Page 93 of Lucky Shot

“Whew. I lied. My ego would have been bruised. Immensely.” He motions for me to follow as he turns out the light. “I could have fixed it though. If you had, I mean.”

“Fixed what?”

“The subpar part. Prove I’m worth it if need be. Like, right now.” He points at the wall to the left of us like I can see through it. “My place is right there.”

“Right where? Behind the wall?” A nervous laugh bubbles up.

“No.” He rolls his eyes. “In the condos overlooking the stadium. The penthouse in the left tower. That’s mine.”

“How convenient for you.”

“Or smothering. Depends on how you look at it.” He glances my way before continuing. “I should have thought of it from the get-go. Taking you there, but . . . there’s something about you that makes it hard for me to think clearly.”

My smile is real, while my heart hammers erratically in my chest. This doesn’t happen to me. The uncertainty. The quickening of everything within me. “I don’t want to go to your place,” I say softly as he hoists his backpack onto his shoulder and pushes open the door to the parking lot before locking it behind him.

“No?” He chuckles like he doesn’t believe me. “Why not?”

“Because . . . it’s just better this way.”

“Better or easier?” He angles his head to the side and studies me. It seems to be his thing, watching me like that, trying to figure me out. It says a lot about him, if I’m honest because he’s earnest in wanting to know what makes me tick.

“Both,” I say softly. “No need to complicate matters, right?”

He nods. “Pleasure doesn’t have to go hand in hand with complication.”

Clearly, he has no idea how my insides feel right now.

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just, you’re at the academy for two more weeks before coming back here.”

“Here as in a thirty-minute drive, which clearly you made with ease tonight, so why would it be any different then?”

“That’s beside the point,” I say simply to have something to say because he’s making way too much sense.

“No, it’s not.”

“It is. Especially when we live in two vastly different worlds.”

“Like how we both have football pitches for our offices?”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“No, I’m heading off the Whitney Barnes freak-out of she had an itch, she scratched it, time to run away.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“It’s exactly what you’re doing, but I see it now. I recognize it. And if I haven’t already proven I’m patient enough to you, I guess you’ll see it yet again.”

“You think you’re funny.”

“No. I think I’m right.” He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear as his eyes search mine. “I’m all for scratching itches. I don’t know about you, Lucky Shot, but sometimes when I scratch the itch, it just itches more.”

I don’t fight my grin because damn, the man has my number in more ways than one. He’s patient. He’s kind. He’s charming. And hell if he doesn’t already have me itching again. The difference this time around is how he’s acting and what he’s saying, which is making that itch even more attractive.

“Obviously, I’m not good at the after part,” I say with a lift of my eyebrows and the hopes that he’s going to let me off the hook on this whole line of conversation.

“I like that you’re not.” He nudges me with his elbow. “I like that you’re awkward and that I make you nervous.”

“You don’t make me nervous.”