“Sadie is correct, I mean well.” Roman smiled a shit-eating grin.
“You do deserve a night of fun.” Heather slipped Anna’s eggnog martini back into her hand. “If you don’t want to spend it with Drake, I’ll tell him to take a hike. People don’t say no to a pregnant lady very often.”
The problem wasn’t that Anna wanted Heather to whisk her away. The issue at hand was that Anna wanted to spend the evening with Drake.
Hell, she wanted to spend more than an evening with him.
Thatwas the problem.
She wanted to go back to the way things had been before.
Another fan caught Drake’s attention. He paused. Smiled. Made what seemed like small talk. Another photo. Another handshake. A hearty laugh. The guy was totally genuine.
Except when it came to his feelings for Anna, it seemed.
Finally, his focus moved to her again.
That gorgeous smile of his melted any residual resolve she had managed to hold onto.
“Anna,” he said, his voice a low rumble of golden boy goodness.
“Drake,” she replied, totally serious.
“You look amazing.”
She flashed him her best I’m-good-how-are-you smile. “I do, don’t I?”
“She does,” Sadie concurred.
Heather and Roman both nodded. Roman’s nod was way more smug than it needed to be.
“I…uh…” Drake glanced at his polished dress shoes that probably came from Saks Fifth Avenue. “Can we talk?”
She shook her head. “We talked enough when you made it clear you don’t want a future with me.”
Thatcaught him off guard.
He slid his gaze toward Roman.
Roman, who appeared horrified.
Clearly, Drake had forgotten to mention that little morsel of knowledge to her brother when he’d manipulated this evening.
Her Babushka probably didn’t know it, either.
“I get it. Football is life,” she said.
The sheer curtains she’d hung around the edge of the room had been backlit with a blue glow that totally matched the way her chest felt—like she was inhaling a whole lot of sadness.
“Sports are just sports,” Drake said. The way he was looking at her like she was the only thing in the world worth looking at? Totally made her melt into a puddle of eggnog martini.
“Like flowers are just flowers,” he continued.
“Flowers arenotjust flowers.” Well, they were, but… “We can agree that flowers are more than just flowers and football is more than just football,” Anna said, pretending to throw a pass with her martini hand, sloshing the eggnog all over his shirt and her wrist.
For a split second—Anna clocked it—Drake seemed utterly confused as to what to do with her or the puddle of eggnog slowly saturating the cotton weave of his white button-down shirt. The slosh of eggnog martini started to slide down her wrist toward her elbow.
God, she was such a mess.
