“I’m proud of you, Tate. That assignment was all you. You’ve improved so much in your writing.”
He snags my hand and brushes his thumb across my knuckles with a soft smile.
“That was because of you. You forced me to stop doing the bare minimum and dig deeper. Thank you for all the help you gave me. I don’t think I ever said that before and I’m sorry.”
I brush his words away with a smile but that doesn’t stop the warm glow in my stomach at hearing he appreciates me.
“Can I ask why you chose English as your major?”
He shrugs one big shoulder, tears a piece of bread from the basket apart, and butters it before handing it to me.
“It wasn’t really a passion of mine, clearly. I just needed to declare something at the time and I thought if football didn’t work out, if I got injured, at least I could do something with that degree. Maybe keep going and be a teacher or something. I could coach whatever school I ended up at’s football team.”
I hum my understanding and swallow the bite of bread in my mouth. “So football is your passion, then?”
He makes a face and shrugs again. “I don’t know if passion is the right word. It’s just something I’m good at. From the minute my dad strapped a set of pads on me when I was eight, my course was kind of set.”
I know he doesn’t want to talk about his dad and what I accidentally overheard so I steer away from that.
“Jude told me about this draft thing and how important it is to you guys. He said you’re hoping to go play for the same team. How is that even possible with the way the draft works?”
He huffs out a flat laugh. “It’s not really. We have representatives working behind the scenes with some pro teams trying to make some deals. It’s a complicated dance of possible trades and swaps. We won’t know if it will pan out until the very end of the draft.”
I think about how close they all are and how hard it would be for them to go to different sides of the country. “What will you do if you can’t get what you want?”
“That involves a very dangerous game of chicken if we both refuse to sign, play our last year here, and hope we get another shot at the following year’s draft. Or, we take our deals and just go to different teams.”
I sit back and take a sip of water. The amount of money Jude was telling me about would be really hard to say no to.
“Would you actually do that? Turn down all that money just to keep playing with Jude?”
He butters another piece of bread and tries to hand it to me but I shake my head so he sets it on his plate. His fingers on my arm brush up and down in soft sweeps that send shivers down my back.
“I’d like to say that I would but…there are outside forces, complications, and consequences that I have to factor into my decision. Jude will also have his own reasons if he ends up signing with whoever picks him. We just have to hope our representatives can work some deals.”
The waitress brings our food, ending the conversation, and the scent of the spicy arrabbiata sauce on my penne floats up to tickle my nose. We eat in comfortable silence for a while and it gives me a chance to think about what Jude and Tate going to different teams would mean for me if I do let myself get into a relationship with all of them. In less than a year they will be gone and anything we might have started would be over.
I’m going to have to be very careful about letting anything between us get too deep now that I know that. I don’t think my sad little heart could stand having even more people leave me. I do more playing with my food than eating as I accept that I won’t be a part of their family after all. It sucks but I’ve managed all these years on my own so…yeah.
“Hey, what’s on your mind? What are you thinking about that’s making you look so sad?” Tate asks, breaking me from my low thoughts. I shake my head and paste on a smile.
“Not sad at all. I was just thinking about finals coming up and then the holidays. Do you go home for the holidays? Where is home for you?”
Tate pushes away his empty plate and drops a hand to my thigh under the table tracing small circles over my tights.
“My family lives in Virginia and at best, I’ll make it home for a few days. It all depends on where we sit in the rankings and what bowl game we will be playing. What about you, where are you from?”
I’m not about to tell him that dad and I split our time between the brownstone in New York and the estate in Connecticut so I just say, “Greenwich” and leave it at that. I don’t want to talk about the pathetic lonely life I have over school breaks and the holidays. He doesn’t need to hear how the only presents I get under the tree are a knitted treasure from Martha and usually a first-edition book of some kind from Uncle Mark. I roll my eyes at my poor little rich girl pity party and remind myself that I’m grateful that for the last five years Celeste and Vanessa have gone away to some exotic location.
“Can I get you anything else, sir, madam?” The waitress asks when she clears our plates.
I shake my head so Tate asks for the check. As far as first dates go, it wasn’t too bad but we’re both holding so much back that it feels like something is missing.
He turns his big body towards mine and slides one arm up my back to loosely grip the back of my neck. The other slides further up my thigh under my skirt. He’s caging me in and I should feel crowded but the intense look in his eyes as he stares down at me has me feeling safe and coveted instead.
“Baby, I’m sorry. I took you for granted and I was careless with you. I had no idea when I kissed you that day to shut your mom and sister up that I would end up feeling this way about you.”
His hand around my neck slides to tip my head up so I have to look into his hazel eyes as he speaks.
