Page 71 of Cherry Picking

“Is that what this is all about? You’re jealous?”

“Extremely. I’ve been thinking about nothing but your mouth since December twenty-sixth, and tonight, some stranger got to make you laugh in a parking lot. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he’d gone up these stairs with you.”

My hand comes up to his neck of its own accord, palm settling over the dahlia. His mother’s favorite flower, inked into his skin forever. Two weeks of telling myself I was finished with him, and here I am with my hand over his pulse, wanting to be let in past all that.

Still, when he leans in to kiss me, I press a finger to his lips and push him back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask.

He stares into my eyes, head tilted. “Kissing a pretty girl.”

“Uh-uh. Not happening.” I untangle myself from his lap, reclaiming my corner of the couch. “I don’t hand out second chances like Halloween candy. Sorry.”

His chest heaves. “Is that so?”

“Afraid it is.”

“What if I beg?” He slides off the couch onto his knees in front of me, hands settling on either side of my thighs. When he looks up through his lashes, he does it in a manner that should be illegal in several states. “I can be very persuasive down here. You have personal experience with my persuading.”

Heat crawls up my neck, so I dig my nails into my palm to hold the line. “Get up.”

“That’s a no?”

“Briggs.” It comes out softer than I mean it to, so I firm it up. “You don’t get to ditch and then change your mind two weeks later. I’m not built like that.”

He gets up off his knees and sits back beside me, elbows on his thighs, nodding slowly at the carpet.

“Maybe this happened for a reason,” I say. “The interruption. All of it. It was a wake-up call for both of us.”

“I agree.” He turns his head. “Just in the other direction. I think we should give this a shot.”

“Give what a shot, exactly? Hooking up on the rare occasion you’re in town?”

“No, I—”

“Listen,” I cut in, waiting as he shifts to face me fully. “Let’s just see how it goes. You go back to Charlotte early tomorrow. I’ll be here. If we feel like texting, we text. If we don’t—”

“We will.”

“If we don’t,” I repeat, “no hard feelings.”

He looks at me for a long moment, and I brace for the argument. Instead, he nods, finishes the last of the plum wine, and carries both our glasses to the sink on his way up. Buying himself a minute.

“For the record,” he says at the door, shrugging his jacket on, “I’m going to text you tomorrow before the flight.”

He did let me in, eventually. He navigated the Vegas traffic after a win just to hand over the truth in person rather than through a screen. But one honest hour doesn’t erase the version of him that runs when things get hard.

“We’ll see how you feel.”

“Yeah,” he says, “we will.”

I turn the lock and stay there in the hush of my apartment, my palm still buzzing from the heat of his skin. I want to buy what he’s selling, I genuinely do. But in this valley, wanting a thing and trusting it to stay aren’t always compatible.

CHAPTER 21

BRIGGS

The team bus leaves for the airport at half past seven, which gives me a few minutes in the lobby of our hotel to keep my promise.