“Axel, what’s wrong with you?” I hissed. He continued glowering at the lineman until I softened my voice and said, “Ax, baby. Look at me.” Shit, had I just called him “baby?”

It worked. He turned his gaze on me, and his eyes and lips softened as his anger slowly started to dissipate. “You called me ‘baby,’” he said with the hint of a smile curling up the corners of his mouth.

I cast my gaze upward to the giant red and white star shining down from the ceiling before finally looking back at my ex. Focus, Blaire. Don’t get distracted by his chiseled, bare chest with the smattering of dark hair. And don’t even think about how wild and sexy he smells after a long practice. Or the fact that he’s only wearing a white towel around his waist.

“Well, I was going to call you ‘asshole,’ but I wasn’t sure if it would get the same reaction.”

He laughed a deep, genuine laugh and said, “Yeah, probably not. You think I was being an asshole?”

“Meh. Just a bit. Look, they were having some fun. I’ve got a bunch of overgrown boys to look after, and I need them to respect me. I can’t do that if you storm in here acting like I’m a little china doll you have to protect, okay?”

He frowned and glanced back at Langley, who was smirking at him. “He had his hands on you,” Ax hissed.

“Oh, good Lord, Axel. He had me in a headlock. My brother does that shit to me all the time. It’s totally a big bro move, not a sexy move. Hell, two days ago, Shamu flirted with me, and I dumped ice down his pants to teach him a lesson.”

The left side of Axel’s mouth tipped up, and I had to control my drool. He had the whole cocky grin thing down to a science. “I bet I could make a headlock sexy.”

Hoo boy!

“Take it down a notch, Broxton, or you’re going to end up with ice down your pants.”

“So, you’re saying you want to get into my pants?” he asked, now with a full-fledged smile. For fuck’s sake. I needed to nip this in the bud because the way he was looking at me was anything but platonic.

I couldn’t think of anything witty to say, so I just went with, “Not gonna happen.” The burn of his darkening blue eyes told me that he had other ideas.