The Guy in the Middle (The Underdogs 3)

“Oh, yeah, plenty when I first started. But none in the last six months.”

“How many fights is that?”

Lance grins. “A lot.” He catches sight of me. “Hey, Priss. You look beautiful.” I avoid direct eye contact as more nausea threatens.

Woman the hell up, Harper.

My stomach rolls and I smile so wide, René gives me an odd look. In an attempt to tone it down, I busy my hands wrapping my scarf around my neck before gathering my bag from the hall tree. “Thank you. Good Morning.”

“It’s noon,” Lance says, trailing after me to the door.

“Like I said, Good Morning.”

“Don’t dancers have to get up early?” He chuckles behind me.

“Life’s a bitch to me that way.”

“Should I wait up for ju?” René calls from behind us.

“You shouldn’t,” I say, blowing a kiss toward his questioning eyes before closing the door. “Sorry about that, he’s a bit of a menace in the man department.”

I make a beeline for the elevator, my nerves still getting the best of me as Lance speaks up behind me. “It’s fine. I like that he’s protective of you.”

“Do you?”

“Yep. But his instincts need work. I’m harmless.”

“Says you,” I hit the button for the lobby and turn to face him, and that’s when I’m struck stupid by the sight that greets me.

“So,” he asks as the elevator door closes, “what’s first?”

“It’s,” I fight the urge to gape at him, “…a surprise.”

“Yeah?” He looks over to me with his silvery gaze and amused smirk. It’s clear that last night I was drenched in too much shock to fully appreciate him. No longer the slim muscular baller I met, he’s all man now. He’s dressed in a thick black sweater outlining his mammoth physique. Wood toggle buttons run down the front, and the round collar lays flat, highlighting the corded muscles at his neck. Beneath clings a black T-shirt that shows a hint of his pecs. The rest of him, he poured into tight black jeans that accentuate his trim waist and muscular thighs, which he followed with black boots. He gelled his thick dark hair, which only draws me in further into the planes of his face, the sharp lines of his jaw. He looks like a mix of conservative and bad boy.

He’s breathtaking, devastating, a man to drink in, slowly.

The truth of this is further reiterated once we hit the busy sidewalk, and the eyes of most female passersby cover him in appreciation. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. It’s one of the reasons it was hard for us to be together in college. Well, one of the reasons it was hard for me. But back then, we were never public like we are now and…did that lady just run into a door?

“Jesus,” I mutter.

“What’s wrong?”

He’s clueless or playing it that way when a group of girls passes us breaking their necks to get a seconds’ long look at him.

I keep my head forward and let out a nervous laugh. “Nothing.”

A woman hovering over a German Shepard picks up his morning dump with the hand not holding the plastic bag as we walk past.

“Damn,” she says before realizing her error. “Oh, shit.”

“Literally,” I grumble at her over my shoulder.

&n

bsp; “What?” Lance looks over to me, drawing his brows.

“Are you serious right now?” The next onlooker, a woman somewhere in her mid-forties, stops midstep on the crowded sidewalk to gawk, her cell at her ear. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see that.”