10 Years (Time for Love 5)

“It’ll be ready,” he responded.

He was so damn sweet that I couldn’t just walk away, so I pressed my lips to his bare back and said, “You’re too good to me.”

“Impossible,” he replied, causing my lips to curve against his skin, then I turned to go and get my clothes on, so I could hurry back and fill my empty stomach.

As I walked down the hall, one hand securing my towel, I used the other to pinch myself.

Yup, I was awake.

Chapter Twenty-Six ~ Craig

Present Day (20 years old)

I bent over, my hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath.

Shit, Coach seems hell bent on killing us, I thought, and the season hasn’t even started yet.

“You okay, man?” Liam asked from the ground next to me. He was laid out on his back, his arm thrown over his eyes, his own chest heaving.

“Come on, ladies,” our coach called from his sedentary position on the bleachers. “You know you have to keep moving … You don’t want to get sick.”

I grunted, although whether it was in response to the coach or Liam, I wasn’t quite sure.

Once I was able to breath normally again, I held a hand out to help my friend up.

“Just imagine what he’s going to be like in the fall,” I mumbled to Liam, hoping the coach didn’t hear me with his super-sonic hearing.

“We’ll be dead,” Liam replied under his breath.

“Running five miles too much for the all-stars?” Coach yelled out, proving there was nothing you could say within a mile radius that he wouldn’t hear.

“No, sir,” Liam and I responded simultaneously, making our way toward the locker room as the other poor bastards on our team started to cross the finish line.

I stuffed my sweaty clothes in my gym bag and headed for the shower. I’d been in enough locker rooms that taking a shower with my team was the same as taking one alone at home. I was totally comfortable and didn’t give a thought to walking through the room to the shower butt-ass naked.

The showers were pretty up to date. It was no longer an open bay of showerheads, but a bunch of individual “showers” with a curtain blocking you from view of others. They even had dispensers with a shampoo/body wash combo, but it smelled like flowers, so I always brought my own.

Some of the guys gave me shit. Called me Abercrombie, or some other such name that was supposed to be an insult, but really just meant I cared about my hygiene and the way I looked, so it never bothered me at all.

Once I was finished getting ready, I told Liam I’d wait for him in the lobby off the gym. If I was Abercrombie, Liam was GQ, and after practice, he always took longer than me to get ready. Rather than wait for him in the stinky locker room, I’d grab a seat on one of the sofas in the lobby, which smelled much better.

I usually took the time to catch up on social media, or with friends and family, which was what I planned to do now.

I looked up at the clock, hoping that Cal wouldn’t be too busy at this time.

He and TJ owned and ran C.T. Custom Body Shop, so their hours tended to be unpredictable. Although, over the last few years, they’d really hit their stride and had been able to hire on some really talented help, so my brother tended to be the businessman, rather than the grease monkey. He still tinkered around whenever he could though, so I knew he missed being under the hood.

“Hey, brother, it’s good to hear from you,” was Cal’s greeting when he answered his phone.

I smiled at the sound of his voice, leaned back against the couch cushion, and extended my legs.

“Hey, how’s things?”

“Nice and busy around here, which is how we like it. TJ’s out working on a ’59 Corvette that he’s got a major hard-on for,” Cal said with a chuckle, “While I’m stuck in here making sure payroll’s correct. Not quite as bad-ass, I’m afraid.”

I laughed at the image of my brother behind a desk. He’d always hated paperwork, but I guess it was different when you were running your own shop.

“How are my favorite niece and nephew doing? And your beautiful wife?”