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CHAPTER 11

Theo

Iwas dead. Jude was dead. Wyatt was dead. We were all dead. Just dead, dead, dead.

And by dead, I meant that we were all so fucking sore I wasn’t sure we’d be able to walk for a week, let alone get back into working out again tomorrow. I’d never worked out so hard in my life. Hell, even my dad never made me work out that hard.

The three of us collapsed wherever gravity took us the second we got back to my room at GOAT. I at least made it onto my bed. Jude apparently decided getting near the bed counted and landed half on top of me instead, while Wyatt gave up entirely and dropped onto the floor before the door had fully closed.

Nobody moved after that.

“Fuck. Your. Brother,” Wyatt moaned, enunciating every word. “That was brutal.”

Jude grunted in response.

“You think Coach Mason wasn’t working us as hard as he should’ve?” I dared to ask. “Is Rhodes just getting started?”

“You shut your mouth,” Jude grumbled. “That fucker better be easing the fuck off. I can’t move.”

“I’m aware,” I retorted, mostly because approximately half of his body was still crushing mine.

“I’m hungry, but the idea of chewing makes me hurt,” Wyatt chimed in. “My goddamn teeth hurt, man. Why do my teeth hurt?”

“You talk too much,” Jude told him.

“You clench your teeth when you lift too much, I managed to move one shoulder enough to jostle Jude, immediately regretted the effort, then kept doing it until he finally rolled off me and landed on the floor with a heavy thud. Worth it. I was too sore for his giant self to be on top of me. “You’re a dumbass.”

“Yup,” he agreed. Groaning loudly, Jude somehow hauled himself to his feet. “Waters?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt replied. “Can you hold the bottle for me too?”

“I’ll waterboard your ass,” he threatened.

The two of them immediately fell into their usual rhythm of empty threats and increasingly stupid insults. Normally, I would’ve joined in. Instead, I flopped onto my back and wrestled my phone out of my shorts. As expected, there was nothing from Rhodes. That wasn’t a surprise. I knew what he was doing. Rhodes would keep putting up as many boundaries between us as humanly possible.

But I called bullshit. Maybe that was delusional, but whatever. I had a plan to win Rhodes back. Or, technically, I had something vaguely resembling the beginning of a plan. Most of my romantic education came from chick flicks, which probably wasn’t ideal, considering Rhodes fit almost none of the usual criteria. He had the hair for it. That was about as far as I got. I couldn’t exactly stand outside his bedroom with a boombox. Grand public declarations were definitely out. Extravagant quests seemed impractical. Also, I was with Jude on this one—no major PDA. Rhodes would probably murder me if I turned our situation into some giant spectacle, coach or not.

That meant I had to improvise.

Luckily, Rhodes had one glaring weakness in his whole I am shutting you out of my life strategy: technology. Because if he genuinely wanted nothing to do with me, he probably wouldn’t keep reading every message I sent.

Head to toe, shit hurts. You worked my ass hard today.

I stared at the screen for a second and smiled. I couldn't help myself.

Well… we both know you’re damn good at that.

Not even a minute passed before the messages were marked as read, and my grin widened immediately. Rhodes could ignore me all he wanted, but he was still looking at his phone when my name popped up.

That counted for something.

If you’re going to ignore me, you should turn off your read receipts.

Maybe calling him out wasn’t my smartest move. Then again, smart decisions hadn’t exactly defined whatever Rhodes and I were. I watched the screen, pretending I wasn’t ridiculously invested in whether those little dots appeared.

HORNY DEVIL: I’m not changing my phone settings for you.

That’s fine.