Page 87 of Serving Bunt

Oh, fuck.

Diaz pulled something out from the very back of the closet. I knew what it was before it even cleared the wall of shirts.

The candle.

The three-wick Peter Diaz-scented candle.

Fuck my life.

He turned the sleek, black jar over in his hands, eyebrows shooting up in genuine surprise. “Is this—”

My face went nuclear. I pushed off the doorframe, suddenly wishing the floor would swallow me whole. “It’s not what you think.”

“You bought my candle,” he said, voice full of disbelief.

“Okay, it’s exactly what you think.”

“And hid it in your closet.”

“I’m not hiding it,” I muttered, my ears on fucking fire.

“It’s buried behind your coats.”

“Yeah, for . . . safekeeping.”

Diaz stared at the jar for another second, then looked back at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Surprise, maybe. Amusement, I hoped.

Defending myself was a lost cause, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

“Would you have preferred I just leave it out in the open? On my nightstand, next to a photo of you, like some kind of stalker shrine?”

“Of course!” he roared, breaking off into laughter.

He rolled the jar over in his hands, brushing his thumb over the label.

“You lit it?”

“Once,” I stressed, utterly mortified. It wasn’t every day the teammate you were head over ass for discovered a him scented candle buried behind your Canada Goose coat. “Okay, maybe twice.”

Before I could shove my foot any further into my mouth, Diaz reached back into the closet, brushing his hand against something else.

My stomach dropped when he pulled out a familiar manila folder. The edges were frayed, the cover slightly bent from being handled too many times. When he flipped it open, I watched confusion creep across his face as he realized what was inside.

Pages and pages of printed stories.

His stories.

The stories he’d written about the team, about us. They were all there. Every last one.

“Oh my god.” I groaned, stepping forward quickly. “Peter—”

He looked up at me slowly. “You kept them?”

“I . . . Yeah.”

Diaz didn’t say anything else. He simply carried the folder over to the bed and sat down on the edge, flipping through a few more pages with careful fingers. After a second, I followed and sat beside him, close enough that our thighs pressed together.

“I couldn’t just ignore them,” I said quietly, staring at my hands. “Even after I found out it was you. They were . . . really good. And they made me feel things I didn’t understand at the time. I kept telling myself I’d throw them away, but every time I tried, I’d end up rereading one instead. They made me feel seen in a way I didn’t even know I needed.”