Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
DREW
“Drew, holy fuck,” Maddy says, her mouth full. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.”
“Hey now!” Tyler scowls at Maddy. “Those are fighting words, Mads. Last week you told me my sourdough was the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”
Maddy shrugs, unbothered, and takes another bite of the bread she’s smothered in butter and strawberry jam, grinning at Cam when he slides her chair closer to his, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and kisses the side of her head.
“That was then. This is now. Sorry, Ty Ty. Yours was amazing, but this is another level.”
A quiet huff pulls my attention to the left and I glance over at Caitlin, only to find her looking back at me.
She’s been doing that since I went silent on her earlier this morning without explanation when my real life crashed into the stillness between us.
Every time she levels me with that quiet stare of hers, words start to push up from my chest, trying to make their way out of my mouth and towards her.
It surprises me because I’m the good time guy. The one who always has a smile to hide what lies beneath. Never in my life have I given another person my dark parts, but when Caitlin turns those stormy gray eyes on me, it’s as close as I’ve ever come to telling someone all my truths.
I don’t know what it is about her that pulls at me, but it’s been tugging me towards her since six months ago at the bar even though she hates my guts, and I deserve it.
Standing her up without a word was a dick move.
I should have called. I should have told her why that night, and I should have tried to tell her why every day since.
But I’m a coward when it comes to real life—a scared little kid in the body of a full-grown man who never learned how to let people all the way in because everyone in my life has left, so no one was around to teach me how to stay.
And as a reward for my stupidity, Caitlin blocked my number I put into her phone at the bar, and for the last six months, she’s shut me down every time I’ve tried to talk to her.
Until this morning.
This morning was the closest I’ve come to an actual conversation with her since New Orleans, and everything about talking to her in the quiet kitchen settled me right down to my core.
Even when she was swiping at me. Especially when she was swiping at me, I think ruefully.
I don’t know what it says about me that the first woman I’ve wanted for more than a night in…
well…my entire life, probably, is the one who’s mean to me, but for sure there’s something buried deep in my pathology that would explain it.
Everything about Caitlin and me is a terrible idea. I’m a terrible idea for anyone. There’s a reason my adult life has consisted of a long string of one-night stands, and it’s not because I like being known as professional football’s biggest playboy.
And yet.
I wink at Caitlin and she rolls her eyes, looking away from me. There’s something seriously wrong with me that her attitude makes my dick hard.
“I need you to teach me your ways,” Caitlin’s twin brother Jack says to me, studying his slice of sourdough like it contains the secrets of the universe. “Your crumb is out of control good. I can’t get mine to look like this, even with your starter. How do you do it?”
I shrug, like I haven’t spent hours upon hours researching and practicing and perfecting my technique. Like baking this bread isn’t the thing that has saved me over and over again since I was probably too young to be baking it at all. “Just takes practice.”
“Wait, you’re making sourdough too?” Maddy’s brother Oliver, a professional hockey player for Pittsburgh’s NHL team, asks Jack. “I want in on this.”
Maya Casey, one of Maddy, Sophie, and Caitlin’s best friends, scoffs. “You can’t handle sourdough, little Wright. You can barely keep yourself alive. You definitely can’t keep a sourdough starter alive.”
Oliver shoots Maya a look that, if I’m not mistaken, contains a fair amount of heat. Looks like I’m not the only one at the table who likes it when pretty girls are mean to him. “Want to bet?”
Maya rolls her eyes. “I absolutely do not. Besides, we don’t need more sourdough-baking men in this family when we have Drew and his absolute perfection.”
I feel utterly pathetic that warmth unfurls in my chest at Maya talking about me as a part of this family.
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a real family.
So long I barely remember it, and I have no clue how to be part of one.
But if I was, I would want it to be this one, I think, glancing around the massive wooden table in the warm, cozy kitchen with sunlight streaming through the windows, a harbinger of a beautiful summer day outside.
Without my permission, my gaze lands on Caitlin, only to find her watching me, again. When our eyes meet, she whips her head around, picking up her—by my count—fourth iced latte of the morning and taking a long sip.
I immediately miss her eyes on me.
Giving my attention back to everyone else, I watch as Tyler literally pouts, turning to his fiancée Sophie next to him. “You still like mine best, right Soph?”
Sophie grins and leans over, kissing him on the cheek. “You know I love everything you bake.”
“That wasn’t a yes,” Tyler grumbles, and Sophie snorts out a laugh.
“Face it, Ty.” Maya adjusts her long brown ponytail and takes a sip of her coffee. “Drew is a sourdough savant, and you are but his lowly apprentice.”
Tyler turns to Emmy and Sarah Wyles, first cousins and the final two members of Caitlin’s best friend group.
“Don’t bother asking, Ty.” Emmy takes a bite of her toast and closes her eyes. “I’m having a religious experience with this piece of bread right now and I’m going to need a moment alone.”
“I love your sourdough, Ty,” Sarah says loyally.
Tyler lights up. “Thanks, Sar. In a competition between my sourdough and Drew’s, mine would totally win, right? Like, it’s definitely the best?”
When Sarah hesitates, everyone at the table bursts out laughing just as my phone buzzes against my leg.
I shouldn’t check it. I know I shouldn’t.
Because the second I do, real life is going to crash back into this quiet morning, but the chance it could be the person I actually want to hear from and not the person I definitely don’t has me pulling my phone from the pocket of my shorts.
The second I click on the screen, the coffee I’ve been drinking turns to battery acid in my stomach.
Dad
You have to talk to me eventually.
Pick up the damn phone, Drew. Please. You can’t ignore me forever.
Fucking watch me, I think, shoving the phone back into my pocket and turning my attention back to the conversation pinging around the table.
“You’ll get there one day, Tyler,” Cam says, tossing me a grin.
When I don’t quite return it even though there’s nothing we like more than needling Tyler, Cam keeps his eyes on me for an extra beat, concern written all over his face.
It’s a look I’m familiar with. Cam and I have been friends since our freshman year of college.
We played college football together, and we were drafted to the Renegades the same year.
And while he probably knows me better than anyone, he doesn’t know everything.
No one does.
From my seat at the head of the table, I watch as everyone laughs again, feeling, as always, out of my depth surrounded by all these people who have been friends and family for their entire lives.
Tyler and Sophie were lifelong best friends before last spring when they finally admitted they had feelings for each other, and as of last week, they’re engaged.
Their moms, along with Jack and Caitlin’s mom and Maddy’s mom, have been best friends for decades and own a law firm together.
Their four families are pretty much one big family that also somehow includes Sarah and Emmy’s families in Boston.
I have no idea how Maya fits in, but she’s as much a part of it as everyone else.
It’s all really complicated, and I can’t keep track of all the different connections and who is actually related to who, but in this group, it doesn’t seem to matter.
Family is family to them, regardless of blood, and the lines between actual family and just friends are nonexistent.
Even in the few years since Tyler and I became friends when he was first drafted to the Renegades, I’ve watched them expand their circle to take in Cam and his kids when he and Maddy fell in love, and because Cam is my best friend and he belongs to them now, they always include me too.
For the lonely kid who still lives inside me, it’s a revelation. For the grown-up version of me, the easy, casual acceptance makes my chest ache, because it’s a reminder of everything I missed out on.
Of things that will never be mine.
People who will never be mine, I think, sliding my eyes towards Caitlin, only to find her studying me again. But this time, she doesn’t look away, and having her attention on me does funny things to my heart.
“Who’s your pick in the sourdough wars, Catie?
” I ask, watching as her eyes flash at the nickname.
She acts like she doesn’t like it, but her eyes give her away every single time.
Everyone calls her Cait, but I like Catie.
I think the softness of it suits her. Even though she seems like she’s all hard edges, there’s a lot more beneath her surface.
I knew it from that first night, because there is so much more beneath mine.
Like recognizing like, I think again.
Caitlin rolls her eyes, and somehow, the gesture unknots my stomach, relaxes my shoulders, allows me my first deep breath since the texts from my dad. “Tyler, obviously. I mean, he put mac and cheese into sourdough. Can you say the same?”
Tyler hoots, jumping up from his chair and coming up behind Caitlin to wrap her in a hug while shooting a glare at the rest of the table. “Cait is my favorite today. Cousins for the win. My mac and cheese loaf was legendary.”
“It was good, I’ll give you that,” I say, grinning at Tyler. “But no one here has tasted my double chocolate with peanut butter filling. Once you do, your life will never, ever be the same, and I will once again be the undisputed king of sourdough.”
“No way do you make that,” Caitlin says, narrowing her eyes at me.
Got her, I think with a little glow of victory. The empty pint of chocolate ice cream on the table when I found her in the kitchen this morning gave her away.
I wink at her and grin wider when she flushes. “You bet I do, Catie, and it is spectacular.”
“I think we need to be the judge of that,” Emmy says.
“We definitely do.” Maya nods seriously. “Fuck knows I’m not going to be doing any sourdough baking, so I’m going to need everyone who does to provide me with a steady stream of it.”
“It would be my greatest pleasure to be your sourdough purveyor,” I say to Maya, chuckling to myself when Caitlin stiffens next to me and Oliver lets out a quiet little growl.
“How did you get into baking anyway?” Maddy asks, looking at me curiously.
I shrug casually, even though baking is the one thing I feel anything but casual about.
“Just something I picked up. Being a student athlete was intense, and it was something to take my mind off the never-ending grind of football and classes. And living with other football players in college means there were always people around to eat what I baked.”
“He’s not kidding,” Cam says with a grin.
“When the rest of us would drag ourselves out of bed for early morning practice, Drew would already be in the kitchen taking sourdough loaves out of the oven, and the second we got home from practice, we would demolish them. He prepped it the night before too. We were all the happy beneficiaries of his dedication to his craft, even though I still have no idea how he did it or when he even slept.”
I didn’t, I think, just as the back of my neck prickles, and I don’t have to look to my right to know Caitlin’s eyes are on me again.
I can feel it, just as I can practically hear the gears in her brain turning, putting the pieces of me together.
Normally, someone paying this much attention to me, trying to figure me out, would have me immediately on guard, covering up with grins and laughs and the devil-may-care attitude I’m known for.
Maybe opening my social media and posting some sort of ridiculous picture just to hammer home the message I portray to the world.
I am better than fine, and I am living the dream.
But this time I don’t do any of that.
Because sitting in this happy kitchen surrounded by noise and laughter, I realize that when it’s Caitlin trying to figure me out, not only do I not hate it, but I kind of wish she would never stop.