“Give yourself some slack, you big dufus,” Gigi called to me as she continued lifting weights.
She was quickly getting on my nerves, but at least she was still speaking to me.
Her fiancé, Beau, sure wasn’t.
Nope.
The captain of our team thought I was a dirtbag for marrying Lexi and disappearing with her for two days.
I knew this because he’d stated it.
More than once.
Some of the other guys had voiced similar opinions to me.
The real fucking kicker?
Lexi was living with me.
Sleeping in my bed.
Traipsing around in her awesome collection of tight as fuck yoga wear.
And we’d agreed to have a platonic relationship.
For a few reasons.
Firstly, because Wes had threatened to neuter me if I so much as looked at Lexi again.
Secondly, because Lexi hero-worshipped her father at an even bigger level than I did. And she did not want to disappoint him any more than she already had.
Than we already had.
And thirdly, because of the way my mom had looked at me.
I’d screwed up many, many times in my life.
This was nothing new for me.
Marrying Lexi, and going off the grid for forty-eight hours, though—that was on a whole different level.
Normally, I was only messing up my own life. This time—I’d taken Lexi along for the ride.
Mom had also asked me to—basically, keep it in my pants. She pointed out that Lexi was still really young, and had a whole career ahead of her.
And having some asshole—that would be me—rob her of the opportunities she deserved, was just plain selfish.
I loved my mom more than anyone on this Earth.
Hurting her was never something I tried to do.
And this time—I could tell—I’d done it worse than ever before.
So, I’d agreed, and promised my mom, and Lexi’s dad that even though we’d play the part in front of the cameras—behind closed doors, nothing was going to happen.
Lexi seemed okay with the plan.
I’m not going to lie—that was a huge strike to my ego.