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Kenzi’s arms start to shake. Eyebrows is too busy checking her out to notice.
I jerk my hands free of my gloves and blow out a long burst of air before doing something I’m definitely gonna regret. “Hold these.” I thrust my gloves blindly in Jackson’s direction.
“Mylo.” His warning tone barely registers. I’m already moving. Already jumping over the ropes of the sparring ring. Eyebrows spots me before Kenzi does. His smarmy smirk flattens, and he pushes to his feet.
“Daz.” Kenzi presses the weight bar up, eyes scrunched closed with effort. “Okay, okay. Too much.” Her arms tremble even more. Eyebrows just stands there, watching me stalk towards him, like the flake that he is. Her eyes squeeze even tighter, her teeth baring with the effort. “Too much.”
I straddle the bench and Kenzi’s body before her elbows give out completely, lifting the bar from her grip and slamming it into its holder. “You need to find a better spotter.” I grind out with more venom than I mean to when her eyes pop open.
“The fuck, Mylo?” She pulls herself up to sitting when I step back. Her cheeks are flushed, but not in the good way. She glares at me. Scowls at Eyebrows. Then glares at me some more.
“I’ll call you, Zizi. It’d be good to catch upproperlysometime.” His slimy stare drops to her chest, then darts to me as he backs up.
She doesn’t agree—doesn’t disagree either.
My whole body crackles. The need to shut down whatever’s going on between them almost enough to rip a growl right up from the fucking tips of my toes. I have no right.
“What the hell was that?” Kenzi shakes her hands out.
“Your arms were about to give in. He’d have noticed if he weren’t busy checking out your rack.”
Her nostrils flare.
I fold my arms, but don’t back down. I may have no right, but that doesn’t make me wrong.
“I don’t need your help.”
I crack my neck.
She just glares harder.
“Everything okay?” Rae appears beside us, strands of hair that have escaped her ponytail plastered to her sweaty face as she looks between us. “Is it too late to tell you two to play nice?”
I grunt. I’m pretty sure Kenzi growls.
“We were just leaving.” Jackson slaps me on the back, then grips my shoulder in a move I’m pretty sure is normally reserved for drunk idiots.
I’m still in a shitter of a mood a couple of hours later in the Surf Shack. Hands on my hips, I stare blindly at the racks of brand-new surfboards. Flyers are out. I’ve already had a few inquiries. As soon as the legal shit comes through, I’m good to go. I run my hand along the table I built for waxing and repairs, and doubt gnaws at me. If surfing is my heart, building is my soul.
Would it really have been so bad taking over from Dad?
I close my eyes. The weight of all those stares. The pressure of all those fucking expectations. The praise I don’t deserve. Decorated. Respected. Looked up to. I lost my whole fucking team. All dead bar one because of a decisionImade. Who the fuck gives medals for that?
I was a natural—a prodigy—a product of my bloodline—leading came as easily to me as following the chain of command did. The perfect Marine. It was all a lie.
The truth, I’ve never had the balls to share with anyone—if I could have chosen a different path, I would have. If I’d had the guts to shirk the expectations of my family, I’d never have fucking enlisted. I was a fraud.
“Hey, is Mylo around?”
Still scowling, I turn to the doorway and the woman standing in it. “I am.”
Deep brown skin, springy black curls tied back with a scarf, her dark eyes go wide. “Bad time?”
I scrub my hands over my face. “No. Not at all. What can I do for you?”
“I’m here about the surf lessons.” She holds up one of my flyers.
THIRTEEN
