Page 59 of For Your Consideration

“Grizzly?”

He had just grabbed the door handle but he turned at my voice, a small twitch of his lips at the nickname. “Yes, sweetheart?” As far as I could tell he wasn’t annoyed or angry with me.

“I need a friend right now. That’s all I can manage. I hope that’s enough for you. I just—”

His hand came under my chin again, lifting my gaze from his shoulder to his eyes.

“I can do that, Sutton. I’ll be here for whatever you need, in whatever way you can handle me.” He leaned in, pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and then let me go. I had to stop myself from leaning into him.

“Please keep showing up, okay? I don’t—”

He brushed his thumb across my cheek again and then smiled softly.

“You won’t get rid of me that easily, I promise. Get some sleep, sweetheart. I’ll call you later.”

I placed a hand on the kitchen counter and let out a sigh as he closed my door and left me standing there, feeling weak.

17

Asher

Right hook, left hook, jab, jab, uppercut, pivot, uppercut, lean-back jab, hook.

The middle of the bag bent with the weight behind my punches, the swaying back and forth giving me a moving target and making me adjust faster.

Part of my piss-poor mood was because I hadn’t been able to see Sutton since Thursday.

The sound of a hand slamming against the leather of a bag to my left had me taking a step back and looking over. Jaxson was next to me. We started our workout at the same time as we did most Saturday mornings.

Jaxson was clearly working out something since he was still going even though our timer had gone off. Ripping off my other glove, I watched his deep concentration on the bag as he moved. His footwork was better than mine, he was quicker on his feet, his punches just as hard. After a few sips of water, I moved in and grabbed his bag to stop it from swaying as he landed another hard uppercut.

“Want to talk about it?” I asked as he took the opportunity to speed up now that he didn’t have to account for the sway.

“No.” He panted a few times, landing a few more punches. “Since when do you want to talk?” Jaxson had always been perceptive and hard to bullshit.

He’d gone to the University of Cambridge on a scholarship. Dude was a fucking genius. Noah met him at a party, brought him to hang out with us, and that was that. Jaxson never went home for holidays and didn’t talk to anyone in his family. Noah had asked him about it one night when we’d had a lot of beer and he didn’t say much other than he would never go back to his hometown.

There were demons in his eyes. I should know; I saw them in my own mirror every morning. Jaxson was just better at hiding them from others. Better at burying them deeper than I did.

But on days like today, when he was hitting the bag like this, when he went quiet, I knew they were bothering him. I normally just let him be.

“I don’t. But I can listen.”

After one more heavy slam on the bag, he took a step back, his breaths coming in fast as he shook out his hands and rolled his shoulders. I let the bag drop and moved to start collecting my things. I wanted to be out of here before the women’s self-defense class started at seven a.m.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked as I grabbed my gloves. I looked over at him with a raised brow as he wiped his towel over his head. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how hard your own punches were today,” he said, his own eyebrow raised.

“No,” I grumbled as we both put our bags on our shoulders.

“Need me to find anything out about her?”

I ground my teeth together, tightening my fist. I knew this was his way of caring for his people, but I didn’t want anyone looking into her without her permission. “No.”

He shrugged, likely assuming I would turn him down. “I’m going to go home and shower before we meet at Knight and Quinn’s. Want to ride together?” he asked as we pushed outside.

“No, I want my car,” I grunted in reply. He turned to me for a moment, waiting to see if I’d tell him why. I didn’t.

“Alright, see you there.” He dipped his chin at me and then headed off in the direction of his apartment, both of us just a few blocks away.