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EVAN
Thank freaking God I had a workout that morning. The gym was always great for taking my mind off shit.
And I had plenty on my mind.
The three of us were at Jake’s Gym, the open-air beachfront place where we’d been working out since we were old enough to do a bench press. It’d been something of a rite of passage for all of us that, when we hit ten, Dad would take us here and show us the ropes.
The old man had some crazy ideas about things, but exercise wasn’t one of them. He’d managed to give us all a passion for fitness that had stuck well into our adult lives.
Grunge music played on the speakers; the place alive with dozens of people getting their morning workouts in. Duncan was on the lat pull machine; Jay was doing his preacher curls. I was taking a quick water break when a few gym bunnies in skintight leggings passed me by, all smiling and making it obvious as hell they were into me.
I smiled back, but it was more out of being polite than anything.
Something - someone - else was on my mind.
“You alright, dude?” Duncan glanced back at me from where he was seated on the lat press machine.
Duncan was clean-cut, all-American style. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair. He was dressed in a sleeveless shirt, the bald eagle of his Army tattoo stretched across his big bicep.
“Huh?” I was in a daze. I shook my head and came back to the moment.
Duncan nodded in the direction the girls had gone. “Those three were all over you – I could see it in the mirror. I’ve been out in public with you enough times to know that by this point you’d be trying to get all three of their numbers at the same time.”
“Right,” Jay agreed with a grin. “All for yourself, and none for us.”
“But you look like you’re a million miles away, man. What’s up?”
A quick glance between Jay and I let me know he had the same thing on his mind, too. We had a silent conversation, both of us trying to figure out if we ought to bring up what we’d been talking about last night.
I decided to do it. My brothers and I never kept secrets from each other, and I wasn’t about to start then.
“Want to get some fresh air?” I asked, nodding toward the outdoor part of the gym where the basketball and sand volleyball courts were.
Duncan was confused, his forehead crinkled. “Uh, sure. Let me wipe this thing down and hit the head and I’ll meet you out there.”
“Sounds good.”
I nodded to Jay, who hopped off his preacher curl seat and gave the spot where his butt had been a quick wipe down before joining me on the way outside. Guys were busy playing basketball, six girls in bikinis busy with volleyball.
The girls were total babes, but just like the ones inside, I wasn’t interested in them.
There was another woman on my mind who was taking up that part of my brain.
Jay dropped onto the bench next to me, the two of us saying nothing for a time while we people watched.
“You really want to do this now, huh?”
I let out a snort. “You don’t? Dude, you’re the one who started this whole thing last night on the way back to my place.”
Jay raised a dark eyebrow. “You mean after you’d spent the entire ride going on about her?”
I opened my mouth to speak but knew there was no point. The cat was out of the bag.
“Doesn’t matter now, does it? She’s back in town and you and I both want her. And I’d bet anything that Dunc wants her too.”
“Dunc wants who too?” Duncan spoke from behind us. He dropped onto the bench and leaned forward, his dark eyes flicking between Jay and me. “What the hell have you guys been talking about? Or who?”
His face flashed with realization. Then he sat back, the three of us turning our attention forward.
