yeah, I need to go eat. Talk to you Saturday?”
“Yep.”
“Love you, man.”
“You too, bro,” I replied softly and shut off my phone.
I was breaking a million rules right now, I thought, following Heaven up the stairs, arriving on the second floor just in time to see her apartment door close.
I had no idea how long I stood there; minutes? An hour?
But there was no way I was leaving without talking to her. Alone. Just this once. Heaven Reeves had always drawn me in, like a moth to a flame, and like a stupid, fucking moth, I was willing to get burned.
4
Heaven
Jackson and Oliver.
Oliver and Jackson.
Of all the guys in this town. Of all the guys to get set up on a date with…
What was the saying? Karma’s a bitch.
I’d barely entered the loft and kicked off my shoes when I heard the knock. The last thing I wanted to do was hash all this out with Lea, so I braced myself for standing my ground. I opened the door, tugging my hair loose at the same time.
It wasn’t Lea.
“What are you doing here?” I said, eyes glued to the man in front of me. Man. Oliver was a man. Not a boy. Not a boy-man. A man-man, with the shadows of a full beard and wiry chest-hair at the edge of his button-down shirt.
“I didn’t follow you,” he said. “I just…you walked past me and I just…”
He ran his hand into his hair, pushing through his short blond locks. We stared at one another for a long moment before I said flatly, “Do you want to come in?”
“I shouldn’t.”
I shook my head. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“I had no idea, Heaven. Blind dates aren’t something we do, but Jackson didn’t want to say no to RJ and it’s, it’s been a long time…”
I held up my hand. “I don’t want to know.”
“Right. I know. I know.”
His expression was grim while I tried my hardest to keep a straight face. I tucked my emotions tight, refusing to let them be seen. I couldn’t go down this road. Not even an inch. Not the slightest. I knew—he knew—we knew where it would lead.
“I’m willing to chalk this up to a crazy fluke i
f you are,” I said, trying to diffuse the situation and get him to leave.
“The craziest.”
We smiled at one another. I looked away first.
“It was good seeing you, Oliver,” I said, swallowing back a million other words.
“You, too, Heaven.” He turned to leave, knowing it was a dismissal, but he stopped, hand on the door frame.
“You look great, by the way.” His eyes skimmed over me, but they weren’t filled with heat. More like awe. “Can you tell me one thing?”
“I guess.”
“Are you happy?”
“I am,” I replied honestly.
“Good.” He nodded, seeming relived. “Good. That’s all that matters, you know?”
“I do.” I offered him a tight smile. “Good luck. Tell Jackson the same.”
He took a step back and I shut the door, closing it and twisting the lock. Not to keep him out but to hold me in. I leaned against the wood, controlling my breathing, my heartrate, all too aware that I wasn’t ready to see him—them—again. I’d made the right choice. We all had, because I couldn’t go through recovering from the Allendale Four a second time.
Once almost killed me.
5
Heaven
I didn’t sleep well, and it showed when I rolled onto the lot the following morning. The security detail at the entrance gave me a once over and I scowled at him before finding a parking place behind the empty school. The production moved around, site-to-site for whatever the story called for. This week RJ and his friends landed in a school full of zombies. Zombies were one of my favorite monsters to create, so even though I was tired, I was excited about tackling the project.
My trailer was parked around back and I avoided Lea’s eyes when I walked in, dropping my bag and coffee on the counter.
“Heaven…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“I had no idea that was who RJ set us up with.”
“Of course you didn’t.” I skimmed the schedule. Thankfully RJ looks like a normal high school kid, and that meant Lea could handle it. “It was a fluke. A stupid fluke that I’d rather not speak of again.” Her mouth opened to respond but I quickly added, “Ever.”
“Okay,” she said, prepping her own work space. Lea was a small woman, her skin flawless—she was an amazing makeup artist but wore little herself. She didn’t need it. She flitted around the trailer with an amount of energy I couldn’t comprehend, but I liked her, and I knew she meant no harm.
And maybe I owed her a little bit more of an explanation.
“Seeing them again,” I said suddenly, “was just…unexpected. We made some firm rules when we broke up. We’ve stayed completely out of one another’s lives. No spying. No creeping. The only ones I have a vague sense on is Anderson and Hayden because of their recognition.”
“It’s hard not to notice, especially Hayden Pierce.”
I rolled my eyes. Who knew Hayden would let fame go to his head? “It’s been a challenge because we didn’t end our relationship with each other because we didn’t love each other anymore. We stopped seeing each other because there was no way it would work with everyone being split apart. Our relationship was a tight balance that worked. Until it couldn’t anymore.”
She glanced at me, our eyes meeting in the lit-up mirror. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“No one said life was fair.”
“Well if it makes you feel better, Jackson seemed kind of thrown off, too.”
I snorted. “No, that doesn’t make me feel better and yeah, I could tell.”
“You could? Behind that lazy grin and easy talk?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s Jax. Adorable and aloof. He knows how to work a room.” I frowned. “Did you talk to him after I left?”
Guilt ran over her face. “For a little bit. You and Oliver took off. We ended up hanging out for a little while.”
I wasn’t sure what expression landed on my face. I tried to keep it civil but before I could even react, Lea held her hands up and said, “Nothing happened. Swear. I think he just needed someone to talk to that understood. I got the feeling he’s a little lonely.”
I had no doubt he felt lonely—that they all did, with the exception of Hayden. With an edge, I added, “Lea, let me make one thing clear—I will murder you in your sleep if you start something up with one of these guys—got it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Sorry,” I said. “That sounded possessive and crazy.”
“No. We’re friends and co-workers and I get this is super hard for you.” She pulled jars and containers out of the cabinet. “And yeah, you do sound possessive, which means you’re not over them and it’s obvious from last night they still have feelings for you, and I am definitely not into guys that are into other women. Been there, done that, and it sucked.”
I spun my makeup chair around and dropped in it. “It’s such a fucking mess.”
“Well if you want my opinion—”
“I don’t.”
“But if you did…” She gave me a sweet smile. It was hard to be mad at her. Even that one time she left all my brushes in the sink and ruined them. “I think Jackson is a little lost and overwhelmed. I think you should talk to him. Maybe both of them, and see if you can work past some of this. It’s obvious you guys are struggling.”
I thought about seeing Oliver the night before, the way he looked in my doorway. Handsome, sure, but there was something else…a sense of loss and utter lack of being able to speak to me. That wasn’t how I wanted this to end between us all.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Yes!” She smiled right as the trailer door opened. Two guys that needed to be made into zombies rolled in, half-awake, with coffee in their hands.
“Don’t push,” I warned her.
“I won’t.” But the twinkle in her eye made me feel uneasy. What Lea didn’t understand was that Jackson and Oliver weren’t the hard part. Those two were a cakewalk as far as the Allendale Four went. Sweet. Fun.
The problem was that if I opened that door again, really opened it, there were two others I’d have to deal with. The two that had really moved on, and I wasn’t sure my heart could take it.
During a quiet moment that day when everyone else had left for lunch, I sat in the makeup chair and opened my laptop. I’d never been comfortable spying—not after my high school experiences—but in my mind, I called this research.
In the search bar I typed in A5 Gym, and it only took a moment for links and photos to appear. The building wasn’t that far away from my loft—just further into the industrial area. It was a large warehouse, with a basic sign out front. No one knew what that name meant—no one but the five of us—and it was a kick in the gut to see it in the photos. It meant that they were still carrying this with them. As much as I did.
Lea was right. We needed to talk.
I clicked the link to their Facebook page, which was surprisingly active. Videos of workouts and training sessions seemed the most popular. I clicked on one and watched RJ flip a tractor-trailer tire down the football-length mat; his defined muscles rippling with every turn. There were other tutorials; images of guys running through a Parkour course. Basic weight training. A few other notable celebrities that worked in our area. The client list was impressive. There were a few actual superheroes in the bunch.
I scanned down the page and stopped on a link, pressing play. It’d turned into a game; Guess the Celebrity. A broad, shirtless, back came into view, focused on the hard muscles. After a moment the man jumped, hanging from a pull up bar. Quickly he dipped up and down, the muscles in his back quaking, the lines of his sides tapering to a slim waist. Loose shorts hung from his hips, revealing lower muscles, ones that ran to the curve of his ass. The video played through and I watched like a woman dying of thirst. I couldn’t get enough…until the very end when the man dropped from the bar and turned around, a bright smile on his face.
Oliver.
I pressed pause.
Oliver had always been in shape—all the boys had been. Athletic and fit…but Anderson dominated with his swimmer’s physique; long and lean with a wingspan to die for. Hayden was a monster of hard-packed muscle. Jackson and Oliver had a more basic fitness.
Not anymore.
My eyes grazed to the bottom of the screen, looking for a glimpse of what I knew hung between his legs, when footsteps sounded on the metal stairs of the trailer and I snapped the computer shut.
Too much. Too much. How was I ever going to establish a friendship-only with them if they kept getting hotter?
The conflict lingered in my mind all day as I applied and reapplied the makeup on the actors coming in and out of my trailer. I hadn’t stopped thinking about them even after I got home and put on a cozy pair of pajamas. I opened the laptop again and found the page still open.
I didn’t watch the video again—that was a test I’d likely not pass twice, but I did go to the box that let me make an appointment. It was shady as hell and it gave me an out if I wanted to bail. I signed up under a fake name, securing an appointment the next day right after work.
Lea was right, I thought, scrolling through the photos of the gym and seeing the testimonials from the clients. It was time for all of us to move on—to work through the breakup instead of lingering in the purgatory of the past few years. From the look of it, their business was successful. I was successful. We had lives. We could do this.
Maybe.
6
Jackson
Keeping an eye on the ball, I waited as the pitch flew through the air, passing right over the plate. I swung, catching the rawhide with the edge of my bat, tipping it foul.
“Fuck,” I mumbled, waiting for the next pitch.
Crack!
That one slammed hard into left field, catching in the mesh net hanging from the ceiling. I took a step back, letting the next one pass and shaking out my arm and elbow.