Page 109 of Forever Relentless

“You lose your temper quickly,” I commented softly.

“I really don’t,” Noah scoffed. “That was nothing.” He shifted in his seat as if he were uncomfortable.

I wanted to lecture. I’d prepared a lecture. A really good lecture. But he looked . . . vulnerable and pissed off, and I knew it was with himself. I didn’t know how I knew it, or what to do with it.

“Are you okay?” I asked him instead.

“He benched me for the spring game.”

I knew that; the whole stadium knew that. Sutherland had not been quiet. “Why’d Dustin hit him?”

“He beat Whittaker up at the beginning of the week.”

“Oh.” Whittaker was the guy they’d taken to Diana. Which led them to realize she was here for more than just being a PT.

“Was that just this week?” I looked out the window. “That’s crazy.”

“This whole shitshow is crazy.”

I turned back to him and saw his broody expression. He looked sexy. He looked hot as sin even doing nothing, which was completely unfair. Even sitting there, driving, scowling at the car in front as if it had personally insulted him by being on the road at the same time, he looked hot as sin instead of looking like a petulant toddler.

I needed to speak with my body about its priorities.

“You’re staring at me.”

“Yeah.”

Noah glanced at me. “Yeah?”

That slow, sexy smirk was going to be my undoing. I needed a change of subject. “I saw Hadley today.”

“Why?”

I laughed out loud at his surprise.

“Yeah, it wasn’t by choice.” I moved in my seat to look at him better. “I was out early this morning, and so was she. We ran into each other.”

“Why were you out early?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “How early? She kicked Slater out last night so she could sleep in, he’s going to be pissed if she was up anyway.”

She hadn’t been lying. Interesting. “Yeah, she mentioned something about a cat waking her up.”

He nodded as if that made sense. “So what was your excuse?”

“Huh?”

“For being up early? And how early is early?”

“Around seven.”

He looked over at me. “That’s not early.”

“Only psycho sports people think that.”

“My dad’s already at work by seven. He sells AC units.”

“You live in Vegas, pretty sure selling AC in the desert is a twenty-four-hour job.”

He gave me a smug smile. “Been looking into me, Briar?”