Kitchen-trashing habits aside, Ellie was right about the meat stew she'd made for Thursday's lunch since I'd eaten every last piece of fungus on my plate then practically drooled for seconds. I saw what she'd put in it but had no idea how it tasted so good. With my content, full stomach, I passed out fast asleep for what was now my routine, pre-practice nap.

While we dated, Ellie repeatedly showed how much she cared through her actions. She had few friends in high school but those closest to her she fiercely loved, including me at one point. I hadn't realized until she wasn't in my life anymore how quietly but strongly she had loved me, either her support at my home and away games, how she cooked for me and Mom, even how she hadn't minded when we just chilled out at home with a movie Friday nights.

When Ellie takes care of someone, you just feel... loved.

Once our physical relationship progressed, we had a lot less movies and more heated experiences. While parts of me definitely missed that, the background warmth and support from Ellie's love was the first, and most painful, thing I noticed after we broke up. My life felt emptier and darker, like the sun hadn't shone as much and the lightness in me turned into a hardened pain that time hadn't completely removed. Occasionally the same pain twisted in my chest when I looked at her now, so close and yet guarded and so far.

Our current situation wasn't what I wanted but my life was already improved with Ellie in it. Even just as friends, or roommates, Ellie still had the same warm, caring heart. After just days on her food, I already felt a physical difference. My body felt lighter, almost cleaner during our practices and weight sessions.

The offensive guys worked on faster timing and started to make some adjustments. The receivers, especially Wes and Seth, and runningbacks Javon Weller and D'Angelo Jones, caught on first. Coach Vaughn was right, they'd played under their levels of potential. The offensive line's timing we still worked on, but today Emmitt took over on the offense in prep for Saturday's game and my ass was resigned to the bench.

I hadn't known until Emmitt missed practice but he'd suffered a slight ankle sprain over the summer. During the practice I'd led the offense through, he'd gone in for x-rays and an MRI to get it double-checked but obviously was cleared to play Saturday.

When I got out to my truck after Thursday's practice, my phone buzzed with a text message. A frown creased my forehead once I read over the words.

Dad: Trying to come up for one of your games this season, let me know when you're starting.

Non-starter aside, completely unnecessary.

After my parents divorced and Dad took my younger brother Brody, I was a jaded, angry twelve-year old. I'd blamed his drinking problem, which he'd sobered up a few years later after he wrapped his car around a tree, for why our family broke up. While Ellie and I dated, within four months he'd selfishly met, dated, moved in with, and got engaged to not just a girl who was twenty years younger but also Ellie's cousin Madison.

In a dramatic moment that I still didn't understand, Madison stood Dad up at the altar. She'd used some excuse that they'd rushed into the relationship and she wasn't ready to be fully committed yet. Despite how they lived together another six months, they parted quickly and I hadn't heard anything about her since.

Six weeks later, Dad rebounded almost immediately and not long after I hadn't asked about Madison, Brody filled me in about Olivia. At twenty-seven, she was an administrative assistant at the tech company Dad worked for in Silicon Valley. Olivia seemed polite enough, made Dad happy, and another quick-paced relationship developed. This one apparently was a better fit since they'd gotten married last year in a small, private ceremony on the beach behind Dad's house in Santa Cruz that both Brody and I attended with tight-lipped smiles and desire that we were anywhere else at that moment.

Since Brody lived with Dad, he got the brunt of all those changes. Once I turned eighteen, he was the only one I really saw once I visited there and I made a conscious effort that I was there every weekend I hadn't had an away game.

But I knew Dad, he never did anything without some kind of selfish agenda attached. There wasn't much that stopped him though.

me: Great.

I scoffed lightly at my phone and set it down in one of my truck's cup holders. Dad wasn't someone I'd kept close to after I left for college, but I called one of the people who was.

"Hi Sweetie!" Mom's voice chirped out over my radio as I pulled out of the stadium lot. By now, the sun had set and the overhead lights cast a yellowed glow over the pavement.

Since I came home every weekend from UCD that I could, I'd also helped when Mom moved. She called the process 'self-empowering,' but I think the extra house space had made her lonely. She never dated, just kept her bowling friends group and centered her life around Brody's.

"Hey Mom," I replied more sullenly than I felt comfortable admitting.

"What's wrong?" I practically heard the frown in her voice. "I'm sorry Brody and I won't be able to come see you play this Saturday."

"Nothing to see," I spat out bitterly. "I'm not starting. Tried my best."

"Then that's all you can do, really." she assured me. "Keep working hard like I know you have been. Remember Coach Peterson wanted you specifically?"

"Right," I replied absently and turned a few blocks in the direction of our apartment building.

"It was for a reason," she replied. "Just be patient, stick to his plan. Good things will happen and you'll be on fire."

"Mom, it's just... never mind" I rolled my eyes at her motivational pep talk attempt. "Thanks though."

"How's Ellie?" She shifted topics while I pulled into a parking spot for our apartment building.

"Good, I guess." I shrugged although Mom couldn't see me. "I'm glad to be around her again."

"Me too, she's a good influence for you. Are you being respectful?" she probed.

I snorted softly. "Trying to."

"Good," she said simply. "That girl's been through enough. Is she there?"

"Driving back." I shut off my truck and grabbed my phone with zero intentions that I'd hold the call on so she embarrassed me further with Ellie.

For all I know she's already called Ellie directly already.

"Give her my love then," Mom's voice sounded like she'd smiled. "Miss you both. Call me after your game, we'll be following it."

"Okay." We said our goodbyes, then hung up.

Just like every night I'd come home from practice, the homey, pleasant-food smell in the hallway pulled me out of my thoughts. Tonight, I pushed aside thinking about football and Dad then entered the apartment.

I put my bag away in the front closet like normal, but what I saw after a few steps stopped me right inside the kitchen's opening. My stomach clenched as tightly as my fist that crumpled up my water bottle, my jaw hinged open, and I swear even my balls dropped in my pants.

Ellie stood, hinged halfway over while she dug something out of the fridge. Her ass and legs, which I saw every inch of from a side view, looked amazing in her tight, black leggings. They molded to her skin and the black color against the white backdrop from the refrigerator's light left no curve unnoticed, especially the dip in between her inner thighs where her other hand rested.

Calm down. Fix the relationship first, stop checking out my hotass roommate.

My mental pep talk worked until she straightened up, shut the door, and froze when her eyes met mine. My jaw relaxed but at this point I was pretty sure it dropped onto the floor when I saw she only wore a black sports bra on top.

Her dark brown hair was up in a ponytail but a small sheen of sweat glistened the skin on her forehead, neck, and chest. Her breasts lifted with slightly elevated breaths that I was pretty sure matched mine. The small curves over her ribs, in her waist, and over her hips were still there. She'd always been small, but now she definitely had a few fine lines of abdominal muscle definition.

Ellie looks... really good.

With my height, the low cut of her black bra gave me a very clear view of her cleavage and definitely surged reactions through me. I swallowed hard at the near powderkeg of hormones that erupted just at the sight of Ellie and the embarrassing familiar sensation that my cock shifted in interest in my pants. At this view of Ellie though, my blood had already rushed out of my brain so strongly that even my balls ached.

"Oh geez." Her cheeks flushed a darker shade of pink but then her eyes lowered and she looked at me from under her thick lashes. "You're back."

"Were you... working out?" I blinked my eyes and tried to think of any and every unsexy thought I mustered. Unfortunately, with the weird, unwavered way she looked at me, my mind failed and came up completely blank.

"Hot yoga," she replied with a slight uplift in the corners of her mouth. "Charlie took me this evening."

"Yoga, huh?" I leaned one shoulder against the kitchen entrance frame at the memory of when Ellie'd dragged me to a class once, something with weird hammock fabric that hung from the ceiling. The only thing I'd gotten out of the experience was a blow to my ego, chewed out for my lack of empathy about girl's periods, and sympathy from her after I'd pulled my left hamstring muscle from lack of flexibility.

"Not exactly the caliber of one of your workouts, but I enjoy it... except for the hot part." Her eyes slid closed and head tilted slightly back while she took a sip of water, but mine were locked open like if I blinked, somehow what I looked at changed.

"You do look... hot," I practically choked out my words.

Smooth, Hightower.

While mentally I chided myself, the rest of my body mutinied against my better judgment the closer Ellie walked towards me.

"Thank you." A slow, almost coy smile spread across her lips, like she was not only very in tuned to the effect she had on me, but also amused by it. Her dark eyes stayed locked on me the entire time and I wasn't sure which of us was under a trance but suspected it wasn't her. The way my pulse buzzed stronger in my veins and my stomach clenched slightly the closer she approached with a definite sway in her hips, I was absolutely confused but had no complaints.

If that's what yoga does for her then I'm okay if she goes every night.

"Excuse me," she said in a low, almost husky voice that shot straight down into my balls. Those dark eyes looked up at me with one bat of her lashes while she turned sideways, brushed her torso against mine, and stepped out of the kitchen.

I inhaled sharply and my jaw tensed at the contact of her pressed against me, from her chest to her pelvis. At my reaction, her lips curled upwards slightly into a smirk, but before she moved completely past me, I reached out and caught her upper arm. Her slightly damp skin pulsed warmth into my palm and the contact hitched both our breaths.

"Ellie," my warning came out low and borderline strained, like every muscle inside me now felt.

"Logan..." she teased and tipped her head back. The movement lifted her chin, offered me a look directly down her bra, and I fought against every urge inside me not to drop my gaze downwards. Instead, I focused on her eyes and the sparkle of boldness that I hadn't seen in them for a long time.

Until now. She's enjoying this.

Confusion over her motives aside, my stubbornness kicked into gear in response to her silent challenge. With one palm flattened into the frame above her head and the other still circled gently around her upper arm, I leaned forwards until my nose almost touched hers. She breathed in sharply when I dipped my head down and trailed my nose up the damp skin on her neck and smiled at the trail of goosebumps the light contact raised.

Internally, I was a fucking mess of confusion and hormones. My heart pounded loudly in my chest, my cock swelled upwards, and my brain fogged over with a cloud of lust so thick I only had one thing in mind.

Even sweaty, she smells intoxicating.

With my last thread of control, I took a slow, deep breath in and murmured in her ear, "Sure you want to play this game? What happened to the rules, boundaries?"

The mental image of Ellie, her breath elevated and skin sweaty but underneath me, rumbled a low groan in my chest. At the sound, her beautiful eyes darkened as her pupils dilated slightly but one of her fingertips gently danced down my chest.

Her voice again shot straight through my gut and all parts south when she further teased, "Not sure what you mean, Logan. We're... just friends, right?"

What's gotten into her? And how can I keep it there?

"Friends," I nearly growled her enunciated word, stepped my left foot outside her right, then the same with my right so her small frame was caged between my legs.

After one more half-curious, half-challenging look from her, I leaned forwards, then pressed my hips and extremely obvious erection into her pelvis. My ego appreciated how her lips parted but everything else inside me flamed hot from the frictioned contact and pushed me further.

I bent down further, where my lips pressed gently into the warm, slightly salty skin on her neck. With a slight pull-back, I whisper-promised into the shell of her ear, "Friends don't have this effect on me."

Her gasp filled my ear when I shamelessly grinded my hips into her again, then straightened up and assured her, "Your move, Ellie."

My vision was practically clouded over with lust at this point, so I pulled away and stepped back. Strong throbs hit my chest as my heart hammered loudly and every inch of my most likely parking-cone sized erection screamed in protest, but I walked away.

Two steps from the bedroom door, her soft but determined voice paused me right in my tracks.

"Challenge accepted."