Promise Me This: a friends to lovers, slow burn romance (Wilder Family Book 3)

Chapter 27

Paloma: I missed your birthday, didn’t I?

Me: Indeed you did.

Paloma: I’m a shit friend. You know I never remember birthdays unless social media tells me. HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I’ll buy you a drink the next time I can drag you away for a writing retreat. Or you invite me to one. Aren’t the mountains peaceful or something?

Me: So they say. And I’d love to have you here.

Me: Also, you’re not a shit friend. You were in the writing cave, so I forgive you.

Paloma: I sure was. Wrote 8k yesterday and 6k the day before.

Me: I won’t even cuss you out for that blatant display of bragging because I had a perfect birthday, and I sent my pitch and first three chapters to my editor right before Sage and I left for our girls’ day.

Paloma: Yeah, you fucking did! Feel good about it?

Me: I do. She said she’d read it ASAP. We’re supposed to do a Zoom and talk in a couple of days. Cora too.

Paloma: Gawd, Cora probably drank an entire gallon of wine when you actually finished, she was so relieved.

Me: Ha. Probably.

Paloma: What are you up to today since that’s off your plate?

Me: Waiting on the bleachers right now. Sage has her first flag football game, and we had to be here early so she could warm up. My parents and a couple of friends are coming to watch. They should be here soon.

Paloma: Aw. Cute small-town shit. Are you going to a quaint diner afterward? Walk down Main Street with a broad-shouldered hottie who keeps giving you intense looks full of longing?

Me: Umm, wasn’t planning on it, but if that changes, I’ll let you know.

Paloma: Get anything good for your birthday?

My cheeks heated, and I took a strategic hard left out of the conversation because when this particular topic was visited with Paloma, I’d need to be able to see her face, preferably with a glass of wine in hand. I already had a broad-shouldered hottie giving me intense looks full of longing. Any more of those and I’d lose my shit. Unless he started following it up with intense tearing of clothes and some honesty, I could only take so much. I was ready to burst out of my skin if there wasn’t a reckoning with that man soon.

Me: Nothing crazy. Gotta go, I need to keep an eye out for my parents.

Paloma: Love you, tell Sage to kick some ass and knock someone over for me!

Me: That’s literally against the entire purpose of flag football, P.

Paloma: Your point?

I exhaled a small laugh and tucked my phone away. Since we were in the farthest field away from the door, I watched for my parents. My dad’s head appeared first, and after shooting them a text that they likely wouldn’t see until they left, I stood and waved my arms over my head.

After a few seconds, he saw me, lifting a hand in acknowledgment. Behind them, I saw Sheila and Poppy walk in, and I couldn’t help but shake my head that they’d come. It would be almost impossible to hold much of a conversation with them, given how loud it was, but the fact that they showed up at all said so much.

There was no sign yet of Ian—the man who’d disappeared before sunrise for the second day in a row after The Kiss—but he’d left Sage a note promising he’d be there. It wasn’t even just his fault that we hadn’t seen each other because there’d genuinely been no opportunity to talk the past couple of days.

Before my birthday, I knew he was pulling a few early days because of something Cameron needed help with at the site of their future store. The frame was going up on a new build, and they were working on split crews, so he wanted Ian to take over supervising the crew at the other site until he was free.

And in the evening, I’d had back-to-back podcast interviews, so I kept myself locked in my bedroom recording. By the time I finished, slipping briefly into Sage’s room to help her with some homework, I heard the shower crank on in his bathroom, and I knew he was taking his shower before bed.

That helped nothing, if I was being honest. Lying in my bed, I stared at the ceiling, imagining the man in his shower. I swear, if I saw him wearing those gray sweatpants again, I couldn’t be held liable for my actions.

The Thoughts and Feelings had streamlined now, in the wake of such a kiss, and oddly enough, I wasn’t scared. We needed to talk, I was ready for all the cards to be out on the table—his and mine and why he’d kissed me like that and then apologized, and why I very, very much wanted to do it again.

It felt a bit like the universe conspired against us because the first time I’d really seen him since I’d left the porch and went to bed very much alone, we’d be in plain view of his family and mine, in a giant metal building where half the town could eavesdrop. They wouldn’t have to work very hard either because in order to carry on any conversation here, you’d have to practically yell.

The building was cavernous, the sound echoing everywhere from the four fields that made up the entire place. They were separated by floor-to-ceiling nets, hung on hooks and draped to the ground to keep the game balls separate. On the field in front of me, the kids from both teams ran drills, flags streaming from their waists as they bounced around on the artificial field. The energy was palpable, and even with all the unknowns hanging over my life, I was so damn excited for my kid.

With Keaton and the number 18 emblazoned on her back, Sage looked like she was about to vibrate out of her skin if the game didn’t start soon. As my parents, Sheila and Poppy made their way through the maze of nets and fields, moving slowly through the stream of parents leaving the earlier games, Coach Scott looked over at me, catching my eye for the first time since I’d arrived.

He looked handsome, wearing a hat with the team’s logo, and a matching shirt stretched over his barrel chest. The smile he aimed in my direction was intentional. That was the only word for it.

He didn’t even attempt to hide how happy he was to see me. A few of the parents seated around me noticed, glancing back in my direction when he raised his hand and waved, and as I returned it, a slight curl of anxiety unspooled in my stomach.

A man asked a woman out to dinner when he wanted her.

It hadn’t been that long ago Ian said that to me, but the delivery of such simple words now felt loaded down with subtext. Indecision was a bitch, and I couldn’t shake the ominous tingling in my gut that I wouldn’t be able to get through this weekend without both of the situations coming to a head.

A dinner meeting was simple enough, if that was all it truly was.

A kiss with an old friend wasn’t simple at all, unless that was all it was to him.

The first was straightforward for me. The second wasn’t straightforward in the slightest because I found myself on the end of the equation as the person doing the wanting, with no indication at all that he’d be willing to step into that space with me. Which was what made it a thousand times more inconvenient that my heart did a weird skipping thing when I looked at the entrance and saw that he’d finally arrived.

First a skip. A breathless beat before it began again. That was when his eyes found mine from across the distance. Then it was off to the races, beating harder and faster until I felt it in my fingertips.

I tore my eyes away so I wasn’t watching him like a freaking stalker—not to mention my own looks of intense longing probably didn’t help anything either—and instead focused on greeting the people who approached my saved seats on the bleachers. My dad, as usual, chose to stand, but he gave me a slight pat on the back.

“Harlow,” he said.

“Hey, Dad, thanks for coming.”

My mom picked her way up onto the bench just below mine, giving me a smile that was also holding intention. She looked … sorry.

“How was your birthday?” she asked, her hands tightening over her purse, stretched so thin that the skin almost looked translucent. She wasn’t just sorry. She was nervous. “I hope you got my text in the morning.”

I managed a smile. “I did. It was great, thank you. I felt very spoiled all day,” I told her. Details would be kept safely tucked away from this crowd too, because I could just imagine trying to explain it all to my mother, with Sheila and Poppy within earshot.

No thank you.

And speaking of the latter two women, their greetings were night and day from my own parents’. While Poppy paused to say hi to someone she knew, Sheila opened her arms the moment she was within reach, squeezing me so tight that I laughed.

“Honey, I’ve been so excited to come watch this. You have no idea.” As she took a seat, her eyes soaked in all the chaos in the building.

“Really?” I asked.

She patted my arm. “Are you kidding? I had a million kids in different activities, and I’ve just been waiting for my granddaughters to be old enough to start attending all over again.” She gave my mom a friendly smile. “Not that Sage is my granddaughter. I promise I won’t overstep, but she sort of feels like a nice bonus, with the two of them just next door.”

From the bench behind them, I watched my mom struggle with what to say. She’d never quite known how to deal with the Wilders, and as I got older, I realized that a lot of that came from her own hang-ups and insecurities.

That was true of most interactions in life. The way someone acted, for good or for bad, usually said so much more about them and what they’d been through than it did about you.

My parents were proud of the life they’d built, but they’d never been comfortable around people who were quietly wealthy in the way Tim and Sheila had been. They had a successful business spanning into its second generation of their family, two sons who played professional football, and now two sons-in-law who did too, a beautiful big home and a huge swath of land where they’d carved out the kind of life people dream of.

And sometimes, I suspected that the easy way the Wilders loved, the way they welcomed and accepted, was just as uncomfortable to Mom. When I was younger, it was hard for me to wrap my mind around it, coming from the family that I did. Then, I was just happy to be in their orbit. It wasn’t that disagreements didn’t exist and everything was easy, but the Wilders weathered the hard because at the anchor of that family was acceptance. It was love rooted deep, without conditions and without reservation.

Poppy stepped over the bench, sending my parents a friendly smile, before she plopped down beside me and sighed. “There are so many people in this building right now.”

I laughed. “Kids sports are a whole different level of crazy.”

She gave me a sideways hug, then whispered in my ear. “A little bird told me that Coach Scott has been flirting with you.”

I gave her a look. “How the hell does news travel in this place?”

She laughed, then tilted her head toward the young couple she was chatting with in the first row. “Their son plays. She told me he can hardly keep his eyes off you.”

I blew out a slow breath because right on schedule, he looked over and gave me a private little grin. Poppy nudged me with her elbow, then cleared her throat knowingly.

“You stop it. He wants to meet with me to talk about a girls’ flag football team, that’s it.”

She snorted. “Before or after he tries to shove his tongue down your throat?”

The glare I gave her made her laugh, but my stomach roiled with unease. There was only one tongue I wanted anywhere, and he approached in long-legged strides with a stoic look.

“His tongue will be nowhere near my person, thank you very much,” I said primly. “I haven’t even agreed to meet with him yet.”

Poppy gave me a level glance. “Better decide quick. He’s mentally picking out the engagement ring.”

I leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Since our mothers are a foot in front of us, you’ll have to imagine all the f-words coming out of my mouth right now, Poppy.”

Her laugh was loud, and Sheila gave us a sweet smile over her shoulder, which I returned. She probably wouldn’t be smiling as much if she had any idea.

A moment later, Ian approached our little group, first greeting my dad with a firm handshake. He nodded to the moms and Poppy. My pulse skipped, my heart churning as I waited. And then, and then his eyes came to rest on mine.

Why did time stop when that happened? Had it always done that, and I’d never noticed? And more than that, did it feel that way for him too?

The way my skin ignited was dangerous, just from that one slightly searching look. He didn’t look lost, or at least that wasn’t the right word. But there was a question buried so deeply inside his dark brown eyes that I felt a little breathless from wanting to answer it right then and there.

Are we okay?

Sometimes space was good and necessary. And sometimes, at moments like this, it dug its fingers into the first weakness it could find and, out of thin air, pried open a great big canyon that simply got more and more daunting the longer it stayed. This was Ian’s and my canyon, the tightrope we seemed to be balancing. I knew which direction I wanted to go in, but he clearly didn’t.

I couldn’t answer him. Not properly.

But I could smile. A real smile, with intention and purpose and motive. Different from the one Coach Scott gave me because I wanted to ease Ian’s mind, at least for now, until we could have a good moment to talk.

And it worked. His entire frame, so big and strong and capable, expanded on a deep, relieved breath.

“Interesting,” Poppy whispered beside me, more to herself than anything.

I froze. “What’s interesting?”

“Nothing.”

Bullshit. That easy-breezy tone didn’t fool me in the slightest, and I cut her a sideways look that had her laughing. “You know,” I said, “you always seem to be the one causing trouble between me and your brother.”

She sighed happily. “My life’s goal in a nutshell. I learned from Greer, and she is the best at it.”

“A thought that should terrify us all,” Ian said, now that he was standing beside the bleachers next to where I sat.

“Want to sit?” I asked him.

He shook his head, eyes trained on Sage. “I’d rather stand. I tend to fidget if I sit too long watching sports.”

I clucked my tongue. “Should’ve kept some of my handy paper clips, then. I might have to buy you some new ones.”

Ian’s mouth softened into a hint of a smile, and it was a good thing he was still watching the field because hell if I didn’t have to violently tear my gaze away from his mouth. I was so glad I did, though, because it allowed me to catch the moment that Sage saw her own little corner of the stands, and the smile that lit her face when she waved frantically over at us had me laying a hand over my heart while I fought a wave of tears.

Ian motioned her to the sideline, and he crouched down to say something to her. She listened intently, then gave him a fist bump and jogged off to meet her team so they could line up to start.

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“I told her some of those boys might hold back because she’s a girl, but she better not do the same. Rip those kids’ flags off like they kicked puppies.” He jerked his chin toward the opposing team. “And that guy on the edge over there looks like he’s slow off the snap, so she should target that side every time.”

When my mom gaped open-mouthed at him, I had to smother my smile. My dad chuckled under his breath.

Sheila sighed. “Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t raise kids that are too competitive.”

Ian finally realized everyone was staring at him. He crossed his big arms defensively over his chest. “What? Was that bad?”

I reached out and laid my hand on his arm. The warmth of his bicep muscles had my skin tingling. “No,” I told him. “It’s perfect. Thank you. I aimed more for the do your best, I’m proud of you no matter what happens kind of pep talk, so straight savagery is just making sure we’re covering all bases.”

When he grimaced, I laughed, and it did just enough to soften the features on his harsh, handsome face that I wished I could hug him. Maybe kiss him. Possibly undress him and see how excellent his naked skin was for sharing body heat. Ian glanced over, and I schooled my features as best I could, but his brow did that slight furrowing thing again that made me realize maybe I hadn’t done such a good job.

Not like this was my fault. He was wearing that chocolate-brown shirt today, and it shouldn’t have looked so good—with his dark hair tied back off his face, the dark chocolate eyes and his neatly trimmed beard. Somehow it did, though, setting off the golden undertone to his skin that I’d always been jealous of. In the summers, he tanned so well while I had to slather on the SPF 50 and hope not to burn my fairer skin.

Back then, his chest had been bare. Carved with muscle because of how hard he worked in the weight room, there was only the smallest hint of chest hair at eighteen. Now, though, just past the last button he’d done on his shirt, I could see a peek of dark hair.

It was so manly, I could scream.

I ripped my eyes away because I was staring at his chest. In public.

“Get it together,” I whispered.

“What?” he asked.

I blinked over at him. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

Ian eyed me for a moment, then turned his attention back to the game.

I turned forward, clearing my throat as Sage’s team lined up on offense first. After that, there was no more time for looks with subtext or even a lot of conversation.

There was so much yelling and screaming and jumping up on the bleachers. I swear, if she ever played a sport in college or the pros, I’d actually expire from elevated blood pressure.

Ian paced the sideline, shouting encouragement and tips, hands either propped on his hips or arms crossed over his chest. Even my dad cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled when her team scored a touchdown. My mom and Sheila were more subdued—likely from sheer embarrassment.

At one point, when Sage lined up behind her center and danced back, rolled to the right when someone got past a blocker and sent a sharp, perfectly thrown ball about thirty yards into the hands of a waiting receiver who ran straight into the end zone, Poppy and I screamed like they’d won a freaking Super Bowl.

Sage’s team surrounded her, offering high fives, back pats and hugs, and she was so happy, I was afraid my heart might burst.

Sheila looked back at me with a massive grin. “She’s amazing, Harlow.”

I sniffled. “Thank you. I think so too.”

Then like she couldn’t help herself, Sheila wrapped an arm around my mom and squeezed. “You must be so proud of these two. Your daughter is an amazing mom, you know.”

When my mom’s eyes flicked back toward me, I couldn’t read anything in her expression, and for a moment, my breath stalled.

“I know she is,” she said, quiet and firm. And maybe she was uncomfortable with the hug from Sheila, but she didn’t shake it off. She raised her head a little. “She always has been, even if I don’t do a great job of saying it out loud.”

Now time stopped for a different reason. It wasn’t from heady eye contact or the sweet possibilities that came with it. It was a breath-stealing, unexpected burst of honesty. To anyone else, it might have seemed like a weak substitute for an apology, but I was always more of a fan of changed behavior over empty words.

My mom knew I’d heard, even if her eyes didn’t cut back to mine. My bottom lip trembled dangerously, so I dug my teeth there to hold it still. The bite of pain helped, even if part of me wished it didn’t mean so much to hear her say it. But it did.

Sheila didn’t so much as blink at my mom’s admission, probably because it wasn’t as stunning to her as it was to me. She simply nodded. “Sometimes I think watching our kids come into their own, being truly good at something they care about, is the best part of being a parent. Scary too, of course. Because we can’t do much except sit back and watch, hope they don’t fail at whatever it is.” Then she patted my mom’s hand where it still clutched her purse on her lap. “But I think you’re doing just fine, even if you’re just saying it now. Now’s all we’ve got, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” my mom agreed.

“I think it’s hard when our kids go after something that we never would’ve dreamed of,” Sheila continued. “When I married Tim, I certainly never imagined that two of our boys would play professional football. We sat at games in the rain and cold and snow, for years and years, and I still had no idea what would come from it.”

My heart beat hard in my chest, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my mom’s face. She hadn’t looked back at me since Sheila started talking, and that was okay. I wanted to know she was listening, even if it came from someone else.

“I don’t know how you handled that,” my mom said quietly. “I’m not sure if I could have.”

“I think their jobs are a little insane, if I’m being honest,” Sheila said, leaning in closer to my mom, speaking just loudly enough that I could hear. “The attention, the toll it takes on their bodies, the risk involved.” Then she closed her eyes and smiled, like she was back at one of their games. “But my word, the way those boys light up when they play.” She patted my mom’s hand again. “I don’t need to understand it. Them loving what they do is plenty for me.”

The line of my mom’s throat moved on a tight swallow. “And you don’t … you don’t worry about them failing?”

Understanding filled Sheila’s face, as it often did. “No. Because even if they do, I think it’s pretty wonderful that they were willing to try, no matter the outcome.”

My mom did not respond immediately, but she stared down at her lap for a long minute. “You’re a wise woman, Sheila,” she said quietly.

Sheila waved that off. “That’s because I’m old and have a million kids. You can’t help but gain wisdom if you want to survive a family of our size.”

And then my mother smiled, emitting the smallest of laughs. It wasn’t big, and she didn’t show teeth, but it was more warmth than I’d seen out of her in a long time, the kind usually only reserved for her grandkids. And it had a pleasant, warm feeling spinning through my whole body.

No one else heard them. Not my dad. Not Poppy. Not Ian.

But he’d walked closer to the bleachers between plays and saw something on my face. With a few steps, he erased the distance between us, propping his hand on the metal surface next to my hip so he could lean closer. “You okay?” he asked, low and urgent.

I blinked, staring at my mom’s profile, waiting for her to look back at me. She didn’t, but I watched in nothing short of wonder as she eased her grip on her purse and took a deep breath.

Ian set a hand on my elbow, and I glanced over at him. His face was bent in concern. “Harlow?”

Eventually, I nodded, shifting my attention to him. Where he waited just to make sure I was okay. Everything inside me was melty and soft and lovely from the way that made me feel. “I’m okay. Just heard something I needed to hear for a while,” I added softly.

He left his hand there while he searched my face. The air thickened between us, and I felt the catch in my belly, the hiccup in my heart rate. What would it be like if I could lean forward and kiss him simply because I wanted to? The thought didn’t linger because he pulled back and smiled that mysterious, subdued little smile.

“Good.”

Eventually, my heart settled, and we watched the rest of the game play out. They came up short by ten points in the end, but compared to the way they’d been demolished during the fall season, every kid on the team bounced over to their bench at the end like they’d won. Sage and the boy who’d caught her touchdown shared a high five, and they all lined up to congratulate the other team.

Sheila and my mom chatted briefly with an older couple sitting close by, grandparents of one of the other players. Ian and my dad spoke quietly next to the field, and I could hear my dad asking questions about some of the jobs they were working on. Poppy hooked her arm through mine as we walked down the bleachers to the turf.

“Got any fun plans this weekend?” Poppy asked as we approached my dad and Ian.

Just as I was about to answer, Coach Scott chose that exact moment to jog over, a friendly smile causing a dimple to pop to the left of his mouth.

“Hey,” he said. “Sage did incredible today. Worked really hard, played tough.”

“Thank you,” I told him. Poppy was watching the interaction with sharp interest, and from behind, I could feel someone else watching, but I didn’t dare look.

“What do you think about dinner tomorrow night?” he asked. “I’d still love to get together and talk about the girls’ team.”

Please,I thought, let’s do this in front of an audience. It really makes it so much better.

At my side, Poppy started pulling her arm from mine. I tightened my grip on her because I wanted witnesses, dammit. What the hell kind of wingwoman was she? To ditch me in a moment like this.

“I, um, I need to check my schedule,” I told him. “I have Sage, you know.”

Coach Scott nodded. “Oh sure, of course.”

Poppy pried my fingers from her forearm and yanked it out of my grasp. “I need to go,” she gestured to my dad and Ian, “talk to them.”

And like a little punk, she walked away with a little wave of her fingers. Scott let out a quiet laugh. “Am I that obvious?”

He was so endearing it was hard to be mad. I squinted, rocking my hand back and forth in the air. “Maybe a little.”

With an unrepentant grin, he tucked his hand into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “I promise, I want to talk about the girls’ league.”

I rubbed the back of my neck because gawd, I could feel Ian’s eyes boring into me.

And of fucking course, that was when Sage approached, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. “Did you say a girls’ league?” she asked excitedly.

I wrapped her in a tight hug, hoping to derail her. “Kid, you were amazing, I’m so proud of you.”

Sage allowed a kiss on the top of her head, but tugged herself out of my embrace, her eyes locked on Coach Scott. “Are you serious?”

To his credit, he didn’t promise anything, holding up his hands with a laugh. “Just doing some research at first. Believe me, if we get one started, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

“Sweet,” she breathed.

But then he gave me a smile. “But I am hoping your mom will help me a little.”

I gave him a long, level look. Casually gaining a wingwoman of his own. No one could fault this man for finding ways to get his way.

“I’ll have to let you know about tomorrow,” I told him. “Like I said … I have this little punk to think about.”

Sage ducked when I tried to slip my arm around her shoulder. “Oh, Grandma actually asked if me and my cousins could do a sleepover tomorrow night. Is that okay, Mom?”

Scott’s dimple appeared as his grin deepened, and I couldn’t help but exhale a small, incredulous laugh. You know what we called this shit in fiction? A plot device. A wrench in the story that forces action, and man, did it feel different to be on the receiving end of one of those. Maybe I should send my characters an apology note.

I looked down at Sage, who was blissfully unaware of the position she was putting me in, and smiled as I shook my head slowly. “Unbelievable.”

“Is that a yes?” she asked, eyes big and hopeful.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

She whispered a yes, and ran off to say hi to my parents, Sheila and Ian.

And then there were two,I thought. Slowly whittled away until I had no choice but to a) lie to him, or b) look like a jerk who didn’t want to help my daughter get the thing she wanted.

“So,” I said slowly, “dinner tomorrow night, huh? I’m still not sure how much help I can be. I pretty much just showed up when the schedule told me to.”

He laughed heartily, and I couldn’t help but admit it was a nice laugh. Not as nice as Ian’s, of course. But no one’s laugh did to me what his did.

“I’ll pick you up around five thirty?”

Oh no. That would not do. I tried to imagine Scott showing up to Ian’s house, and the sheer panic almost had me bursting into hysterical laughter.

“Umm, how about I meet you there?” I asked. The crestfallen look on his face was enough to make me want to bolt from this entire conversation, playing out way more publicly than I would have liked. “I have something I need to do beforehand, and it might make things a little,” I paused, searching for the right word, “easier, maybe. I think most people drive separately to meetings,” I said pointedly.

He recovered quickly. “Of course. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I’ll text you the address of the restaurant.”

I smiled. “Perfect.”

The way he was looking at me was like I hung the fricken moon, and if I was being honest, I couldn’t understand why. Were the men of Sisters so hard up for single women that the mere presence of a new one sent them into a spiral?

I crossed my arms, shaking my head as I turned. Ian had started walking toward me, and we both froze before we crashed into each other. His hands reached out to steady my elbows, eyes anywhere but on mine.

“Good game,” I said.

He nodded. “It was.”

“Maybe you should coach if she can get enough girls to start a team.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You looked like you were practicing out there.”

Ian winced. “Yeah, I didn’t expect it to feel so intense.”

“No shit. Did you hear me screaming? Sage is going to ban me from the sideline at this rate.”

“At least we’ll be banned together.”

We shared a brief, amused look, and then he dropped his gaze down to the turf again.

“Coach Scott was chatty today,” he said easily.

I nodded, my stomach in my throat as I answered. “Remember I told you he asked me out to dinner to talk about a girls’ team?”

Ian’s jaw flexed, his eyes locking on mine. “Yeah.”

My chin rose an inch. “Sage is sleeping over at my parents, so I don’t really have a reason not to go.”

I wasn’t trying to test the man, none of this was manufactured for some chest-pounding display of possessiveness. But there was a tug of yearning again, a curling ache where I wanted him to tell me not to go. To pull me into his arms and let the heat of his body make everything feel better, more settled.

But he wouldn’t. Certainly not now.

And even with my own emotions frantically seeking a place to land, I wasn’t sure I could handle the ramifications if he did. There would be a time for pushing. But it wasn’t here. Not yet.

“You don’t want to?”

The space we’d had from each other since my birthday had my filter dropping. “I think you’re right, and he wants more than a dinner meeting, that this is just an excuse. But I don’t know if that’s a reason to stay home, not if I know what I want.”

The words came out before I could really consider the weight of what I’d said. For a long, breathless moment, Ian did nothing but stare.

Say something, I begged in my head. Anything. Could this man really pretend there wasn’t anything between us? Over and over, I’d watched him compartmentalize so many different parts of his life, but this was the very first time he’d placed me in a box, behind barriers erected out of stubbornness and sheer force of will. I could’ve screamed all this at him, and I was quite sure he’d still find a reason to pretend he didn’t hear.

“Then I hope it’s a successful … meeting,” he said, voice brimming with all those things he couldn’t bring himself to say.

I tilted my head, studying his face. Letting him off the hook so quickly suddenly seemed unfair. Part of me wanted to call him a coward, grip his shirt and shake him until he lost the colossal grip he had on his self-control.

“And if he wants it to be more?” I asked lightly. It wasn’t a push, not really. It was a genuine question, that under any other circumstance in the world, I’d ask my best friend’s opinion.

When he answered, the words—rough and low and charged—lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. “Then he’s a smarter man than I gave him credit for.” His eyes never left mine, and the racing echo of my heart screamed in my ears. Then he swallowed, his brow flattening as he dragged his gaze away. “I’ll see you and Sage later at home, okay?”

I watched him say goodbye to Sheila and walk away from the field. Something about his answer tied my heart in knots.