I feel him shift in his seat and his head turn towards me, but I keep my gaze plastered forward. His fingers float across my hand that’s resting in my lap. To my surprise he threads his fingers through mine.
“Are you okay, now?” Stella asks.
I finally look over to Rowan and find him watching me intently. His eyes filled with concern. I feel his hand tighten around mine. I give him a reassuring squeeze back and hold his gaze as I answer. “I’m more than okay.”
I hear a faint, “That’s good,” but I’m too busy watching Rowan’s expression go from worried to relieved, a tentative smile pulls on his lips.
Thankfully any more questions are thwarted when the waitress comes to the table to take all of our orders.
He leans forward, his lips skate across my forehead, causing my core to heat, before his lips reach my ear. “You holding out on me, Daredevil?”
My eyebrows pull together. “It never came up.”
“Later?” he asks, right before the waitress gets to him.
I nod my agreement, knowing from the look in his eyes that he isn’t going to let me get out of telling him everything once we’re alone.
Suddenly my palms grow sweaty again.
Chapter Twelve
Rowan
My fingertips itch to reach out and thread her fingers with mine but I resist the urge and shove my damn hands into my pockets as I walk her to her car.
I don’t know what it is about this girl but the fact that I want to hold her hand every chance I get should be freaking me out. And it is, at least a little bit. I’m not looking for a relationship and something tells me Millie St. James is the kind of girlwhowouldn’t settle for anything less.
“You look deep in thought,”she says, the left corner of her mouth kicks up as she looks over at me.
“Nah, just wondering if I should havegonewith nachos instead of the cheeseburger,”I say,jokingly. I take my hand out of my pocket and reach up to rub the spot across my chest that’sbeen tight ever since she casually confessed she was sick as a child.
She laughs, “I thought you always get the cheeseburger.” She drops her voice down an octave as she tries to imitate me, “I like what I like.”
I laugh when her voice breaks halfway through her impersonation. I shrug my shoulder, “It’s true.”
She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes like it normally does. “Yougonnatell me what you were really thinking about?”
I shift and rock back on my heels, shoving my damn hands back into mypocketsagain, just to have something to do with them.
I wasn’t expecting to like her so much and I sure as hell wasn’t expecting the visceral reaction I had when she said she was sick as a child. My mind ran wild with all the possibilities of what that meant and what it could still mean.
She watches me patiently. Something tells me I need to tread carefully here. I’m just not sure if it’s for her sake or mine.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I ask after a beat of silence.
Her eyes close briefly before she opens them again. Her gaze spears me right before her eyes dart off, looking at something off in the distance. “Now?” She shifts nervously, my chest tightens with the movement.
Why is she nervous? Is she still sick?She said she was better than okay at dinner. A million questions run through my mind in a split second but I don’t have time to ask them, and she doesn’t get a chance to respond.
“Cap.Can we talk?” Aiden Graham, who plays center, asks as he comes up beside me.
“Can you give me aminute—”
“I need to get going anyhow. Thanks for dinner, Rowan. I had a good time,” Millie says, abruptly cutting me off mid-sentence.She’s opening her car door and slipping inside before I can stop her.
“Anytime,” I answer, bewildered as she closes her car door and takes off out of the parking lot like her foot’s made of lead.
“Your question couldn’t have waited?” I ask, irritated as I look at Aiden.
