My head tossed back, laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, letting loose a small laugh of her own.
“You have to see Gunner to understand.”
She gave me a really look. “Well, now I’m intrigued. Let me see a picture of him.”
I frowned. “Hell no.”
“Why. You afraid I’ll have a crush too?”
“Yes.”
Fuck. It came out before I could stop it.
Ari chewed on her lip for a few seconds, and my dick instantly started to get hard.
“No, I mean, I wouldn’t care if you liked him. Well, I guess I would in a brotherly kind of way.”
Fuck. Dig yourself deeper into the friend zone there, Jeff.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Don’t worry; I sort of already like a guy.”
My stomach dropped. “Really?”
It wasn’t lost on me how disappointed my voice sounded.
“Well, maybe it’s more of a crush kind of thing. It would never work out, so I admire from afar.”
“Huh? I’m sure he’d want to know.”
She shook her head, then laughed. “Nah. He’s older and has no interest in me at all. He’s made that very clear.” When her eyes met mine, for the briefest of moments, I thought maybe she was talking about me.
No fucking way.
Ari couldn’t stand being near me half the time. This was the first time in years we had even talked like civil human beings to one another.
“Then it’s his loss.”
Her eyes widened slightly before she broke the stare. “So let me see a picture of him.”
I sighed and pulled out my phone.
“Shirt on or off?”
“Um . . . I’m slightly disturbed you have a shirtless picture of your roommate on your phone, Jeff.”
I laughed. “Don’t let your thoughts get crazy. We were at spring training a few days ago and were messing around. A friend of ours told us to take off our shirts and pose. He was sending the picture to a girl who was interested in a double date, and he wanted her to pick between me and Gunner.”
Ari snarled her lip. “Christ almighty, what type of women are y’all dating at UT?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, well, she wanted her friend to pick, so . . .”
She rolled her eyes and held her hand out for me to show her.
The idea that Ari would like Gunner made me physically sick. Pulling up the photo of me and Gunner messing around a few weeks back, I handed her my phone.
Ari winked as she took it from me. Her smile faded quickly, and she stared just a little too long. I needed to know which one of us she was looking at. I could have shown her a picture of just Gunner, but I showed her this one on purpose. It was both of us. Shirtless.