But maybe…this moment with this girl was the perfect time to face them.
“What is wrong with you?” Delia shouted as I set her on her feet in the center of my massive suite.
“You wanted to talk,” I said.
“Yeah,talk. Not be manhandled by a broody quarterback.”
“Retired,” I reflexively reminded her.
She rolled her eyes. “God, you’re infuriating. If you don’t want to tell me, I’m not going to force you, Owen. I’ll just go back to my room and go to sleep. We can forget this ever happened.”
Before she even moved, I took a step to the left, anticipating her intention to shove past me and blocking her path.
“I do want to tell you,” I said quietly, though I held her gaze. “In fact, I think you’re the only person Icantell. But that doesn’t mean I’m not terrified you’ll look at me differently afterward.”
“You think I didn’t feel that way dumping all my shit on you?” Those whiskey eyes were fierce, boring into mine, cutting straight to my soul. “But I did it anyway. Berkley said something to me tonight that I think you can benefit from right now.”
“And what is that?”
“That it’s easy to be brave with the right one. So I’m asking you to be brave right now, QB. For me. For…us.”
The last word was spoken barely above a whisper, but she might as well have shouted it for how loudly it echoed in my mind, in my chest, in my heart.
“Us?”
She nodded. “Can you do that?”
“Can I at least change first?” I asked, gesturing to my jeans.
“Duh,” she said. “I’ll run over to my room and be right back.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, catching her wrist before she could leave. “I’m afraid if I let you go, by the time you come back, I’ll have lost my nerve. Or that you won’t come back at all. I’ll give you a shirt to wear.”
One of Delia’s brows arched. “Just a shirt?”
“You got a problem with that?”
“Of course not,” she said, though the thickness of her tone said differently. “Just…keep your hands to yourself.”
I raised said hands in the air and backed up a step. “Whatever you want.”
I moved into my bedroom and withdrew two tees from my suitcase, turning to toss one at Delia, who stood at the threshold.
“You can come in, you know,” I said.
Delia vehemently shook her head. “I’m good here.”
I chuckled. “You can use the bathroom,” I said, nodding at the door adjoining it to my room.
Delia nodded and rushed past me, ripping the tee from my hand as she did. I quickly stripped, shoving my legs into athletic shorts and donning one of my endless, well-worn Carhartt shirts.
The bathroom door creeped open, and my mouth dried out when I took in Delia. My shirt hung to mid-thigh, more than covering all the important bits, but I didn’t stop my mind from wandering. Even with the knowledge that nothing was happening between us tonight, I couldn’t help the way my imagination ran rampant with ideas about the positions I could contort those long legs into when I finally got her naked.
Yes,finally. At this point, we were an inevitability, even if something still held her back. Maybe she wanted all our cards on the table, and it was my turn to fold.
Whatever she needed, I’d happily give it to her.
We settled on the plush, deep-cushioned couch in the sitting room, pressed close together.
