Page 17 of Touchdown, Tennessee

“I meant the fact that I’m a good tipper,” I said. “Would it kill you to make someone lookgoodin one of your stories for once?”

“Come on,” Gray said, sauntering back over toward the Hard Spot parking lot.

“I’m not going back to the bar tonight.”

“Yeah. We’re not going there.”

I watched his figure as he crossed the street.

Since when were academic types so fuckingstronglike him? I was surrounded by brawn and muscle every day around my teammates, but Gray’s physique was…

Different.

Harder.

But also softer, in a good way, too.

He was a couple of inches shorter than me. I followed after him, finally getting a chance to look him over while he couldn’t see me.

Black jeans, with an ass so fucking perfect I forced myself not to stare at it too long. He had a small chain coming from one of his pockets, because of course he did. His tattoo wrapped aroundhis entire forearm, and I looked at it from the back view, the thick, black lines standing out under the glow of the street lights.

When he turned to glance back at me my heart did a little flip.

Caught.

Red-handed.

Staring.

“Get in,” Gray said as we approached an old, sporty-looking black car.

The interior was bare-bones. The car must have been at least twenty years old, but it practically looked like a racecar on the inside.

“I miss this,” I said. “Cars don’t need all the screens that they have these days.”

Gray’s expression was hard as he started the ignition.

Real keys, too. Not the push-button start I’d been used to for years.

“Buckle in.”

“What kind of car is this?” I asked him.

“Evo.”

“Hm?”

He turned my way. “Mitsubishi Evo. I’ve modified it a fair bit over the years, though. They don’t come stock like this.Buckle in, Andrew.”

I clipped the seatbelt on.

Gray slowly made his way out of the lot and onto Laurel Ave, and at first it felt like a normal ride.

But the moment he got onto the highway, he gunned it, and after a brief second the car sped forward like a rocket, accelerating so fast my spine lurched backward onto the chair behind me.

“Fuck’s sake, Gray, are youtryingto get pulled over?—”

The shadows of the streetlights moved across his face as he shifted gears. “I don’t speed. There’s nothing illegal about acceleration.”