Page 10 of Over the Moon (Rosewood River #3)

Maybe it was because I saw Eloise there, out on the dance floor, hands in the air with her head tipped back in laughter.

Maybe it was seeing her talking to Brett that got under my skin.

Maybe it was because I was spending all this time with my trainer.

She was getting in my head, in more ways than I wanted to admit.

“Yeah, Henley and Lulu asked me to go, but I just don’t know if that would be weird of me to go to dinner at your family’s house.”

“It’s weird that you haven’t. Randall came to Rosewood River last summer on vacation, and he came to dinner twice that week. Your father has come to Sunday dinner, as well. Stop being a stubborn ass. It’s just dinner.”

I groaned when she pulled my leg back, and I felt the pull in my quads.

“If it would make you feel better, I can skip dinner on Sunday if you want to go.”

She let my leg relax and smirked. “Now who’s being the stubborn ass?”

“All right. Twist my leg. I’ll go to dinner, too.”

“How gracious of you,” she said.

“Are you still going out with that twat?” I asked, because Lulu and Henley had mentioned that Brett Lewis had taken her to dinner last weekend.

I don’t know why that bothered me so much.

Obviously, I didn’t care for the dude, but he wasn’t a dangerous guy.

We just had a falling out, and I thought he was a douchebag.

But I had no claim on Eloise, so it didn’t make sense that it bothered me this much.

Her eyes widened, and she ignored the question for a few beats.

“Twat? How very mature of you.” She reached for my other leg and leaned forward, giving me a straight shot down her tank top.

I looked away because she was worried that it was unethical to attend a Chadwick Sunday dinner, and I was hard as steel from being stretched and getting a shot of her tits, which were completely covered by a sports bra.

Pull your shit together, asshole.

“Just a friend making sure you’re not making a huge mistake,” I said.

“We went to dinner. He’s a nice guy. I haven’t gone out with him again, but he’s asked,” she smirked.

“Suit yourself. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“It would help if you told me what your issue is with him.”

“Wouldn’t that be crossing ethical boundaries?” I chuckled, and she led me through a few more torturous stretches as Zach Bryan’s voice played through the speakers.

“Hardly. We’re discussing a guy that I went out with. So clearly, we aren’t interested in one another if we’re talking about dating other people.”

“Clearly,” I said dryly. “And for the record, you’re not my type.”

“Good to know. You’re not my type either,” she chuckled. “Cocky athletes don’t do it for me.”

“Ahhh… you prefer douchebags over winners.”

“Winners or weiners?” she said, as her head fell back in laughter, and it was cute as hell. She didn’t relax all that often, and I could tell she was getting more comfortable with me.

“Who’s the mature one now?” I asked, teasingly. “I’m not getting into it. I warned you, so do whatever you want with that information.”

She pushed to stand, and I did the same before following her over to the circuit machines. I started with legs, grateful that my knee was getting stronger every day. I reached for my water bottle after the first set, and she snatched it and held it above her head.

“Tell me why you don’t like him, Clark.” She narrowed her gaze, holding the bottle out of my reach.

I always rose to the challenge, and I moved so fast she didn’t see me coming. I grabbed the water bottle with one hand, snaking the other arm around her waist with the other.

Her body was flush against mine, and I smiled down at her. “You might be able to force me to hold off on running, but you can’t withhold water from a man.”

Her lips parted, her breaths coming hard and fast before she put her hands on my chest and pushed back, stepping away from me.

“Like I said, cocky athletes are not my thing. You’re bigger and stronger, I get it.” She huffed and turned around, giving me her back and stepping away.

Fuck. I was just kidding. I didn’t mean to piss her off.

“Brett Lewis was my best friend, and he fucked my high school girlfriend when we all went away for college. They’d gone to the same school, and apparently, they’d been sneaking around behind my back most of the first semester.

One weekend, I went there to surprise them both and found them in her dorm room looking awfully cozy. I confronted her, and she admitted it.”

Eloise’s mouth hung open.

“Wow. That is some shady business right there.” She shook her head, and loud laughter bellowed from me.

Shady business.

That’s one way to put it.

“She said some bullshit about being in love with both of us, and she couldn’t handle the distance.

” I shrugged because it was water under the bridge.

“She and I had run our course. We just had a long history, so I wouldn’t have expected that kind of disrespect from her.

But Brett, man… That one hurt. We were tight all our lives. ”

“So what did you do?”

“I told both of them that I was done with them. She cried, and he just stood there, looking dumbfounded, like he couldn’t believe he was caught.

And then he reached out two weeks later and came to see me.

He told me he ended things with her because it was more about the chase, and they had nothing in common in the end. ”

“Noooooo. He betrayed his best friend, and it was just about the chase?”

“Yeah, I would have had more respect for them if they’d really been in love, and it went the distance. So I knocked his ass out, and we’ve never spoken again.”

“He had it coming,” she said, shaking her head with disgust.

“Like I said, the dude is an asshole.”

“For the record, I wasn’t going to go out with him again. The date wasn’t great. He literally talked about you the entire time. He wanted to know how bad your injury was, and if you were dating, and how long you’d be in Rosewood River.”

“Way to win a lady over on the first date,” I said, not hiding my sarcasm. “So why the hell did you let me believe you were going out with him again?”

“I figured if I told you I was considering it, you’d tell me why you despised the guy.”

“So you lied to me? Weeze, lying for information would definitely push the boundaries of the ethical contract,” I chuckled.

Her lips turned up in the corners. “I stretched the truth.”

“So, how much did you tell him about me?”

“Nothing. Nada. Zilch.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m quite the vault when it comes to being discreet.”

“You’re a damn good professional friend, Weeze,” I chuckled.

“Right back at you, Hotshot,” she said.

“Chicken Fried” by the Zac Brown Band started playing, and I leaned forward, singing the chorus right in her ear as she swatted me away.

“Get your butt over to the pull-up machine and get ready for those arms to start burning.”

I’ve never enjoyed being tortured so much.

Eloise Gable could put my body through hell, and I’d just keep coming back for more.