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“Too late.”

I finally get her out of my room and drag myself into leggings, sneakers, and a hoodie. If I can’t shake this hangover with caffeine, I’m going to sweat it out instead.

***

The apartment gym is quiet when I walk in.

And of course… Nate’s there.

Shirtless. Sweaty. Headphones in. Muscles doing entirely too much while he works a punching bag like it personally offended him.

I try to backtrack quietly.

Too late.

He sees me, pulls out one headphone, and grins. “Didn’t expect to see you voluntarily sweating this morning.”

“Didn’t expect to be awake, period,” I shoot back.

“It’s the weekend. You could have slept in.”

“Speak for yourself. You don’t have bar prep hell to face.”

He tosses me a towel from the bench. I catch it instinctively. It smells like laundry and cedar… and trouble.

“Use that,” he says. “Before you short-circuit the treadmill.”

I raise a brow. “That your way of saying I look like crap?”

“No,” he says. “That’s my way of saying you look flushed. Could be from the kiss. Could be from the hoodie. Could be from the company.”

I narrow my eyes. “You done?”

He shrugs. “For now.”

We both head toward the free weights. I do a half-hearted round of light reps just to seem normal.

“Hey,” he says after a beat. “That spin-the-bottle thing…”

I keep my eyes on the dumbbell in my hand. “You mean besides the fact that you kissed me in front of your teammates?”

He smirks. “I’m pretty sure you kissed me back.”

I don’t dignify that with a response. Mostly because he’s not wrong.

“So what does that mean?” I ask before I can stop myself. “That’s how spin-the-bottle works. Two people kiss.”

He shrugs again, wipes sweat from his chest with the towel. “Means maybe it wasn't just me. You seemed… pretty into it, too.”

I raise an eyebrow and tilt my head. “Doesn’t mean I wrote your name in my diary.”

He smirks. “If my name’s going in the diary, I just hope it’s in pen...and underlined.”

I shake my head, unable to hide the grin forming at my lips. Thankfully the treadmill is on the other side of the room and I head over to walk for the next thirty minutes.

***

As we head for the exit, he holds the door open.