Haddie nodded, and he could tell that she was hanging on by a thread now, that beautiful beaming smile about to break throughher last shred of resistance.
“And if I’m where I am without the ball?”
“Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!” She tapped her nose with one index finger and pointed at Levi triumphantly with the other.
“Fuuuuuck!” he cried, laughing as he jogged toward her.
His team members always apologized after they were at the receiving end of an offside call, and Levi would always tell them to shake it off and not let it happen next time, but the problem was, he didn’tknowwhat he was looking for to try to head off the penalty before it happened, and his damned ego wouldn’t let him ask his students what it was and lose the already fragile trust he’d earned coming to them from the world of football and instead being tossed into soccer.
Without realizing what he was doing until he was already doing it, he scooped Haddie into his arms and spun her.
She yelped and then burst out laughing, and they were both caught up in a moment that Levi realized happened not because Haddie cared more about the game than what happened between them earlier that day, but because shecared. About him and his team, and the thought emboldened him enough to lower her back to the ground but keep his arms wrapped around her torso.
“You did it,” she told him softly, but she wasn’t pulling away.
“Youdid it,” he replied, staring down at eyes the color of the grass beneath their feet. “If I would have had more teachers like you when I was in school, maybe I wouldn’t have thought football was my only option.”
Haddie furrowed her brows at him. “It’s not your only option.You’re teaching health and P.E. And coaching a whole new sport.”
“Terribly,” he remarked.
She shook her head and took a step back, so Levi let his hands fall. “When you first shrugged off Principal Crawford cutting the program, I had you pegged. You were here because you had to be, and once you went back to the life you actually cared about, you wouldn’t think twice about this program or these kids.”
Levi held a fist to his chest like she’d just stabbed him. “Ouch.”
Haddie winced. “It was way safer to think that the guy I met in that hotel bar was some fantasy I’d built up in my head.” She toed the soccer ball toward her, then rolled it up her shin, and bounced it off her knee. Then she held it against her torso like a shield before blowing out a breath. “But you did the car wash. And you’re out here now learning for your students, and…”
And what, Haddie?He wouldn’t interrupt her, but Jesus, the ache in his chest was going to swallow him from the inside out.
So he held her gaze even when she looked away, and when her eyes met his again, he gave her a soft, encouraging nod.
She let out a nervous laugh. “You’re kind of great.”
The corner of his mouth tugged into a lopsided grin. “Last I checked, being kind of great was a good thing. Have the rules changed?”
She tossed the ball at him, which he caught.
“Great doesn’t last, Levi. I have a lifetime of experience to back that up. If you’re just some guy I live with—along with a few extra benefits—and you leave at the end of the school year, then I’m no worse for wear. But if I care about you and then you go?” Without the ball in her hands, she wrapped her arms aroundher torso.
Levi could barely keep it together. It should behisarms holding her tight. It should behimcomforting her and telling her that location and distance didn’t have to mean loss. But the king of would-haves and should-haves wasn’t going to make a promise he knew he couldn’t keep. He’d already disappointed the people who mattered most to him, and it would kill him to add Haddie to that list.
He wanted to tell her so many things, but the universe had other plans.
With an unexpected crash and dark-gray clouds obliterating the late-afternoon sun, the sky opened up and drowned out his words.
Together they scrambled to grab the cones and shove the soccer ball back into the mesh bag. They ran through fast-growing puddles to toss the equipment back into the shed. After Levi snapped the padlock closed, he pulled Haddie into the narrow space between the shed and concession stand, where the shallow awnings of both roofs provided temporary shelter from the storm.
They were soaked. Rivulets of water streamed down Haddie’s face and over her lips as she stared at him with what looked like a thousand questions pinballing through her brain, the same questions—he guessed—that made his own logic short-circuit every time she was near.
Couldn’tandshouldn’tfelt a million miles away when she looked at him like that.
Levi wanted more than friends with benefits, but above all else, Levi wantedher.So he would take what she was willing to give andfigure out later…later.
“We can run!” he called over the deluge, knowing that, however treacherous, trying to make it home was the logical thing to do.
Haddie shook her head. “I don’t want to run anymore!” she replied. “I’m sotiredof running.”
Before he had time to piece together whether or not she meant the physical act of running or something else, her fists clenched his wet shirt, and she tugged him down to her as they crashed together in their own storm of hunger and need.
