Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Jean felt his focus start to tilt, but this was not the time or place to think about Riko. He dug half-moon indents into his palm until all he saw was Jeremy. The other man was a bit scrawnier than he’d expected, built more for nimble footwork and speedy breakaways than the violent bullying and domination Jean relied on as defense. Tousled caramel brown hair somehow managed to not look messy, and the blinding gold shorts Jeremy wore made his legs look longer than Jean knew them to be. Jean had four inches on the other man, if he remembered correctly.
Jeremy had brought a yoyo with him, of all things, and was attempting and failing to do tricks with it while he waited. He only gave up on his game after he got the string tangled in the cords for his headphones, and Jean watched him sigh exaggerated defeat as he set to work sorting the mess out.
Jeremy glanced up then, either realizing the swelling crowd around him meant a plane had landed or sensing someone watching him. Finding the one person who was standing still on this side of the room took Jeremy only a moment. He immediately switched his yoyo and headphones to one hand so he could lift the other in a wave. Jean quietly reminded himself it was too late to change his mind about this and set off to meet Jeremy halfway.
“Hello, hello,” Jeremy greeted him cheerily. “How was the flight?”
The worst, Jean thought, but settled for, “Small talk is a pointless indulgence.”
“I like to indulge,” Jeremy said with a dimpled smile.
Kevin’s words mocked him in the back of his thoughts: “Some of them you like.” Jean cut off that line of thinking so fast he felt dizzy. It didn’t matter that Jeremy Knox was annoyingly easy to look at; Jean knew better than to look at another man too long. He’d learned that lesson the hard way and would not survive a revisit.
“Baggage claim is this way,” Jeremy said when Jean didn’t waste his breath with a response. He started to turn away, watching for Jean to follow, and hesitated when Jean shook his head in silent refusal. “No bags?”
“I have a bag,” Jean said.
Jeremy looked at him, then the carry-on resting by his right leg, then past him like there was another suitcase he was missing. “Mailing the rest?”
“No,” Jean said. “I have everything I need.”
“If you say so,” Jeremy said, in a tone that said he wasn’t convinced. Jean half-expected him to press the matter, but instead Jeremy motioned for him to follow. “All right, then, let’s get out of here and get you to your new place. Traffic wasn’t that bad on the way in, but we’re getting close enough to lunch that it’s probably going to be mayhem out there.”
Jeremy’s car was three floors up and halfway back in the parking garage. Jean knew next to nothing about cars, despite technically owning one, but he knew money when he saw it. He expected it to smell like warm leather and polish when he got in on the passenger side, but the scent of greasy food was so heavy and fresh he assumed Jeremy stopped to eat on the way to the airport. Maybe Jeremy was feeling reckless now that summer vacation was underway, but a captain ought to be the one most resistant to temptation.
“Are you hungry?” Jeremy asked. “We can stop and grab you something on the way home if so. If not it’s… Thursday?” He considered it, checking his mental calendar, and nodded. Jean almost missed half of what he said when he leaned out to slip his ticket stub into the turnstile at the exit, but he could piece enough together via context as Jeremy settled again: “Thursdays are sandwich night, and I think tonight’s supposed to be French dip or something. A little joke to welcome our first Frenchman to the line.”
“A comedy for the ages,” Jean said. “I am laughing on the inside.”
“Hungry?” Jeremy asked again.
“No,” Jean said. “The smell in here killed my appetite.”
It bought him only a few seconds of peace. “What are you studying?”
It sounded like small talk when he said it like that, but since academics were the necessary evil of college sports Jean couldn’t justify ignoring it. “Business.”
“Braver man than me,” Jeremy said. “Sorry for saying it, but it sounds uninspiring.”
The hint of an unexpected problem had Jean tensing. “What did they give you?”
Jeremy waited so long to answer Jean thought he was trying to build up suspense, but then Jeremy asked, “When you say ‘give me’, you mean like…?”
“What do the Trojans study?” Jean asked, impatient over having to clarify.
It should have been the easiest question to answer, but Jeremy prefaced his explanation with a bewildered, “Uhhh?” He thought a few more moments. “I’m in English, Cat studies computer science, Laila’s in real estate development, Nabil’s architecture…” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he thought.