At that comment, the smile Bax gifted me momentarily stopped my heart in a way Charlie’s wounded expression couldn’t touch. Something in my face must have told him as much. Hunching his shoulders, he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his khakis. “If you’re lucky, I’ll still be around when you come back to your senses.”
“I came to my senses at the beginning of the semester. That’s why you’re in my past.”
The bartender set a fresh drink in front of me and a beer in front of Bax, drawing my attention away from my ex’s drama.
Bax lifted his beer to his lips, tipped some back, and gestured with the bottle toward Charlie. “See you around, man.” Though his tone was cordial, his dismissive demeanor had my ex backing up. Bax eyed him all the way to the door before he returned his attention to me. “Bad breakup, huh?”
I nodded.
“His fault.” Not a question.
I nodded again.
“Dumbass. How the hell did he let a hottie like you get away?” That smile again. It did funny things to my insides. Offering his hand, he said, “Wyatt Baxter, but most people call me Bax.”
“I’m Piper Maxwell—Wyatt.” His warm hand swallowed mine in a way I weirdly liked.
“Darlin’, you can call me anything you like as long as you call me.” With a tiny squeeze, he let my hand go.
That cheesy line should have put me off. Instead, I heard myself laughing. Glancing over the rim of my glass, I said, “For the record, I was handling him fine.” Wyatt’s brow went up. “But your timely intervention speeded up the process. Thanks.”
He held his beer up for a toast. “Nice to meet you.”
I clinked my glass to his. “Nice to meet you too.”
We smiled at each other and drank.
“Do I detect a bit of the South in the way you talk?” I asked.
Turning his stool a quarter turn, he rested his elbow on the bar while his jeans-clad knee lightly brushed my bare one. “We moved around some as I was growing up, but I graduated high school in Kentucky.”
“How did you end up in the Great Northwest?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in a way that said he laughed often. “Football.”
With a nod I said, “Of course.”
“What’s your story, Piper Maxwell? Why have you chosen to sit at the bar alone tonight?”
Super-hot and insightful proved an irresistible combination. Before I knew it, I’d shared my bad day with him. “There you have it. I’m a nerd who’s never failed a test before. A quiet drink in a room full of strangers seemed like a good way to forget about screwing up for an evening.” I sipped some vodka-and-lemon deliciousness. “I chose this bar because I’d never come here before. I didn’t expect to see Charlie here.” Wrinkling my nose in disgust, I said, “This entire semester has been one massive screwup.”
“You have to let it sit with you for a minute, feel it, and know you never want to feel it again.” For a second, Bax’s expression darkened. “Then you let it go.”
“Sage advice from a man wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘For people who are bad at identifying things, there are a lot of UFOs out there.’” I laughed.
He glanced down at his shirt as though he’d forgotten about it, glanced back up, and grinned. “The thing is, I know how you feel. I fucking hate to lose. On the few occasions where we’ve done that, Coach has made us sit with it, feel that failure. The next time we go out on the field, we tear it up. Dump all that pent-up frustration, anger, and disappointment on the next game.” Tipping his beer up, he downed a long pull. “We play about a thousand times better then.” He tapped his finger on my glass, encouraging me to take a sip. “Tonight, you feel your failure. Tomorrow, you kick some ass.”
A warm glow radiated through me, his words instilling a confidence I’d let falter after The Fuckery. Fingering my glass around the rim, I rolled it around, letting the ice clink and crash around the cherry on the bottom. “I take it you play for the Wildcats. What position?”
“Middle linebacker.”
“Makes sense.”
He snorted. “Because of the way I’m built?”
“No. Because of the way you sized up my situation and waited until I’d had enough before you stepped in. That and the scraped-up state of your hands.” At his wide-eyed blink, I said, “Isn’t that the job of the quarterback of the defense? To assess the formation, signal the other players on the line, and execute a play that stops the offense’s progress?” My breath caught at the way his face lit up.
“You like football?”
