Tessa Teevan - Incinerate

Kale’s voice interrupts my solitude. “Damn, Charlie, that was quite a show. I had no idea that y’all were like that.”

Opening my eyes, I turn my head towards him. “Screw you, Kale. You messed with my concentration and let him take me down.”

Laughing, he shakes his head. “Oh, I think you’re quite all right with how that sparring session turned out. Looked like it, anyways. So tell me, pretty girl. How the hell did you get Knox Wellington to drop his guard and practically take you in the boxing ring? I’ve never, and I mean never, seen him practice PDA.”

“It was just a ruse, pretend. It wasn’t real. He was just doing it for that bitch’s benefit,” I say. I know I sound like a brat, but it feels like a million different emotions are running through me right now. I thought I’d gotten through to him that night when I told him he was lucky. If he still, eleven years later, is trying to make her jealous or has the need to make a show that he’s moved on, then he’s clearly not ready to start anything with me. I’m just glad I found out before we got home and I made a fool of myself.

Kale looks at me, brows furrowing. “I don’t think that was pretend, Charlie. At least it didn’t look like it.”

“Well, then he missed his calling, because he could win an Academy Award with that performance.”

He shakes his head, apparently not agreeing with me. “Whatever you tell yourself. If he was faking, I wouldn’t mind being your consolation prize. I’m totally cool with being second choice.” He’s grinning at me, and I take a moment to really look at him. At around six feet, Kale’s the shortest of the guys, but he still has a few inches on me. He’s leaner than Knox, and while he’s not as muscular, he has a definition to them that would have most girls salivating. His dark brown hair is almost always messy, unless he’s in uniform, but it’s his smile that I think really draws the women in. Rocking the pretty-boy face of the group, he has dimples in each cheek and they deepen whenever he flashes a panty-melting grin that showcases his perfectly white teeth. If it weren’t for Lucy, I might’ve fallen victim to his charmingly good looks, but he’s always been off limits. Now that I’ve met Knox, I’m more than okay with that.

I’ve known Kale for a couple of years, ever since Dad and I joined this gym. He’s the ultimate playboy and not shy about it. At the same time, he and Lucy have this weird connection. As far as I know, they’re friends who hook up occasionally. They even go out together and play wingman with each other. It’s a strange dynamic and I don’t even pretend to understand it.

“Sorry, Kale. Not gonna happen. I love you, but you know I don’t do casual. And sleeping with you would be like sleeping with Lucy. No, thank you.”

I have to laugh when a shit-eating grin comes across his face. “I like the sound of that. Tell me more. In fact, we don’t even have to play the transference game. I love you ladies enough to let you make a Kale sandwich,” he says, winking at me. “You know what they say. Kale does a body good.”

Smacking him on the arm, I just shake my head at him and he protests.

“What?! I’m serious. Kale is low in calories, high in fiber, and has zero fat,” he says, sounding like a nutrition ad. He stands up, a towel hanging low on his hips. Pinching at his six pack, he emphasizes the ‘no fat’ part. “They also say Kale’s good for cardiovascular activities.”

“I’m actually pretty creeped out right now that you’re trying to sell yourself based off the criteria of a vegetable,” I tell him.

“Oh, god, please tell me this asshole isn’t giving you the whole ‘Kale is good for your health’ speech. I swear, he gets so much tail from that line and it makes me weep for all of humanity,” Jace says, joining us in the sauna. Kale simply flips him off, and I grin at the sight of both of them, shirtless, barely covered in towels, sweat beads rolling down their bodies. This is threesome freaking heaven for a woman.

“Hey, Kale. What was it you were saying about sandwiches?” I tease, and he backs away from me.

“Nope, nuh uh, no way. I don’t do man meat. Straight pussy. That’s all.”

I love ruffling his feathers, and I’m just messing with him, knowing I’d never touch Jace with a ten-foot pole. Not that he’d let me.

“Hey, Kale. Have you talked to Lucy lately?” I ask, hoping to maybe get some insight on their relationship.

He gives me nothing when he just shrugs, picking at a loose thread on his towel.

Jace interrupts, grinning at me like he has a secret to share. “That’s such bullshit. Our boy Kale here made a special trip to visit your friend last month for the Fourth of July.”

Kale glares at him, and I’m wondering why Lucy never mentioned it to me. We talk almost every day. Come to think of it, I remember that I wasn’t able to get ahold of her except through text around that time.

He quickly changes the subject to rag on Jace about Lexi, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t mind as he starts telling us a funny story about her niece, Ava, who apparently loves to make Jace watch Finding Nemo every time he sees her.

“I swear, if I hear “Let’s Keep Swimming” one more time, I might throw something at the damn TV.” He says that, but the way he smiles when he talks about her lets me know that she probably has him wrapped around every single one of her little fingers. We make small talk for a little while longer before Jace gets all serious faced on me.

“He doesn’t want her anymore, you know. He just hasn’t been forced to move past it. Until now.”

Looking back at him, I’m wishing beyond hope that he’s right. “I guess we’ll see.”

A strange look crosses his face, and I can’t decipher it. “Yeah, I guess we will.”

Knox

I COULD literally strangle Megan right now. Okay, not literally, but I’m pretty fucking pissed that she showed up at my gym. I don’t even know how the hell she found me, but she ruined probably the best first kiss of my life. And now, three days later, things have been weird as hell with Charlie and me. I swear she’s avoiding me, and I don’t get it. That kiss was only the beginning of something between us and I’m anxious to find out where it’s going to lead. Until Megan showed up, I had planned on throwing her into Evelyn, taking her home, and trying my hardest to get to her into bed before pulling her shorts off and impaling her before we can even get inside.

Instead, Megan was there with an invitation to the annual Labor Day party at my parents’ place. Apparently, she’s even more delusional than I thought. I didn’t even know they still did that thing, and the thought that they actually want me there after no contact in so long baffles me. By the time I got her to leave, telling her that maybe I’d go, I had to go searching the gym for Charlie. The last place I looked was the sauna, and I found her there, sandwiched in between Jace and Kale, laughing her ass off at whatever it was they were saying.

Clearing my throat, I interrupted their cozy, little moment. She stood up quickly and sauntered towards me.

When she stopped right in front of me, my eyes traveled down the length of her body, hot, sweaty, and it took everything in me not to rip the towel off her and take her right there. If it weren’t for Jace and Kale, I probably would have.

“Everything good?” she asked.

“Perfect. That was nothing. Some stupid invitation from my parents,” I told her in a clipped tone, not wanting to talk about it. “Ready to go?”

After she changed, the ride on the way home was silent. I was still wondering why in the hell Megan—or my parents for that matter—would think that there’s any way I could possibly want to attend any sort of party they’re having. As much as I wanted to revisit that kiss, I was way too pre-occupied with the thoughts swirling around in my head, and I made a mental note to give Cohen a call later.

When I saw Megan, I felt absolutely nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. I was pretty freaking pissed. Not because of her or what happened in the past, but because there she was again, fucking up my life. The moment should’ve been the perfect time for me to finally let Charlie know how much I want her, but now it’s tainted, and it irritates me to no end.

So here we are, three days later, with a weird tension in the air. I know she said she’s been busy due to students registering for classes and making sure that they’re getting all their benefits, but I feel like I’ve barely seen her.

This week she’s had frozen dinners every night, claiming to be too exhausted to cook, so I decided earlier that I’d have something ready on the table by the time she got home. Although I’m no gourmet chef, I know my way around the kitchen. It comes with the territory of bachelorhood.

Finishing up the final touches just as I hear her car pulling into the drive, I’m happy that my timing is perfect. She walks through the door, and I take a moment to admire her as she greets me before heading down the hallway. She’s wearing a sexy charcoal pencil skirt with a fitted red blouse tucked into it. The heels she’s wearing makes her legs look even longer, something I had no idea was possible. It’s almost painful that I know in less than sixty seconds she’s going to emerge in a different set of clothing.

I’m setting the table when she walks into the kitchen.

“What’s all this?” she asks, motioning towards the spread in front of her. It’s nothing fancy, but I make a pretty mean Drunken Spaghetti, and one of the local bakeries not far from me has the most amazing garlic bread. Paired with a tossed Italian salad and two glasses of Chianti, I’m pretty damn proud of this meal. I gesture for her to move towards the table, and she sits after I pull her chair out before moving to sit directly across from her.