“It’s a little of both.”
“Have you contemplated that your role on this earth might be teaching the world what family means?”
Those lovely green eyes blink at me. “Oh, I’m notthatgood.”
She is indeed, and I file away her lack of recognition of the fact for contemplation later.
For now, I’m contemplating how close her face is to mine.
That she has a light dusting of freckles on her cheeks that I hadn’t noticed the last time I saw her.
Has she spent time in the sun? Has that brought out her freckles?
“I would like to take you out on a proper date, just the two of us. Somewhere without a menu swimming in cheese, and with an empty house to return to later.”
She smiles broader. “Can we keep the lights on this time? I heard a rumor you have a secret tattoo.”
“Have you? Or did you start that rumor becauseyouhave a secret tattoo?”
She lifts her brows mysteriously and continues to smile at me.
If ever there was an invitation to kiss a woman, this is it.
I lean in, anticipating once again having Bea’s lips against mine, when someone kicks me from across the table.
I yelp and straighten.
“Really, Griff?” Bea says.
“So I’ve been telling my teammates about your burger bus, and they want you to come do a cookout for us,” he says to her.
“So this is how a middle child acts,” I murmur.
“Be glad yours barely argue over who’s the baby,” she murmurs back, then she turns her attention to her brother. “I didn’t think burgers were on the menu for most of your teammates during the season.”
He grins. “Just the older teammates who don’t still have metabolisms of steel.”
“You’re gonna flunk out of the majors if you don’t stay fit,” Daphne tells him.
“Flunking out of the show isn’t a thing,” he scoffs.
“That’s the same thing at least three of my ex-boyfriends who flunked out of the majors said before their teams cut them for younger, faster, stronger players who ate chicken and greens instead of pizza and burgers.”
I could be kissing Bea.
Sneaking her off behind the building to kiss her and touch her in the semidarkness, someplace without witnesses.
But as she joins the conversation about Griff’s health, which turns to a discussion of Hudson’s lung capacity on a stage, which turns to a conversation about Ryker’s ability to continue chasing his chickens and goats, I’m unexpectedly content.
This must be what belonging feels like. Belonging without fighting it, without second-guessing it, without doubting it.
And it’s oddly more satisfying than sex.
Or perhaps differently satisfying.
Yes.
Differently satisfying.
