“Can you get back?” he asks. “We know you’re on assignment, so don’t you dare feel guilty if you can’t, but if you?—”
“I can.” It’s out before I even glance at Matt talking to the female trainer just outside the end zone. “We’ll be there.”
“We?”
I turn. Matt’s already walking toward me, like his bones felt my name. “Me and Matt.”
There’s a tiny beat on the line, and I fill the void with something harmless. “You know he’s here with me because of Brooks,” I add, which isn’t a lie.
J.D. exhales. “Okay. Drive safe.” His voice goes soft. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
EIGHTEEN
NOELLE
Steam rises off the Texas highway.
Feet propped up on the dashboard. George Strait sings on the radio. The station I finally found. Inwardly, my body temperature rises just thinking about his low, sexy voice and his wicked fingers and tongue.
“Feet off the dash,” he says automatically while staring at my legs.
“I’m soothing my nausea,” I counter.
He flicks me a look. “That isn’t a thing.”
“It could be,” I smirk, flirting.
We ride a few miles in comfortable nothing. The farther we get from New Orleans, the more my stomach unwinds. The more the memory of last night presses close again, warm and panty-melting.
I want his hand. I want it so badly my fingers twitch. There are no cameras now. No ex-boyfriends. No performance. If I reach for him, it’s because I want to, not because I need to sell the story. Which is exactly why my hand stays in my lap.
“Thinking too much,” he says, not taking his eyes off the road.
“Am not.”
“You always are.” He knocks his knuckles lightly against mine on the console. It counts. It’s ridiculous that it counts, but it does. My chest loosens. “I’m worried about you.”
Yeah, me too. What if I’m pregnant with Brooks’s baby?
But I keep those thoughts to myself. It’s a thought I’m not ready to entertain, so I close my eyes, faking sleep.
At the hospital, my big family is a small storm system in a waiting room—my dad pacing lines into the tile, Birdie with flowers in her hands, Greyson’s daughter, Paulina, passing out gummy bears.
When Matt and I walk in together, the air shifts in that way it always does when you rearrange the dynamics of a family. Matt is supposed to be here as a best friend, not as my boyfriend. I just hope they can’t see my evolving feelings for Matt. He’s not just a fake revenge date anymore.
J.D. comes to me first. He smells like aftershave and anxiety. “You made it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I tuck myself into his side. “You okay?”
“I am pretending to be the calm center of this family,” he says. “How am I doing?”
“You’re vibrating,” I say, and he laughs. “But you’re hiding it well.”
Over his shoulder, my dad is looking at Matt the way dads look at weather reports they don’t trust. Matt goes into full coach mode—shoulders down, voice low and calm, one hand respectfully nowhere. “Sir,” he says, nodding.
“Matt,” my dad returns, skeptical of our fake-dating lie. It’s not approval. It’s not a warning either. It’s a dad wantingto protect his daughter. What he doesn’t understand is that Matt treats me a thousand times better than Brooks ever did.
