Page 117 of For the Fans

Raking my fingers through my sweat-dampened hair, I close my eyes and take a breath, trying to calm the hell down before I blow a gasket. “Avi… You need to leave. You have no business being here.” I pin him with a look. “Do you even work out?? I’ve never seen it happen in all the years I’ve known you…”

“Yes, I work out.” He rolls his eyes petulantly. “I just don’t make a habit of doing it in front of other people like I have something to prove.” His lips curl. “Or standing in front of a mirror so I can stare at myself while I lift.”

My fists tighten at my sides. “I’m not lifting… I’m doing squats.”

“Ooh,” he hums quietly. “Sounds like it might be fun to watch.”

“Fuck. Off,” I growl in his face, stepping closer to get my point across. “I need you to leave right now before I pummel your face like a speed bag.”

His head tilts, displaying just how unaffected he is by my threats. It fucking enrages me, because the truth of the matter is…Can you really be intimidated by someone who’s willfully taken your load in their ass?

A harsh shiver runs through me at the thought, but I force myself to push past it. That is irrelevant. Avi’s never been afraid of me or my threats.Us fucking has zero to do with it.

It is, however, making it even more difficult to be around him than usual. I just can’t stop remembering that video… The way it looked when those two people snapped their bodies together, like missing puzzle pieces.

The way I can still feel his quivers and quakes as he moved inside me…

The look on his face when I kissed him on the jaw.

This entire endeavor has become so horribly complicated, because Ihatethis person. I swear I do, yet now, I have all these memories of doing things with him that I… really didn’t hate.

I’ve gotta get him out of here. There’s no way I’ll be able to concentrate with him around.

“Please, Avi…” I whisper through gritted teeth. “Just go.”

“I can’t go,” he sighs, tapping his hand on my hip as he turns away. “It’s leg day.”

He shoots me a wink, and I’m fucking fuming. I think I’m actually turning the color of a tomato from rage.

Using my best skills in distraction and avoidance, I go back to my workout, though the whole time, I’m acutely aware of his presence in the room. And I feel like everyone else is also staring at him, wondering why the hell he’s here, which is just stressing me out even more.

I manage to make it through my next few sets, but I can feel Avi the way you can feel a storm in your bones; a persistent ache that just won’t go away. My eyes keep slinking over to him against my will, watching him use the same machines I’d beenusing, at the same weight and doing so without a visible ounce of struggle.

I don’t understand how he’s possibly in such good shape. It doesn’t make any sense.Why does he need to have a body like that anyway?? He doesn’tdoanything.

The only parts of his body he uses are his hands for drawing and rolling joints, and his giant mouth for talking shit.

And I guess his dick for… Well, yea.

There’s no hope of focusing on anything while my idiot stepbrother is around. Especially when he prances over to my side of the room and starts doing deadlifts only a few feet from where I’m stretching.

“Your form is off,” I grumble, and he peeks at me, frowning. I roll my eyes and step over to him, placing a hand on his lower back. “You need to straighten your spine, or you’ll hurt yourself.”

Avi gives me one of his doe-eyed looks he sometimes gets when he’s confused. It makes him look like a cartoon character, settling a strange sensation in my gut that I’m choosing to interpret as irritation.

Keeping my hand on his back, I tell him, “Here. Try it again.”

He does so, bending his knees while I bend a bit to keep my hand in place. When he comes back up, I nod.

“A little better.” I smirk. “I felt you shaking… That too much weight for you to handle?”

He blinks at me and licks his lip. “I don’t think that was why…”

My brows furrow together, and it finally dawns on me that I’m touching him. I whip my hand away quick, stepping back. “Just… be careful. You could fuck your back up if you don’t do it right.”

Avi’s lips twitch at the corner. “Are you saying you… don’t want me to get hurt?”

I squint and scowl. “I don’t care.”