“That’s why you ran when I kissed you. You were worried about me hurting you.”
Finally, some clarity after years of thinking I was a shitty kisser, and she didn’t want me. But I was wrong. She was just as into that kiss as I was. That’s why it was so damn good.
“You’re not understanding me.” Her hands splay along the brick at her sides.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I prom?—”
She puts her hand over my mouth. “Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
I take her wrist and lower it from my mouth, ready to tell her I mean it.
“You’re in no position right now, Hayes. You’re in the fight of your life to renew your contract at the end of the season. You can’t do both. You can’t have both.”
When Callie first called me six weeks ago, I came to comfort Leighton, to make her life more manageable, but now I find myself wanting to see her, to give her a reason to smile. I want to spend time with her and be in her orbit. The kids are a bonus for sure, but it’s her that I want. But she’s so adamant that I can’t do both that I worry it’s just a pipe dream that I can be one of those players who has a family and a career, both going full steam without any conflicts.
I’d do just about anything to cage her in and kiss her right now, but her mind is made up, so I step back. I swear there’s a flicker of disappointment in her eyes, but we can both ignore this pull between us if that’s what she wants.
“Then I’m not doing this to help you. You’re going to help me.”
She frowns. “What?”
“We’re going to date, and that will help my image with the fans, the team, and the front office. If I show I’m in a committed relationship with a woman who is a guardian to three kids, it helps to put my behavior from last year behind me.” It’s all bullshit. Sure, it will help me, but I would never ask Leighton to do this if she weren’t so hell-bent on me not helping her.
“So, the fake dating benefits both of us?” Her eyes light up.
Ah, she likes the idea. Now we’re getting somewhere.
I nod. “I get something out of this too, but you’ll have to be seen in public with me.”
“I’m in public now.”
“My agent says I need to look settled down,” I tell her. “You’ll come to a few games. We’ll take pictures. Make it seem like you’re my girlfriend.”
Fear, uncertainty, maybe curiosity are all doing a tug-of-war behind her wide eyes. She’s not really a public kind of person.
I stick out my hand. “What do you say? Deal?”
She stares at my hand, and I can see all the arguments warring in her head.
“You’re going to so much trouble for me, it’s the least I can do.” Her soft hand falls into mine, and we shake.
“No takebacks.”
She laughs and I tug her away from the wall, wrapping an arm around her waist—partly for show, partly because I want to know what it feels like to hold her without an audience.
“What are you doing?” she asks, though she doesn’t pull away.
“Playing the part.”
She arches a brow. She has no idea what that look does to me.
Because the part I’m playing has a little too much truth in it.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Hayes
