He smiles when he sees me. “Hey! Glad you could make it.”
I smile back, because that’s what you do. “Yeah. Me too.”
We sit and order drinks. We talk about work, the weather, how his dog eats socks like it’s a hobby. On paper, the date is perfect. He remembers small details from our random elevator chats. He asks about my job without turning it into a bit about ‘sports ball.’ He makes a joke about his fantasy league that actually lands.
In reality, my body feels like it’s operating on a delay. I hear him. I respond. But nothing…lands. None of it reaches the place inside me that’s been raw since the day I stood in that church hallway, trying to let someone go while wishing I didn’t want to.
I laugh in the right places. I sip my drink. I ask him questions. I even enjoy parts of it. It feels like watching someone else’s life from the outside though.
At one point he asks, “So, what do you like to do when you’re not wrangling coaches and media?”
I think about all the nights I let reality-TV reruns fill my house because silence felt too honest. How I kept trying to scrub him out of my system even though I never really had him to begin with. Spoiler: it hasn’t worked. Not once. But I can’t say any of that to Brian.
“I read a lot,” I say instead. “And I watch too many documentaries.”
“True crime?” he guesses.
“Sometimes.” I shrug. “Sometimes travel stuff. Sometimes a good nature show. Depends on the week.”
He grins. “That’s oddly specific.”
“I contain multitudes.”
He laughs, and I force a small smile back, but my gaze drifts to the door without my permission.
Once.
Then again.
Brian notices. “Waiting for someone?”
“No.” My cheeks heat. “Just… habit.”
He laughs lightly. “Bad habit?”
You have no idea.
I grip my glass a little tighter.
We’re halfway through our second drink when the air shifts. Not the temperature or the noise.
But I sense something or someone.
The kind of presence that hits before you even turn your head.
I don’t want to look but I do anyway.
And there he is.
Jace.
Fresh off work, hair damp like he showered recently, shoulders filling out a dark henley that should be illegal. He’s walking in with Ethan and two players I recognize from the team.
Emma mentioned Ethan was home for his bye week, but I didn’t expect to see him here. I definitely didn’t expect him to be out with the guys. Maybe they dragged him out to celebrate being off for a few days.
Either way, the timing feels cruel.
He’s smiling at something Ethan says—
