Chapter Eight

Monday morning after the weekend in the Hudson Valley, Noah’s alarm went off before dawn.

It was when he usually woke up, but today felt different. Today, he was sluggish and slow. His limbs were achy. His mouth felt dry. Luke was right—no more day drinking for him.

Clearly, he couldn’t be trusted. Clearly, he couldn’t lose his head like that again.

He knew what he needed to do. Get up, get moving, warm up with an easy jog before his first group run of the day. With fall settling in, business was starting to slow. The holidays would bring fewer clients, which meant less money until the January rush. He had to be on his A game for this morning’s run and hold onto the clients he had.

He lifted his head off the pillow then let it drop again as he remembered. It didn’t matter whether his clients stayed on to train with him over the holiday dip. He was leaving before Thanksgiving. By the time Christmas rolled around, he’d be secure in his new office, working for a new company that made apps with workout routines. A good job, he reminded himself. One he should be proud of.

It wasn’t a contract position where, if he got injured or sick, he’d be screwed. It was full-time office work. A routine. The reliability he’d been missing as he’d cobbled together clients while the rest of his peers had gotten signing bonuses and corporate cards. Even his brother had a 401K now, for Christ’s sake.

He had to remember that moving to L.A. was a good thing. Being a full-time coach was too uncertain, and without a relationship keeping him in New York, there was no longer a reason to stay. If he had any doubts about leaving, he just had to think about how awful this past weekend had gone.

Noah should have known that if they were going to rent a house with friends, of course Luke would invite Amanda. Which of course could only mean trouble.

He’d thought it’d be the kind of trouble that came from having her fawn all over Luke in that nauseating way. Not trouble because he’d wind up pressing her against a barn wall, his fingers slick with her desire, pushing deep inside her, his cock straining to be deeper in her still…

Noah could have pretended he’d woken up hard simply because it was the morning. But he couldn’t pretend that was why he was still hard now. He reached under the covers and freed his dick from his boxers. It was standing up at full mast, so demanding there was no way he could ignore it. He had to get out of bed; he couldn’t be late. And he couldn’t show up breathless, already loose-limbed and tired.

But he didn’t get out of bed. He couldn’t. There was no way he could get dressed and go running while he was in this state.

He stroked himself with a firm, fast flick of his wrist. He just wanted to get it over with—a quick shot and then he’d be done.

But the feel of his cock in his hand only reminded him of how it had felt when it was Amanda’s fingers wrapped around him, Amanda’s palm hot against his shaft. How she’d stroked him, touched him. Just like this.

Only not like this at all.

Not the way it felt when it was his own hand in the dark, his own breathing coming too hard, too fast, trying to keep quiet even though he knew Luke was fast asleep in his room down the hall and would never know…

And she hadn’t just jerked him off. She’d gotten down on her knees and taken him into her mouth, taken him all the way back, sucked and swallowed every last drop. So that when he came now all over his fingers, hot and sticky and gasping, it wasn’t some abstract thing he’d been envisioning.

It was Amanda’s tongue making him come like that. Amanda’s soft lips fulfilling his every need.

He let his hand stop stroking, his dick still hard but now spent. He reached for a tissue, trying to catch his breath. He wiped his hand, his stomach, careful not to get any on the sheets.

He looked over at the clock. Fuck, he was already late. Already guilty.

Already screwed.

But it was just a fantasy, he reminded himself. Thoughts weren’t actions. What he did in the privacy of his apartment, alone, had no bearing on the outside world.

Amanda didn’t actually want him. She’d probably been imagining it was Luke she was with by the barn. A thought that made his dick soften instantly. Noah was her second choice. She’d only gone for him because he was there.

And, soon enough, he wouldn’t be. Which was yet another reason to stop this stupid fantasy before it got any more out of hand.

He didn’t do casual things. That had been Kristina’s big complaint about him—that everything was too serious. Too planned. Too intense.

He definitely didn’t do casual rebounds. Let alone an occasional hookup with someone who didn’t even like him. No matter what his fantasies, nothing between Amanda and him was going to happen again.

He threw the tissues in the trash. His life was neat and organized. He didn’t do chaos. He definitely didn’t make messes.

Amanda Perkins was a messy thing, and she was already sending him into disarray. But he’d be out of this city before he knew it.

It’d be easy, these last few weeks, to stay away.

…

Amanda had never been so glad to go back to work as she was in the days after her disastrous weekend away. Her normal life usually felt so boring. She’d given up on dating after Gregg. She was too broke to check out all the “hot new spots” in the city, and there was nothing Instagram-worthy about her office, even if there were some cool video game stills on the walls.

But this week, boring was what she needed. Boring was perfect. Boring had never been such a relief.

Boring meant Luke saying, “Hey, tiger,” as he passed her desk, tousling her hair like she was his kid sister or something. Before, that would have bugged the crap out of her. Now, it just felt like normal Luke being his normal self.

How had she not noticed that he could be kind of annoying?

Sweet, cute, and funny. But also annoying.

He didn’t have Noah’s intensity or his hard looks and strong drive. He’d only applied to PlayStation because Noah had set it in motion. Luke was used to floating by, going wherever the current took him. Noah was the one with the plan.

Amanda was more like Luke, winding up in New York after college because it was close to her mom and where her friends were moving, getting the job at Zenith Games a few years after that because someone knew someone who knew someone who told her to bring in a portfolio, which she’d stayed up until four a.m. to cobble together. It was a far cry from Noah, who seemed like he was born with a planner in his pocket and a stopwatch on his wrist.

She shook her head and tried to focus on her storyboard. Thinking about how Noah wasn’t like Luke wasn’t helping at all.

When her phone vibrated, she grabbed it from her pocket, hoping it was her friends with some actual advice. But it was her mom asking when she could come rake the leaves in the yard—followed by her usual list of complaints about how hard it was to manage the house on her own and reminding Amanda to never combine assets with a man who’d leave her stuck with the bill.

Amanda silenced her ringer. But that didn’t make it easier to concentrate. Luke’s desk was right in front of her, and he was leaning toward his screen. His shirt rode up, so if she swerved her chair, she could see the line of skin along his back and know enough about what boxers he was wearing to drive herself crazy all day.

But she didn’t look.

She didn’t swivel her chair. She didn’t peek. She didn’t want to know.

Thinking about Luke’s boxers made her think about Noah’s boxers, which made her think about the weekend. Which made her think too damn much.

She trained her eyes on her own computer screen. She was only focused on Brain Gobblers and how much she had to finish before training Luke’s replacement. The mountain of code was a helpful reminder. Luke was moving. Noah was moving, and the best thing she could do was to get over both of them in one fell swoop.

Since she didn’t even like Noah, and she and Luke had never so much as kissed, it shouldn’t be that hard. Right?

“Right,” she muttered under her breath, banging her thumb down so hard on the keyboard that Luke spun around in his chair.

“What?” he said.

She looked up, startled. “What?” she echoed back.

“I thought you said something.”

“Oh.” Her mind raced. “I just, uh—”

She was about to make up something about the graphics giving her a hard time when the lie died in her throat. First, because she wasn’t about to pretend she was struggling with something she was good at.

And second, because the door from the stairwell had just opened. And who was heading toward their open office plan but a drop-dead gorgeous Luke look-alike.

That was what she used to think on the other days Noah had swung by the office. A second Luke who may have had his twin brother’s touchable hair but had unfortunately inherited none of his easygoing charm.

That wasn’t what she thought today when Noah walked in, though. Instead of seeing all the ways he was a replica of Luke but still came up short, all she could see was…him.

He’d obviously come from working out. He was ripped and sweaty in all the right ways, his chest rising and falling from bounding up the stairs. His dark hair fell into his eyes, and when he pushed it back, Amanda’s stomach plummeted to somewhere down by her toes.

She should have been expecting it. He always came in on Tuesdays. But she’d never noticed his arrival before. She’d never cared.

People always described looks as “piercing.” Now she knew why. It really did feel like his gaze was slicing through her, his eyes cutting into her skin.

She tried to look away, but her body wouldn’t listen. It was as though the whole office receded and there was no Luke, no computer, no desk. No one else with their clackety keyboard, the tinny sound of music through their earbuds, the scrapes and sighs of shifting chairs.

There was just Noah running a hand through his hair, sweaty and damp at his temples. Noah with his brow furrowed, his eyes bright, his lips set in a line. No dimples—he wasn’t smiling.

But it wasn’t a scowl. It was just the way he looked. Focused. Intent.

“Earth to Amanda?” Luke waved a hand in front of her face.

“Sorry.” She blinked quickly, trying to look busy. “I was just thinking about…brains.” She flailed around to think of something besides “abs” and then wanted to smack herself for coming up with something so inane.

But the whole game was about zombies taking over Manhattan and trying to eat as many brains as they could find. It was a reverse on the usual zombies=bad in most games, and beta testing promised it was going to be a hit. Luke nodded, like maybe it wasn’t completely implausible.

She exhaled, thinking she was off the hook. Luke would leave with Noah, she’d go back to work, and everything would be fine.

But Luke was still watching her skeptically. Then he turned, following where her gaze had gone.

“Oh,” he said. “Hey.” He waved to his brother. Noah, she couldn’t help noticing, took a beat to wave back.

Don’t look at him don’t look at him don’t look at him. Because now Luke was looking at her and she was looking at Noah and Noah was looking at her and then away and then at her again, and the whole crazy triangle was making her heart rattle. She was sure Luke could hear it. The whole office could hear it. Someone was going to call an ambulance—surely she was having a heart attack, because how could it possibly pound this hard without exploding?

He was wearing black running pants, the kind that were tight enough—or his thighs ripped enough—to show the outline of his muscles through the fabric when he moved. Amanda had never spent much time contemplating calf muscles, but they were obviously underrated. They didn’t get the kind of attention that biceps got, or abs. That was clearly going to have to change.

Not that there was anything wrong with his biceps. Or his abs. He had on a sleek black jacket, the kind of fancy performance-wear people wore to show off that they were going to the gym even if they never did. But Amanda knew it wasn’t showing off to Noah. When he unzipped the jacket, she could see the fitted running shirt underneath, the line of his pecs through the fabric, the hint of sweat. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and the scruff left a dark line along his jaw. It made her suddenly starving for nothing that had to do with food.

She couldn’t live like this.

She got up from her desk and headed for the hallway.

She didn’t know what her feet were doing or where they were taking her, only that she had to get away. She couldn’t sit there under Noah’s gaze anymore.

And she definitely couldn’t pretend in front of Luke—in front of everyone—that everything was as totally wonderful and normal and boring as could be.