Page 156 of The Backup Plan

“Valid point,” I say with a fleeting smile. And while it shouldn’t, somehow his comment makes me feel somewhat better about my decision.

“All right,” Grant finally says. “That’s what we needed to know.”

“Anything else?” I ask, although I’m itching to get the hell out of here.

“I think that’ll about do it,” Grant says. “Thanks for your input.”

I nod, stand, and as I’m walking out on legs that barely feel like mine, hear them discussing Lucas’s insight on reading the defense and calling plays.

That’s all fine, I already knew he had a good instinct, but it’s the conversation before that, that I replay the whole way home. Even as I sit in my car outside the apartment building long after I should have gone inside.

But I haven’t heard from Lucas, so that means he hasn’t been told he has the start yet. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse that I know before him.

Then again, would he call me and tell me? Especially when he knows how worried I am about this?

I stare at my reflection in my windshield and see a version of myself I don’t quite recognize.

I crossed a line.

I can’t assess exactly how far I crossed, but I did.

And everything about it is conflicting.

Knock. Knock.

I jump at the knuckles on my driver’s side window.

Lucas.

Relief and confusion and just about every emotion in between hits me. And in the middle of all of that is the one I can’t deny—love.

He’s standing there with his hands shoved in his pockets, head tipped to the side like he caught me doing something I shouldn’t be doing.

I roll the window down.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I say by way of greeting.

He smiles. “You’re acting more and more like me these days.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugs. “Staring at nothing as if you’re trying to figure out the cost of every decision before you make it.”

That’s cryptic as hell. I twist my lips and look back toward the apartments. “Are you referring to football or about us?”

He’s quiet for a beat. “Probably both.”

His words hit hard, but I’m the one who asked the question.

“What is it?” I ask.

“We haven’t really talked about where this is going,” he says.

My chest constricts. “This?”

“Us. You. Me. Together. I mean, there are so many goddamn uncertainties in my life right now, I’d rather this not be one.”

I nod, chewing my words in my head. “I wasn’t under the impression that there was any uncertainty when it came to us.”