3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Liam

" W hy are we going this way?" Jordan doesn't answer me, so I turn to him. "I asked you a question."

"You don't like it, huh?"

I give him a blank stare, although he has his eyes on the road. "Pull over."

He glances at me before asking why.

"I don't feel like getting in an accident, and I'm about to punch you in the face."

He laughs, and I look forward before rolling my eyes. "Don't make me repeat myself, Jordan."

"We're getting Moon."

I let out a sigh and shake my head. He goes on and on for the rest of the drive about how I should be nice to this kid, but out of habit, I tune him out.

"Hello, friends!"

Someone, please shoot me. I close my eyes when he shuts the door harder than necessary, purely out of his constant excitement. I feel two hands on my shoulders, and he squeezes me. He touches me.

"Jordan, tell this kid not to touch me."

Jordan relays the message and tries to mimic me, and they both fill the car with their loud laughs.

"Why do you always call me kid?"

I ignore him, and Jordan drives off.

"I'm twenty-one. I'm not a kid, and you're only like– what? Four years older than me?"

"Five, and you're a kid because of how you act, not your age."

He goes on to list examples of how he doesn't act like a child, and even though I'm not listening, he continues.

"Okay, I have a serious question now."

I type out a response to an email, but when he doesn't go on, I assume he's unfortunately talking to me again. He leans forward to catch a glance at me, and I push him back into his seat.

"Put your damn seatbelt on." See what I mean? Child.

"Who wears a seatbelt in the back seat?"

This kid is a disaster waiting to happen.

He mumbles something else under his breath. I look up when I hear the click of the belt and he is back on his phone, his serious question forgotten I guess. I shake my head and reread the message I was writing.

I don't even get two minutes of silence before Moon lets out a very obnoxious sigh. I look up to the ceiling of the car, and from the corner of my eye, I can see Jordan smiling.

"Damn… she's so pretty." He sighs again, and Jordan laughs at him.

"You better not be talking about–"

"Yes, I am. Please leave me alone."

Jordan is dying of laughter, and when I glance in the mirror again, Moon looks like he wants to be put out of his misery.

"This actually brings me back to my question." He looks in the mirror just as I look away. "Liam?" When I don't respond, he taps my shoulder. "Liam?"

"Moon."

"Yes?"

"I'm not deaf. Do not touch me." I hear him laugh quietly as he mumbles an apology.

"This is serious. Can you listen?"

I let out a sigh and turn my phone off. When I glance over in the mirror, he looks way too happy to have my attention.

"How is it working with Sage Loana?"

"This was your serious question?" I shake my head at him before going back to the actual serious email I was writing.

"Yes! I still can't believe you guys are working with her. Do you think you can ask her if I can sit in on one of your shoots? I think she'll say yes. She seems so sweet on social media."

He keeps rambling about her, and I continue to ignore him.

Jordan wanted to get breakfast, so we stopped by a restaurant a few blocks away from the studio. I pick up the menu to keep myself busy but go still when I hear that laugh. It fills the entire room, but it's too deep to be hers.

I glance up at Jordan, and he's already looking at me. I don't turn around, but I hear whispering from behind me. They walk past me and barely skim my shoulder. I let out a scoff and look up.

Just as I do, Sire turns back to me. We hold eye contact for a second before he turns back around and shakes his head. August turns to me next and laughs as he turns back around.

I look down at my fist when I hear that I'm cracking my knuckles. These two are worse than the two I drove here with.

They stay a few feet ahead of us, and I give them my back, but I can still hear their conversation.

"It kind of sucks that we can't stay with Sage longer, but I'm glad we were able to see her set up. Her studio is cool."

Sire agrees with his brother before raving about how he thinks their sister is going to win this contest. A part of me is surprised they don't assume I'm a part of this project of hers and warn me to steer clear of her, but I was already planning on it. I can't stand these two, and considering my coach is already punishing me for fighting, I don't need to add the Hale family to my problems.

Moon walks over to me after the brothers go over to order their food, and I don't walk away because he's watching the Hale brothers, and it looks like he wants to tell me something about them.

"Okay…" He unfortunately starts. "After all this time, I'm still not sure why we don't like them, but would it be weird if I asked for their autograph?"

I blink three times. "Get out of my face."

"They don't know we're friends, so–"

"We're not friends. If you want to be a dick rider, then go ahead and ask for their autograph."

Both Hale brothers play for the LA Dodgers, and while Jordan and I play for the Yankees, we're constantly head-to-head with each other, but that's not the reason I can't stand them.

"Oh, okay, I think that was unnecessary to say. I'm not a dick rider ; I'm a supporter."

"Go and support them then, and find a ride to wherever you're going while you're at it." Moon doesn't even live in New York, but I don't ask why he came here with Jordan.

His eyebrows raise, and I look away from his dumbass.

"Alrighty, you could've just said, yes, 'Moon, it would be weird' that's it. You–"

"Stop talking."

Another echo of laughs fills my ears, and then someone bumps into my shoulder.

"Shit, my bad–" Sire turns to me and genuinely looks like he didn't mean to bump into me, but then a smirk covers his face when he realizes who he bumped into. "Actually, not my bad."

I roll my eyes at his smug smile. "Back up, Griffin." I use his last name out of habit, it's an athlete thing and as the years gone by, it stuck.

He doesn't look fazed by my words, and beside him, August bites back a smile. I focus on him for half a second, and it irritates me that he's Sage's twin because he has her damn eyes and dimples.

"You wouldn't happen to be here for a particular photo shoot with your team?" August voices this time. There it is. I knew they couldn't resist asking.

I fake a confused face. "Do I look like I have time to sit in front of a camera?" No, but you apparently have plenty of time to stand behind one for his twin. "What is it your business anyway?" I lean against the table behind me casually.

They look like they're thinking of revealing their sister is in charge of the shoot but wisely choose against it, not knowing I'm fully aware. "Stay away from the photo shoot." Sire threatens cooly.

"Don't tell me what to do, Griffin. Get out of my face." I roll my eyes at him as I glance to the side.

"Or what?" Sire takes a step forward, and I feel my fist balling at my side. "Just stay away." He warns.

I raise my brows. "I'm petrified," I reply dryly before pushing off of the table and stepping to him. "If that's a threat, go through with it now, Griffin."

Sire takes another small step towards me, but August tells him I'm not worth it. They walk away, but their presence is still irritating me, so I walk out and sit in Jordan's car.

After a few minutes, Jordan slides into the car with Moon.

"You good?" Jordan steals a glance, and once I nod in response, he doesn't push for more.

"You look mad." Moon voices as he leans forward to get a better look at me. Before I can tell him, again, to put his damn seat belt on, Jordan beats me to it. I'm not mad; I'm annoyed that the Hale brothers think they can tell me what to do and simply throw threats around.

"Why do you hate them so much?"Moon asks again as if he just read my mind.

When I don't respond, Jordan explains to him that the brothers and I have had bad blood since college because we went to rival schools, and while that's true, it's not the whole story.

I don't bother correcting him and we go to the studio pretty after dropping Moon off. Jordan warns me not to have a pissy mood in the studio and I tell him to leave me alone, so he does.

The only thing that makes this punishment tolerable is the fact that Sage Loana Hale is gorgeous—stunning, actually.

When Coach told us we'd be working with a ton of models and essentially being their boy toys, I considered taking the chance of pissing off my coach even more and simply not participating. I don't like being on camera; the only time I genuinely enjoy it is if a kid comes up to me and asks for pictures. Kids aren't bad.

Naturally, I did some research and looked up the past photo shoots that these girls did for this contest, and some of them were pretty cool. They didn't tell us which girl we were working with, so I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but Jordan was bugging me the minute the idea was brought up.

He kept saying how crazy it'd be if we were working with Sage Hale, of all people, and I'm convinced he jinxed us.

"Okay," Sage breaks her pose before walking over to me. "Can I see how those few came out?"

I turn the camera to her, and she immediately shakes her head at the first one.

"Yes?"

"Do you not see how bad that is?" She gestures to the picture, and I clearly can't see whatever she sees.

"You look flawless. What's the issue?"

She turns to me but shakes her head at whatever is on her tongue before a smile touches her lips. "Flawless? Awe, that's so sweet!" She seems shocked by my words, but she lights up like they just made her whole day.

I don't say anything in response, and her smile only widens as if I complimented her again.

"I think under all this," she waves around me, "is actually a really sweet guy."

My eyes fall on her smile, and I simply can't look away from her. She is too damn pure for this cruel world.

"You keep thinking that, pretty girl." I gesture back to the camera. She tells me I need to tell her when the girl beside her has a hair out of place, and I honestly wasn't looking at her, but I keep that in mind as she goes back. After a few more pictures, someone calls her for help with something.

"Bro."

I don't look at Jordan, but I can see him in my peripheral vision, making his way closer to me.

" What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, Jordan? Let's not ask dumb questions." I gesture to the camera in my hand before turning to him.

"You're also flirting with Sage. Are you crazy?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I try to walk off, but he follows me, to no one's surprise.

"Oh fuck off. You know what you're doing. What happened to staying away from her?"

"I can't really take pictures of the woman if she's across the room, can I?"

He gives me a knowing look, which I simply return with an eye roll.

"You can take pictures without the flirty commentary. You know she's a Hale, and y ou were the one who said you'd stay away. Considering her brothers just threatened you, I figured you'd remember that."

When that laugh fills the room, I turn and there she is, laughing at something one of the girls is showing her.

"Did you expect her to be like that?"

Jordan turns to watch her with me, and when she glances up at us, she waves so damn happily. Jordan waves back as he responds. "Nope. Considering her brothers are Asshole and Asshole Junior, I expected her to be a bit of a bitch, but she's–"

"Perfect." My eyes cast down her frame, and when I look back at Jordan, I see he's giving me a knowing look because I can't get involved.

"You need to change your face and stop the flirting before her brothers find out and actually murder you."

I tell him, once again, that I don't give a fuck about her brothers. While I said I'd stay away from her, it wasn't out of fear of her damn brothers. I just didn't want the damn stress, but I clearly have that without her.

Sage walks back over, and we get back to taking her pictures. She keeps stopping after every couple of shots. I think she doesn't trust me, but I don't blame her since I barely know how to work this expensive ass camera.

"Okay, these are horrible." She laughs softly. "No offense, Liam." She pats my arm. "You're doing great."

"Mhm."

She laughs again, and I sigh in return. "Just tell me what's wrong so we're not here all day again."

She glances up at me with a pretty smile. "You've been very talkative the last few days," she teases. "I think you found your passion." She grabs my arm that's not holding the camera, and shakes it excitedly. I glance down at her hand, and when she pauses her erratic movements, I look back up. Her eyes are wide with surprise. "You're not telling me not to touch you… Does this mean we're friends?"

"Sage."

She tilts her head to the side.

"Tell me what's wrong with the damn pictures."

She giggles before telling me there's a shadow, which doesn't seem like a problem to me, but she wants to move all the lights.

"Get somebody else to do it." I take a seat, and she looks offended. Before she can voice her complaints, I wave the camera around. "I'm on camera duty. Tell someone else to move them." The lights are a headache, and last time, she made me move them three damn times just to put them exactly how we had it the first time.

"Fine." She shrugs her jacket off, and my eyes land on her chest. I give her a slow sweep and the dress she's in should not fit her so damn perfectly. It's fucking torture that she looks so good.

"I can do it myself." She ties her curls back like she's on a mission.

I keep my gaze on her as she starts moving things around, but then she sees another problem and drags a chair over.

"Do not climb that."

She ignores me and proceeds to get on top of the chair.

"You're going to break your neck, Sage. Get down; it's fine the way you have it." I lean back in my seat as I watch her get on her tippy toes on the chair in heels. When she slightly wobbles, I quickly sit up in my seat.

"Seriously, get your ass down ."

"It's fine, I just–" She reaches for the light and tries to angle it a certain way. She stumbles again, and I rise from my seat. Without warning, I lift her into my arms and plant her on the ground.

"Woah!" She balances herself. "How the heck did you lift me like that?" She looks between the two of us, and I'm fucking offended.

"Do I look like I can't lift you?" I glance down at her frame, and she does the same.

"Well, I'm pretty heavy and–"

"And I look like I can't lift you?" I shake my head at her before climbing the chair. "Just tell me how you want it."

She instructs me to move it every which way, and I'm damn near at the end of my rope when she finally decides it's perfect.

"This is exactly how it already was." I point out.

"No, it wasn't," she states matter-of-factly as she walks off before I can respond.