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Though I’m almost certain if I ever bring this up to Colton in the future he’ll groan with embarrassment.
“Yeah, we’ll work on it. I promise,” he tells me.
I nod and smile. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”
“Please do.”
chapter seventeen
colton
“I was surprised to hear from you this morning. Normally you just give me some lame excuse and let your body turn into the limp noodle that it is.”
I look at August in the mirror opposite us and give him a look that says he’s full of shit. He just smirks and lies back on the bench then prepares his grip on the bar above him.
“Hey, you try lugging around a thirty-pound child all day long and tell me that’s not a workout.”
August looks up at where I stand above him, his face pinching in a way that says he couldn’t imagine anything more horrifying.
“Yeah, I’ll hard-pass on that one, thanks.”
“You know you’re a terrible uncle.”
“I’m an excellent uncle,” he says. “Just because I don’t want to spend my free time lugging around a squirmy sack of skin that shits everywhere and cries nonstop doesn’t mean I don’t love your kid, Colt. Besides, you think I wanna let some little gremlin hog all the good titty? I don’t think so.”
I chuckle as he takes a few breaths, then lifts the bar from the rests and begins his set.
The reason August and I met in college in Florida is because we both played for the baseball team, so we’ve spent many days and nights together at the gym, working on our conditioning and building up our muscles.
When I injured my knee senior year, he tried to push me to get back into the gym, but I begged off, trying to give myself permission to let go of the dream of going pro. We stayed friends, obviously, but gym time together wasn’t ever a thing for us again.
As soon as I moved from Charleston to California, he started bugging me about going with him again, saying I probably got soft and stopped lifting on my own—which was true, to some degree. My own efforts at being healthy and keeping fit come and go with my moods, though I’ve always been lucky enough to have a tall, athletic frame.
Today though, whooo boy. I forgot what it’s like to lift with August, to go through a full set with him. He called me a limp noodle earlier, and I’m ashamed to say my arms are going to feel that way when I get home.
My arms aren’t small by any means, but I can’t remember the last time I put them through a workout as grueling as workouts can be with August, so to say I’m sore by the time I’m done with my sets is an understatement.
“Speaking of titties,” August says as he places his bar back in the rest and sits up, using a small towel to wipe off some of his sweat. “I saw you talking with Shannon at Teddy’s birthday party.”
I nod. “The CPA.”
“The T and A is more like it,” August says, leaning toward me so his voice doesn’t carry across the room. “Look, I don’t doubt that there’s a lot of stuff going on for you mentally after Melody. But sometimes, you just have to dust off the cobwebs and release some of the pressure, you know?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
His eyebrows rise as he leans back against the bench again. “Yeah?”
“I mean, I told you what things were like with Melody before she passed. We hadn’t had sex in months. So when you talk about dusting off the cobwebs…” I shrug again. “Part of me gets it, but I also don’t know what I’m ready for.”
And isn’t that the truth.
Even after my escapade with Emily in the back seat of my car last night, I rode the high of that until I was in my shower, cleaning up and envisioning what it might be like to slide into her tight pussy. I was so turned on I almost had the energy to come a second time that night.
But once I’d cooled down and crawled into my makeshift bed of sheets and blankets alone, I started to wonder if I’d made a mistake, done something horribly wrong.
We are so very clearly walking a tightrope that could snap at any second, and yet I can’t seem to help myself now that she’s given me the green light. All I can do is imagine all the different ways I can take her in my house. Her bed, her shower, her dresser, my shower, the kitchen, the sofa, in the pool, my office bent over the desk.
That one is a particular favorite.
