A calloused hand brushed against my elbow, gently gripping my arm and removing me from the fray. For some reason, this didn't scare the shit out of me.
I glanced up, up, up into Sloan's brown eyes.
"You good?" he asked. He'd dropped his hand once my extraction was complete. Still, he looked me over, checking for any damage.
That was nice. Not invasive.
Honestly, never in my life had I been so relieved to see a football player. Wasn't that a thought I never thought I'd think?
"Sloan." I blew out a breath. "You found me."
"I did."
Well, wasn't he just my knight in shining Pendleton?
Even being recognized by a handful of people, with his size and his demeanor, the guy had become a crowd deterrent. Even those who clearly recognized him weren't making a peep about it. I swore he growled low enough that everyone avoided our vicinity. And with me tucked safely into his personal space bubble, the crowd seemed to part around us.
"You hurt?" he asked, glancing over me as he spoke and seriously giving me goosebumps with the way his gaze trailed over my skin.
"No." I frowned at my heel-less boot. "Just my footwear." My kitten heel, white leather, pointed toe Vegas boots.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle behind me, but it didn't get close.
Sloan probably pushed it away with an invisible force field or something.
I chanced a glance at my soon-to-be tossed footwear.
"You loved those boots," Sloan said, with a certainty I wouldn't have expected from him in a gazillion light years.
I nodded, refusing to get choked up over something as silly as boots—even if they were more than simple footwear. I could count on them to bring out my confidence when I didn't feel it. They'd been one of my first large purchases when I got my first gig as a backup singer on an international tour.
And they'd been half off.
Sloan gave me a look like he got it. Understood and even commiserated.
Which meant… I had totally misread the situation. This guy had a girlfriend.
Because a guy didn't understand the loss of a pair of boots unless he either had the same affection for footwear—which I seriously doubted given the state of his boots—or he had someone in his life.
Yes, I'd done the obligatory check, and he wasn't wearing a ring, but that didn't mean anything. He hadn't touched my back at the party, and he'd been quiet most of the way down The Strip. Like he was trying to sort out a puzzle in his brain, and it gave him a headache.
"You're all partnered up. I knew it," I stated as a fact. "Damn. I was getting a tiny crush on you. What with the way you… are you?"
Whoever he was with was a lucky, lucky woman.
He stared at me funny for a long beat, the edges of his lips sort of twitching.
"My mom was into shoes." Sloan slung his arm around my shoulder. "She taught me the importance of designer."
I shivered. Too fucking good to be true.
"I don't do designer, but I respect the connection a person can have with shoes or handbags," he continued. "And I'm not partnered up."
Did he just say…?
"You're sure you don't have a significant other?" For clarity's sake and all.
Sloan shook his head, his arm still very much draped around me. I snuggled in and gave him a good sniff test.
