I quirk a brow at her. “What?”
“You’re not what I expected,” she says quietly.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Someone more... shallow, I guess? You’re a celebrity. You’re supposed to be self-obsessed.”
I bark out a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Tilly blushes. “I didn’t say I was disappointed.”
The air between us feels charged, electric. My foot eases off the gas without me meaning to. I want to pull this truck over and kiss her until she forgets New Jersey and her parents and every person who ever made her feel like her choices weren’t enough.
I don’t. Not yet. I turn back to the road and press the accelerator.
“What about you?” she asks. “You grew up here, right? What was that like?”
“Complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
I don’t usually talk about this. My past isn’t something I share with people. But something about Tilly makes me want to be honest.
“My family was a mess,” I say. “The kind of mess that looks fine from the outside, but inside, everyone’s keeping score. My mom had two kids by two different dads, and that kind of thing leaves marks on everyone.”
“I’m sorry,” she says softly.
“Don’t be. It made me who I am.” I shrug. “My brother left for the Marines when I was eight. Things between us were complicated for a long time after that. We didn’t really know how to be brothers. I got into a lot of fights at school because I didn’t know how to deal with being angry all the time.”
“What happened?”
“One of my teachers saw me fighting in the parking lot, and instead of suspending me, he took me to a boxing gym. Told me if I was going to hit people, I should learn to do it right. Turned out I was good at it.”
Tilly grins. “Good enough to become world champion.”
“Eventually. Took a lot of years and a lot of broken bones.” I flex my free hand on the steering wheel. “But yeah. Boxing gave me discipline, focus, a way to channel all that rage into something productive. It saved my life, probably.”
“And your brother? I’m guessing you and Reign worked it out?”
“Yeah, we figured it out. Took our mom dying for us to stop being stubborn, but we got there.” I glance toward the lights of the ranch in the distance. “Now he’s my best friend.”
She’s watching me with those warm brown eyes, and I can see her re-evaluating me. Seeing past the muscles and the fame to something underneath.
It should make me uncomfortable. It doesn’t.
“And now you’re retiring,” she says. “Walking away from all of it.”
“That’s the plan. After tomorrow night, I’m done.”
“Have you decided what you’ll do next?”
“Sort of. I have a cabin in Wyoming. That’s where I live now, where I’ve been training for the last several years. Planned to spend my retirement there, enjoying the peace and quiet.” I glance over at her, letting my eyes linger. “But my plans seem to be changing.”
She blushes and looks away, but I catch the small smile tugging at her lips.
We pull into the parking lot of the restaurant, and I frown. The lot is mostly empty, which is unusual for a Friday night. As we get closer, I see the problem.
A hand-written sign on the front door: CLOSED DUE TO WATER MAIN BREAK. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
