On The Ropes (Tapped Out 3)

She sighed. “Jase, come on.”

If she was whipping out “Jase”—from what I’d observed, no one called JC Jase except his mother and fleet of sisters—she was already weakening. She hated to say no to anyone, but especially to a friend. And JC was one of her closest ones. Probably the closest other than me.

I frowned. When the hell had that happened?

“No, you come on.” He grabbed her hands and tugged her closer, looming over her. Something prickled in my gut, and it wasn’t jealousy. Wasn’t only jealousy, anyway. “We hardly ever have time to hang out anymore. You’re always doing your art thang or working here, and I’m always busting my hump on a site. We gotta take some time, Lil.” He tossed me a glance. “All of us. You need the break too, Knapp.”

I nearly asked him how he knew what I needed in any capacity, then bit my tongue. We were friends as well, even if I pretended we weren’t.

Often.

Yeah, so there might’ve been some denial in there on a pretty frequent basis on my part. Denial we were friends, denial I found him hot, denial I liked the way we all were together when I could pull the stick out of my ass. So if she wanted to go, I’d go too.

Otherwise, I was going to skip it. Even if it turned out he didn’t discriminate between X and Y chromosomes, his washboard abs weren’t enough for me to risk opening that can of worms. He’d blab to Lily and tell her I wasn’t just the sweet older brother stand-in she’d always thought. I also liked to fuck rough and hard. To bruise and be bruised.

“It’s up to Lily.” I didn’t elaborate, just waited.

She tilted her head as if to say “seriously?” but she didn’t complain. She only bit her lip and nodded. “All right, fine. We’ll come over for a little while to check out your new place. Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” JC grinned and picked her up to spin her around, making her laugh. “You made my freaking day.”

He looked at me over her bobbing ponytail, including me in the moment. He always seemed to do that in one way or another.

“We’re going to have a great time.” It was as if he was speaking directly to me. “The best time ever. You’ll see.”

“Just make sure there’s beer.” I turned toward the door. “I gotta get back to my workout.”

“Yeah. Good luck at the fight, man. See you Saturday.”

In the doorway, I hesitated. There was something in his voice. Something I couldn’t place but recognized on an elemental level.

Maybe I didn’t want to place it. Not then.

“Yeah, thanks.” I tapped the flat of my hand on the unfinished frame above my head and kept going.

Friday night needed to be my focus. Supposed “best time ever” or not, Saturday night wasn’t going to change my life.