“She forgave me. That’s different.”
“Maybe it’s both. You know I do the team social media content, right?”
He shoots me another one of those sideways glances that I’m starting to realize I’m holding my breath for.
Crap, crap, crap, this crush has deep hooks.
“I think I did know that, yes. I’m not really an online person, though.”
I smile at him. “Sinclaire is your biggest hype girl in the comments.That’s my dad!I don’t know her beyond that, but I don’t think that someone who is just giving their father a second chance is that involved in a space where he doesn’t go.”
His cheeks turn ruddy, and even in the shadows of the car, I can see he’s pleased. Really pleased.
I like that I could give him that. That at the end of this weird day, when we’re supposed to be untangling a stupid mess I made, we’ve also found a way to make each other feel good as human beings.
He reaches across and nudges my knee with his knuckles. “All right, Whirlwind, tell me something else I don’t know about you.”
I try to ignore the spiral of heady heat that twists up my thigh and into my belly at the contact. “Well… I was a theater kid. Learned every word to some of my favorite musicals before I could properly read, tried out for every community production I could get into growing up, that sort of thing.”
He nods as if that makes complete sense. Which I suppose it does. “So how’d you get from theater to sports?”
“I grew out of my love of public performance and discovered a love of media and marketing. Professional sports is just another type of entertainment, no offense.”
“None taken. It’s true. Even if I know I need to outsource the management of that to experts like you.”
“You make it easy, though. You care so much. About the team, about the players, about getting it right. It’s—” I search for the right word. “It’s magnetic. You make people want to be better. Work harder. You made me want to ambush you in your office.”
He laughs out loud. “So it’s my own fault, in a way, that the second time I got married it was to a giant grapefruit?”
“Show some respect for Captain Citrus. He was 100% marrying material. You could have done a lot worse.”
“I’m not denying that. I’ve been married before. Although I was the problem in my first marriage, not my ex-wife.”
“You said that earlier. That you, uh, got divorced before and it was easy.”
He winces. “Did I say it was easy? That mighthave been an overstatement. But my first marriage was—” He cuts himself off. “Do you want to know about this?”
I twist sideways in the passenger seat so I can train my gaze fully on him. “I do.”
“We’re almost there.” He clears his throat. “Maybe this would be better dinner conversation.”
CHAPTER 11
JEFF
She’s twenty-three. She wants an annulment. I cannot fall in love with this girl.
Too fucking late.
But it’s for the best that she wants to hear about my disaster of a first marriage. It’ll make it easier to end this bittersweet flash-in-a-pan second marriage.
I park at the strip mall where the best tacos in the city are secretly made, and hustle around to the passenger side of the car.
I offer her my hand to help her out. When she takes it, her fingers slide against mine, warm and soft, and a possessive spark of something very inconvenient makes me tighten my grip on her.
I don’t want to let go.
For a moment, she looks up at me with such an open, vulnerable gaze that I think she might push up on her toes and kiss me right here in this parking lot. I can see real desire in the depths ofher eyes, feel it in the shudder that rolls through her, all the way to her fingers gripping tightly against mine.
