Page 40 of Game On

She laughed. “Nope! But I judge a place by its food. Upscale’s nice, but if it’s good, I don’t care about aesthetic.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but then the waiter brought over our food. I took a bite of one of my tacos while Lily cut into her chicken that was smothered in a dark sauce. She closed her eyes as she chewed.

“Good?” I asked.

Her eyes popped open, and her face lit up with excitement. “Very good.”

“When Mari said you liked Mexican, I asked my teammate Benny for a recommendation. He said his kitchen, but then he recommended this place.”

She stared up at the ceiling like she was trying to pull something out of her memory. “He’s the big guy with huge muscles, right?”

I laughed. “That describes half my teammates.”

A cute rosy blush colored her face. “He’s very tall. And his girlfriend’s curvy with dark hair, right? I only met them once.”

“Yeah, that’s Rox. Benny’s not wrong, though, and he’s an excellent cook. He makes a mean tamale around the holidays.”

She gave me another warm smile, and we made small talk while we ate. Every time I made her smile or she tipped back her head and laughed at something funny I’d said, I wanted to do it more. I was drawn to her in a way I couldn’t understand. But my heart and my dick were having a hard time remembering this wasn’t a date.

After we finished eating and our waiter took away our plates, I ordered a coffee while she pored over the tiny dessert menu. I wasn’t one for dessert, another symptom of trying to adhere to my nutritionist’s plan, but she looked excited about it.

“Ooh, they have tres leches cake!” she exclaimed.

“Order it.”

“Will you eat some?” she asked. “I know you mentioned⁠—”

“I’ll run an extra mile on the treadmill tomorrow.”

She bit her lip, and the action made me think of biting that plump lip with my own teeth. “You sure?”

“Lil, get the dessert.”

She grinned big and ordered it when the server came back over.

Something alerted her, and she dug into her purse to find her phone. Whatever she saw on her phone made her put her hand to her mouth. “Aw.”

“What’s up?”

She held her screen up to me, and it was a picture of the kids from earlier playing sweetly together. I had been a little worried about Liam with other kids since he came to live with me. It was why I pulled him out of daycare and hadn’t signed him up for preschool yet. After the accident, he acted out a lot. But he was so sweet on Lily’s baby, and they played together with minimal fighting.

“They’re so cute,” she said.

I grinned. “And they know it.”

She laughed. “Yeah. As much as I hate my ex for what he did, I never would have had Rosie if I’d never met him. She’s my entire world. Nothing else matters.”

I nodded in agreement because that was exactly how I felt about Liam. Maybe that’s why I felt so drawn to Lily. She was the only person who understood being a single parent.

“She’s really cute. She obviously takes after her mama,” I told her.

She blushed again and took another sip of her water, not daring to look me in the eye.

The awkwardness subsided when the server brought over her dessert. She pushed the second spoon my way, then scraped hers into the cake and took a huge bite. I dug my spoon into the other side as we shared the dessert.

“This is good,” I said.

“Told you!”