“Well, shit, I’ve just been reading the wrong books. Or maybe I was waiting for you to write the right one.”
He punctuated the sentiment with a wink, making my dick twitch. We fell into comfortable silence after that, at least for a few minutes. Long enough for me to regain my wits and polish off the first half of my sandwich. And all the while, I felt the weight of his gaze.
“You should do it.”
My brows pinched together. “Do what?”
“Write your book. I’d love to read it.”
I swallowed past my suddenly dry throat.
“Maybe someday.”
His head cocked to one side. “Why not now?”
“It just . . . isn’t the time.”
And it never will be.
He must have heard something in my tone—avoidance, reluctance, dare I say fear—because he left it at that. Regret soured my stomach. It was either that or the cheese.
I shouldn’t have told him about the book. Talking about it made it real. It created expectations, which led to questions and even worse, inevitable disappointment, that thing I had spent the better part of my adulthood trying—and often failing—to avoid.
Just ask my father.
There was no job title, no award, and no amount of podcast downloads that could absolve me of his criticism. Even now—a decade into my career—he was constantly giving me grief about choosing sports journalism over the “real, hard-hitting” topics like global politics. The very thought of telling him that I wanted to write a book about baseball aliens kissing under the bleachers gave me hives.
“I take it you liked the sandwich,” Tucker said, gesturing toward my now empty plate.
“It was alright.”
That was a lie. It was the best thing I had ever put in my mouth, and that included a certain movie star’s uncut cock during a summer internship in New York.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “How about I buy you a drink to wash down all that cheese?”
Well, fuck.
There was no doubt about it—Johnathan Tucker was hitting on me and damn, did it feel good. But if the neon “danger” sign flashing through my brain was anything to go off, it was best—for both of us—to make a clean getaway while I still could.
Journalists weren’t accustomed to being in the hot seat. That was a position reserved solely for our victims. Scratch that, our subjects.
“I should get back to the city.” I nearly tripped over my Birkenstocks when I jumped to my feet.
“Hot date?”
“Nah, my friend hosts drag bingo every weekend at the Mayfly in Kenton, and he’s going to kill me if I miss it again.”
He took care of clearing the table while I packed up my notebook and Hydro Flask. I pretended not to notice the way he carefully sorted the soiled paper and plastic before discarding them in the appropriate bins.
Who knew that recycling could be such a turn-on?
“Thanks for this,” I told him as we walked side by side across the parking lot. “I know you guys already had a long weekend. Answering a few dumb questions while force-feeding me food was probably the last thing you were interested in doing tonight.”
Laughter roared out of him.
“Oh, Brock,” he croaked when he finally caught his breath.
“What?”
