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CHAPTERTWELVE
Slade
Ipushed harder through the last two reps of my workout, making my body strain to keep up, and I finished with sweat beading across my forehead and down my back. The campus gym had an expensive setup with plenty of room for students, and I took full advantage. All three of us did, even if Dexter was a little more infrequent in his visits. We knew that strength and flexibility might be the difference between life and death one day with the kind of shit we got into.
I grabbed the spray bottle and wiped down the bench and the weights that I’d been pressing, followed by a swipe of my face with the front of my muscle tee. The burn spreading through my muscles told me I’d made good use of my time.
I headed over to the rooms where the more structured fitness activities were held. Logan’s kickboxing session should be just finishing up. Just as I reached the short hallway, he came around the corner, equally sweaty but looking just as grim as when we’d come in.
Damn. I’d been hoping he’d work some of that bad temper out of him. No such luck.
He nodded to me, and we walked together to the locker room.
“Good class?” I asked.
Logan grunted. “I took down everyone I was up against except one jerk who kept trying to skirt the rules.”
“Hmm. I guess we’re not much of anyone to complain about that approach.”
Logan grimaced at me and grabbed the locker room door, holding it open so I could pass in front of him. If anyone else had done that, I might have been irritated, but I knew from him it wasn’t a sign that he was catering to some assumed feebleness. He’d have done the same for Dexter, just automatically. Logan always felt like he had to do a little more of the heavy lifting.
“It was a good workout, anyway,” he said as we headed toward the shower stalls. A couple of guys passing us glanced down at the bright blue prosthetic poking from beneath my shorts with widening eyes, and then hustled on by when I gave them a wave and a cheery grin. I snorted and refocused on my best friend.
He did look a little looser than when we’d come in. Maybe I could get away with some of the prying I’d been wanting to do ever since the club a couple of nights ago.
I grabbed my towel, soap, and disinfectant wipes and marched toward the shower stall at the end of the row that had a bar on the wall for extra support. Logan followed, taking the one beside mine as I bent over and unstrapped the prosthetic from the stump that served as my knee. After all that sweating, I’d take extra care to disinfect it after showering.
I propped the prosthetic on the bench outside the shower where I could still see it from the stall and hopped inside with a hand on the bar. I might prefer to make use of the same facilities as everyone else when I could match them just fine, but I could admit that in certain situations I needed a little extra help. Wet floors on one foot were a recipe for disaster. As I’d unfortunately found out back in my elementary school days in an incident I’d had to work very hard to erase from my classmates’ memories with a whole lot of other antics.
I tossed my clothes onto the bench from the stall and turned on the water. After I’d given my hair a quick scrub, I angled my head out of the water enough that I could talk.
“You seem like you had a lot of stress to work off,” I said casually. “Anything in particular on your mind? I’m trying to avoid thinking about the end-of-term essay that’s been kicking my ass.”
Logan made a dismissive sound. “It’s always good to blow off some energy.”
I leaned into the shower wall as I poured a generous amount of body wash in my hands and began smearing it across my body. “Does that energy have a name? Maybe Madelyn Silver?”
Logan took a long moment to reply, and my smile only grew. “It has nothing to do with her,” he muttered.
I guffawed. “Yeah? I thought you were agoodliar. So there’s been something between you, huh?”
“Yeah, right. Her fucking case is frustrating as hell. Having her insert herself into the middle of it isn’t any picnic either. That’s all.”
Why was he lying to me about it, even after I’d prodded him?Washe lying? Thinking back to the way he’d looked when he’d broken up our dance in the club, how pissed off he’d been, I didn’t think I’d imagined the flash of jealousy in his eyes. There hadn’t been any other reason for him to be pissed off. He’d gotten to talk to his contact. Nothing had gone wrong.
Of course, considering how wrapped upI’dgotten in Maddie’s charms in that moment, maybe I’d been interpreting his reaction through that lens. He could have simply been irritated that I was getting involved with her in ways beyond the case, since he was so intent on shutting her out of our lives as quickly as possible.
“Seriously?” I wheedled. “You got to live in the same house as a girl that hot and you never even played a little tonsil hockey?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter for once, Slade. I wasn’t exactly so short on options I needed to go after my own stepsister. She’s a major annoyance, and that’s it.”
His tone firmed with the last words in a way that said,End of conversation.
I rinsed myself off quickly and gave my body a swift rub-down with my towel before hefting myself out of the stall to sink onto the bench. As I tugged on my clothes, Logan emerged, getting himself together with equal briskness. He didn’t seem interested in continuing any kind of conversation with me at all now.
As I slipped the sock over my stump, my mind drifted back to Maddie. I’dtriedto follow the bro code and determine his feelings for her. If he was going to insist she was nothing but an irritation to him, then what could I do but take him at face value? I’d given him every opportunity to inform me that he had a stake there or that my presumably obvious interest bothered him, and he hadn’t said a word.
If he lost a chance he wouldn’t even admit he wanted to take because I got there first, then it’d be his own damn fault.
