“You nicknamed me first.”
“I called you Cross Check one time after you called me Pip.”
His grin spread slowly. “Semantics.”
“Oh my goodness,” I muttered, walking past him toward the living room because distance felt medically necessary. “You are unreasonable.”
“And yet, you opened the door.”
“For academic reasons.”
“Right,” he said, dragging the word out just enough to make it feel like a challenge. “Academic.”
I pointed my coffee at him. “Careful, Cross Check.”
Something flickered across his face when I said it. Amusement, yes, but something underneath too. Something private. Like the name landed somewhere he hadn’t expected and stayed there.
That should not have pleased me as much as it did.
I carried the cronuts from the counter to the coffee table, already regretting every choice that had led to Cade Mercer standing in my apartment looking around like the details mattered. His gaze moved over the framed photo of me, Aura, and Charm at senior prom, the Detroit Tigers magnet on the fridge, the stack of sports media textbooks near the couch, the blanket folded over the armrest, and the half-packed tote bag sitting by the door for Sunday dinner. He noticed everything without making me feel inspected, which was possibly worse because inspection I understood.
This felt like attention.
“Coffee and cronuts?” he asked, following me into the living room.
“Don’t get used to it. This is not standard project treatment.”
“Shame. I was about to demand it in my contract.”
“You don’t have a contract.”
“Yet.”
I dropped onto the couch and pulled one leg beneath me, trying to look professional even though my project notes were spread across the table beside pastries and a coffee I was already drinking too fast. Cade sat at the opposite end of the couch, close enough that I could smell clean soap and cold air beneath the coffee, but not close enough to crowd me.
Somehow, the space he left felt intentional.
Which annoyed me because I noticed that too.
“All right, my future sports-agent,” he said, leaning forward to set his cup down. “Sell me your vision.”
“My vision,” I repeated dramatically, because if I didn’t make it a joke, I might start noticing his forearms like a woman who had learned nothing from her own life. “I want it organic.”
Cade leaned back slightly against the couch, one arm stretching across the cushions while his fingers pushed lazily through the dark strands falling across his forehead. The movement dragged my attention straight to his hands before I could stop it, and judging by the way the corner of his mouth twitched afterward, he noticed.
Because of course he noticed.
“Organic,” he repeated, nodding with exaggerated seriousness. “Grass-fed project.”
I laughed softly into my coffee. “That’s not what organic means.”
“It feels close.”
“It doesn’t.”
His grin deepened slowly, dimples cutting into his cheeks while he bit lightly at his bottom lip like he was trying not to laugh at his own joke. That was worse. Much worse. Men should not be allowed to look that good while saying objectively stupid things.
“You’re kind of bossy for someone wearing enemy colors in Fury territory,” he said.
