With a sigh, I dumped the messy blender into the sink and did a quick swipe of the countertops so that my mom wouldn't tan my hide when she got home.
"Good thing I came over."
"Yeah? Why's that?" I tossed the dirty towel into the sink next to the blender.
"Looks like you've been slacking on your abs. You might want to do some crunches while we're in there."
Slowly, I turned my head to glare at her, and she was already backing her chair up with a grin. She pivoted and turned toward the direction of the gym when I took off, grabbing the back of her chair and tipping her backward until her hair was almost touching the ground.
She shrieked, holding tight onto the arms of her chair as I held her captive. Her breaths came in helpless gulps between laughter. "Put me down, asshole."
Because I couldn't help myself, I held her there for another second before she lifted her fist in a warning.
"Not fair," I told her as I set her to rights.
Joss smacked me in the stomach before she pushed forward. "Life isn't fair, Buchanan. Get over it."
I watched her turn the corner before I dropped my face into my hands with a groan.
"Get over it, she says," I muttered.
Yeah, because it was that easy.
Chapter 11
Jocelyn
It didn't take long until I was convinced that somewhere inside my body, a writhing, pulsing mess of hormones had been uncapped. Whatever thing caused a person to start noticing things they'd never noticed before was officially unleashed.
Just as he always did, Levi held my feet steady while I did crunches, then Russian twists until my core muscles were shaking. He used only one hand while the other scrolled through his Instagram feed.
Every time I levered my upper body back up, I caught myself noticing the vein that twisted around the top of his forearm and over the generous curve of his bicep. After the smoothie incident, he'd decided to forgo a shirt, and I felt … weird about it.
Because I didn't usually spend much time cataloging muscles. On anyone.
Levi wasn't covered in bulky, gym rat muscles.
Everything was tight and wiry and densely packed, stretched like a snare drum and as precise as the stick hitting the surface.
And when did his six-pack become so … perfectly defined? Each compact square underneath his skin had neat lines delineating them. There was a V exactly where a V should be on a man.
Because of course there was.
As I grunted through another twist, I damn well knew I didn't have the same cut of muscle on my own midsection. I could probably do a thousand stupid twists every day, and I wouldn't be able to replicate it.
I had abs, faint, toned ones that absolutely no one saw because I wasn't exactly rolling down Main Street in a bikini.
"You should start one of these," he said, giving me quick glance.
"Start one what?"
He turned his phone screen to face me, and I caught a quick glimpse of one of the fitness accounts he followed.
I blew a raspberry as I heaved myself back up and twisted my clasped hands back and forth. "No, thank you."
"Why not? You're like, inspirational and shit."
My back hit the floor with a thud when I started chuckling. "Thanks."
"Done?" he asked.
When I nodded, he let go of my feet and held out his hands. From where I lay on the floor, I stared up at him, breathing heavily for a few seconds. We both knew I didn't need Levi's help to get up. I could turn over onto my hip and hoist myself into my locked chair. I could brace both hands on the armrests and pull myself to standing.
"I've got it," I told him once I caught my breath.
His eyes never strayed from my face as he towered over me. "Okay," he said after a beat. "What's next?"
With one hand hooked under my knees, I turned my legs to the side and sat up. I scooted toward my chair and stared up at it.
It didn't happen often anymore because this had been my reality for so many years, but for a moment, I was swamped with the overwhelming thought that I'd never been able to just … stand easily. I couldn't brace a foot on the ground, push a hand down on my knee, and straighten my body to all five feet ten inches.
If I closed my eyes, I could remember quite clearly what it felt like. Which was precisely why I didn't close my eyes, because it was a train of thought I tried not to indulge in. It gained me nothing. It served no purpose other than to spur self-pity and discontent.
Maybe that got uncapped inside me too—the unfortunate and unforeseen by-product of these spilled hormones racing and tumbling through my body. Having Andrew lay gentle, caring, instructional hands on me earlier, right in the midst of something that made me weak and frail, pissed me off.
I didn't want to feel anger or resentment for his role in my life, that his hands moved over me like that of a practitioner helping a patient because I'd deal with the rest of my life. Andrew, Denise, my doctor—it didn't matter who the hands belonged to, at the end of the day, I’d always have people in my life whose sole purpose was to treat me for the things I lacked.
The sudden course of anger needed to get out, out, out. I wanted it gone. I didn't want to follow where it might lead me.
"Sonic?" Levi asked.
I blinked, unaware that I'd been staring through my chair for the past few seconds. Unthinking, I held my hands to him. "I think I want to do some chin-ups."
His brow wrinkled for a second because I rarely asked for help. Strong hands gripped mine, his calloused fingers wrapping completely around my palms. He pulled me up, and instead of helping me into my chair, Levi all but forced me to stand.
I managed to steady my feet with only one clumsy shuffle forward, but steady myself I did.
"I forget how tall you are sometimes," he said quietly, his eyes holding mine.
Smiling a little, I pulled my hands slowly from his sure grasp. "Now I can't punch you in the balls as easily."
His grin spread, and I couldn't help but notice how his face transformed when he smiled. The skin by his eyes wrinkled in a way that shouldn't have been attractive but was. That dimple in his cheek was deep, and just to piss him off, I poked at it with my finger.
"Put that away, Buchanan. Your unfair height advantage is no laughing matter."
He backed up, trying to smother his grin, and failing miserably.
"Come on, Sonic. Show me what you've got," he said, jerking his chin in the direction of the chin-up bar mounted up on the far wall, about ten feet away from where we stood. He braced his hands on his hips and started tapping his foot.
I stuck my tongue out at him, which made him laugh. Those ten feet felt like twenty as I stared, no walker in front of me, even though the safety of my chair was directly behind me.
"Don't help unless I start falling," I told him.
His jaw was tight, but he nodded.
Levi had seen me walk, probably more than anyone else, but I still hated doing it in front of him. In front of anyone. And, ultimately, that was my problem. Working through the pride issues that still haunted me seven years later felt like something I'd struggle with for the rest of my life. It was why The Pitiers, on the whole, bothered me more than The Blinders.
With my arms out like a little kid crossing a balance beam, I swung my right foot forward, then my left, using that upper body I'd worked so hard on to give myself the proper momentum forward.
Levi walked beside me, within arm's reach, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him physically stop himself from reaching out to me when I almost pitched too far to the right. I favored that side, and when I was underneath the chin-up bar, that leg caused my arm to shoot out to the wall in order to stop myself from falling forward.
His voice was rough when he spoke. "See? Inspirational and shit."
"Ha." I caught my breath and looked over my shoulder at him. "I look like an airplane about to land."
"You do not."
I rolled my eyes because I knew what I looked li
ke. "You won't win this one, Buchanan. Come on, boost me up."
Levi came up behind me when I lifted my hand toward the bar. His hands, big and capable, gripped my sides with a strength that had the air shooting out of my lungs. His fingers curled around my hip bones, and when he exhaled, it ruffled the curls that escaped down the back of my neck.
"You are fucking amazing, Jocelyn, airplane arms and all."
My eyelids fluttered shut, and I was so, so glad I wasn't facing him. I didn't want to see what was on his face as he said it, and I didn't want him to see what was on mine.
He'd helped me hundreds of times—more than I could count—and not once, not for even a fraction of a second had I thought about his fingers when they covered any surface of my body.
If this was because of Andrew, then I was officially in a fight with him, because what I didn't need in my life was something that made me catalog how the skin covering my bones changed when my best friend touched it.
With no more effort than breathing, Levi hoisted me up, and my hands grabbed the bar, fingers curled in the direction of my face. Levi stepped back. My hips felt cold and bare.
"Thank you," I whispered, staring straight at the wall. "Can you bring my chair over?"
Without a word, he did. And like normal, once my chair was locked into place, he made deft movements with his hands, wrapping a thick, Velcro band around my knees to keep them together, to hold my legs steady.
I took a deep breath and pulled myself up, relishing the way my muscles curled and bunched.
Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, I pulled myself up.
My arms and shoulders ignited after only a couple of reps. With each shift, I felt the fire spread into different places.
My back. My abs. My obliques.
I blew out a hiss of air as I did another rep and then lowered myself back to hanging, arms shaking visibly.
Levi stayed quiet behind me, but I felt his eyes on me.
A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my face, and I breathed in and out.
"Done?" he asked.
"One more," I said, dropping my chin and adjusting my fingers.
Inch by excruciating inch, I pulled myself up one more time until my chin cleared the metal bar. With my teeth clenched together, I struggled not to drop down too quickly.
When my arms were fully extended, I nodded over my shoulder.
Levi held my waist this time, not my hips, and even through the layer of my shirt, the heat of his hands was instant.
My brain jumbled as he helped me down until I could sit back into my chair. Like someone punched the fast-forward button on a VHS tape, and I was struggling to stop in the place that I wanted.
When he held out a towel, I took it gratefully, wiping it over my face as I struggled to catch my breath.
"Thanks," I told him.
"You okay?"
Surprised at the seriousness of his tone, I looked up at him. "Yeah, why?"
"That was three more than you usually do."
"It was?"
Levi nodded, searching my face.
I handed the towel back and unlocked my chair. "Maybe I'm still in a weird mood from PT. I should probably go home and let Nero out. He's probably pissed at me for leaving him at home."
"Why didn't you take him?"
Under my breath, I laughed. "Taking Nero to PT is about the same as taking you."
He adopted a mock-hurt expression. "Gee, thanks."
"You know what I mean. Your sole purpose is to intimidate."
"But unlike your marshmallow of a dog, I'd actually hurt someone." He waved a hand in front of his face. "Behind this pretty face is the soul of a killer."
I rolled my eyes, giving his leg a condescending pat before I backed my chair up. "Okay, Cujo."
"You work tomorrow?" he asked as he followed me through the kitchen.
"Until noon. Why?"
Levi was quiet as I went down the ramp in the garage and out onto the driveway. I unlocked the car and opened the driver's side door. "Do you mind?" I asked.
He shook his head, taking the chair to the back after I boosted myself into the car.
"Speaking of work, when are you going to start contributing to society?"
His smile was easy, but there was a tightness behind his eyes. "I've got an interview in a couple of days, actually."
"That's great," I exclaimed, shoving at his shoulder. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
Levi shrugged. "I'm sure nothing will come from it. It's a phone interview, and I think they're indulging me because it's a connection through Hunter."
I nodded. "Ahh. The elusive oldest brother who hates Green Valley and never comes home."
"He doesn't hate Green Valley," he hedged. "I don't think. I know his wife does, though, so they never really come home."
"It's weird that you have this whole other sibling who I don't know."
His hand tapped the roof of my car. "Bothers you, doesn't it?"
"What's the interview for? I thought you couldn't find anything around here."
A truck rumbled down the street, and he squinted in the direction of the sound. "It's definitely been harder than I thought."
"I'd be going out of my mind by now if I were you."
Levi huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, most days I definitely feel like I'm going crazy."
The words, the lack of eye contact, the way he held his body had me searching for the hidden meaning in what he'd just said.
"Is that so?"
"Only most days," he said when he finally looked back at me.
"I still think you could start your own place here or in Maryville. Even Knoxville. It's not that far."
His eyes searched mine steadily. "Is that what you would do? Start a business if you couldn't find the job you want?"
I looked back just as steadily. "I don't know, smartass, considering I still have no freaking clue what I even want to do."
"There's nothing wrong with that," he told me for the eight hundredth time since I started my classes.
"I know, I know. But it's still easier to tell you how to fix your life than try to figure out my own." I swept my arm out toward him. "Hence me planning your imaginary business that you're going to start."
"Would you finally be one of my clients if I did?"
"No way. Conflict of interest much?" I smiled. "Besides, I'd argue with you too much when you told me what to do. I'd drive you insane."
He braced his hands on the doorframe and studied my face with a slight grin. "You say that like you don't already drive me insane."
"Good point," I said thoughtfully. "Let me know if you want to do something after I'm done tomorrow."
He shut the car door for me and nodded. "Will do."
As I drove away, my skin still humming and twitching the same way it did when I left PT, I realized he didn't answer my question about the interview. Their street disappeared in my rearview, and I told myself I'd ask him about it tomorrow.
Chapter 12
Levi
Have you ever accidentally popped the seam on one of those refrigerated tubes of cinnamon rolls? If you pressed too hard or even just peeled the wrapping off, you risked releasing the pressure. Once that happened, you had no choice, no way to undo what you'd just done.
It was the worst, most accurate analogy I could think of for what was happening once I'd realized I had to start trying to get Joss to see me as something other than her best friend.
There was no way for me to undo it.
Bringing her a box of flours was … ill-advised, considering I'd forgotten that we'd once watched that movie together. So what if some clever scriptwriter thought of it first? But the look on her face, even after she realized it wasn't precisely my idea, made the whole thing worth it.
It made her happy. Made her smile. But that was still not what made me feel like I was driving a runaway train.
Working out with her was.
In the five years of being friends with her—being fr
iends with her while also being in love with her—I'd never felt the tension between us like I had in the gym today.
I wanted to lick the sweat off her collarbone. Prowl over top of her and take her mouth with mine while gripping her hips for an entirely different reason.
And even if it had only been for a split second, I saw how still she became before I lifted her up, when my hands were on her. Joss was holding her body so tightly, with such control, because something had popped open, air hissing from a split seam, and there was nothing I could do to undo it, even if I'd wanted to.
It would have been so easy to lean forward and touch my lips to the back of her neck, to wrap my arms around her and bury my nose in her hair and inhale her like an addict would a neatly tapped line of drugs.
Which was why it was so ironic that I now couldn't figure out what to do next. For as much as Joss gave me shit about my ease with women, she was the puzzle I couldn't figure out how to put together. The edges were connected, the majority of the picture clear and assembled and snapped in place, but you needed the missing pieces to see the full picture. Without them, you couldn't quite figure out what it was.
Did I think I was the best man for her? Hell yes.
In a very masculine and non-pathetic way, I'd love her for the rest of my life, no matter whether she ever realized it or not. The Buchanan men had never done it any other way.
The story was told that when my Great-Great-Grandmother Kathleen died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-two, leaving my great-great-grandfather a widower with two sons, he never once thought of remarrying. His heart was done for long ago, it was said. It met its match, found the one that changed his life, and he never regretted the years he spent alone because he had twelve years with the person he loved.
It was as good as gospel in my immediate family. Anyone who met my parents viewed them as the holy grail of partnerships.
Maybe that was stupid. My dad's brother, Uncle Glenn, thought the entire thing was "twice-baked bullshit," which was why my cousins, Grady and Grace, thought we were insane for buying the stories.
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