I just smirk and grab my keys off the counter. “C’mon. Gym?”
Knox snorts. “Oh, hell no. You’re not getting off that easy.”
Nathan, still wide-eyed like he is piecing together some conspiracy theory, points between me and the door Amelia just walked out of. “Wait. Wait. That was Amelia. In your shirt.”
Noah and Knox exchange a look, both of them barely hiding their grins.
“You’re just now catching up, big brother?” Noah teases, slapping Nathan on the back.
Nathan blinks at me. “You’re with Amelia?”
I run a hand through my hair, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, man.”
“For how long?”
Knox’s grin stretches wide. “Long enough that they’ve been sneaking around like teenagers. We’ve known for weeks.”
Nathan’s jaw drops, looking at all three of us. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Wasn’t our secret to tell,” Noah replies, all smug as hell.
Nathan shakes his head. As the resident know-it-all, he really is clueless. We head out the door and toward the gym. “I seriously had no clue. You two hid that well.”
“Didn’t exactly have a choice,” I mutter, pushing the gym door open. “She’s the CO. It wasn’t exactly ‘announce it to the world’ material.”
Noah chuckles. “Until she answered the door in your shirt. That kinda killed the secrecy.”
“Yeah, well, guess the cat’s finally out of the bed,” I deadpan, grabbing a set of weights.
Noah practically chokes on his water. “Out of the bed? Bro, that’s not even the saying.”
“Fits though,” Knox adds with a snicker.
Nathan is still shaking his head, but now he’s smiling. “Well, damn. I didn’t see that coming.”
I lift the weights, a grin tugging at my lips. “Yeah, well… I wasn’t exactly planning for everyone to find out this morning, but here we are.”
Knox throws a towel over his shoulder. “You happy?”
“Yeah,” I answer without hesitation. “Really happy.”
“Good.” He nods before smirking. “’Cause if you weren’t, we’d have to kick your ass for screwing it up.”
Noah snorts. “Facts.”
I just laugh and roll my shoulders. The secret is out, finally. And for the first time in weeks, it feels like I can actually breathe.
“Alright,” I say, grabbing the barbell. “Let’s see if you can actually keep up today.”
Their groans fill the gym—but I don’t miss the grins that follow.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, I let out a long breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My heart is still racing from the chaotic whirlwind that was the last thirty minutes—especially the moment I opened Ash’s door to find Noah, Nathan, and Knox staring at me like I’d just told them Santa wasn’t real.
“Oh my god,” I mutter, dropping my forehead against the steering wheel. “I’m never living that down.”
My phone buzzes on the passenger seat, and the screen lights up with a text from Ash.
Ash: You handled that like a pro. Proud of you, Phoenix.
