Connor’s car was pulled up at the curb. He was leaning against it, jacket zipped, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. Unfairly put together.
The door closed behind me with a thud, and his attention snapped up, finding me instantly. Those dark chocolate eyes looked endless today, and that was a problem.
“Morning, Captain,” he said, his voice gruff and raspy. Sometimes that Irish twang came out, the vowels rounding in a way that didn’t quite fit with his American accent. It used to send the girls in college wild.
I thought, not for the first time, that maybe I understood why. Just a little.
“Morning to you too.”
He grinned widely as he looked at me, then opened the passenger door. I stopped just as I got to the car, turning to face him. The morning sun shone behind him and he looked beautiful.
“I can open the door myself, you know,” I said without any resistance.
“I know you can,” he replied with a devilish smirk. “I like that you let me do it for you.”
I got in the car without another protest because I wanted him to have that win.
I’d never done that with Connor before. Ever. The version of us we’d carried for years hovered awkward and wobbling, and clearly no longer built for whatever this was turning into. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit what that meant either.
Connor moved around the front of the car and slid in beside me, the space filling with the clean scent of his aftershave and something warmer that I remembered from that night at the dinner. He adjusted the mirrors, started the engine, all unhurried, like he wasn’t aware he’d just unsettled my entire morning.
“Ready?” he asked, as though it was my job to start the car, take us somewhere, and perform for important people. If I’d looked at it differently, and he was really asking if I was okay, maybe he could sense that I was halfway to the loony house this morning. Maybe he couldn’t and he was simply asking if I was ready for what we were about to do. Either way, I liked that he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Let’s go.”
He pulled out onto the street, and my mind began to go over the email he’d sent me. It didn’t give me much to go on, so I decided to pry a little more.
“So, remind me how this started?”
His eyes flicked to me for a split second, then back to the road, hands flexing as he moved the wheel to turn. “I spoke to Richard Hale at the investor dinner, and he asked if we would do a Q&A at his daughter’s school.”
St Brigid’s was a private school with funding for almost any sport. It was the school I wished I could have gone to growing up. The access into professional pathways is so much bigger from there, though still not amazing. It goes to show that money talks.
“Richard’s daughter plays,” he went on. “Front row. She’s good. He talks about her like he already knows the system won’t bend for her unless someone pushes.”
He was right, it wouldn’t. At least not easily. I wanted to make sure that my team paved the way for girls like her. But that still didn’t make sense as to why Connor was talking to him.
“So, why are you involved?”
His gaze slid to mine, just briefly, something unreadable passing through it before he looked back to the road. “Because I wanted to support you, show you that I’m on your side.”
Everything inside me misfired.
The road ahead blurred at the edges, like my focus had narrowed too fast. I dragged a breath in, and it stalled halfway, caught somewhere behind my ribs.
I shifted in my seat, suddenly aware of the space between us, of how contained the car felt, how there was nowhere to put the reaction that was coursing through me. My jaw set. Unset. I swallowed and tried again.
He hadn’t framed it as an obligation or a repayment. He hadn’t saidthe Valkyriesorthe leagueorgood optics. He’d saidyou. And I wasn’t sure what to do with that. That a man was actually showing up for me. He didn’t need to be here for this; he chose to be. He wanted to show support, and I… was at a loss.
I’d spent years building armor that functioned automatically. Smile. Perform. Lead. Take the hit. Keep moving.
My fingers curled against my thigh, then flattened again, as if my body was testing whether I needed to brace. I kept my eyes forward, because if I looked at him, there was a good chance I might lose it.
I wasn’t used to someone choosing me without being asked.
There was something deeply inconvenient about the timing of it. About the fact that it was him. That he was sitting there likethis was obvious, like siding with me wasn’t a calculated move, but a given.
I exhaled slowly, forcing the breath all the way out this time.
