Chapter 32 Andy
Chapter 32
Andy
Fact: Harlow did not join me in the shower.
Fact: Nor is she curled up in bed when I step out of the shower and crane my neck to stare into the bedroom, eyes scanning the room for her feminine form.
Confused, I towel off, wrapping the terry cloth length around my hips, knowing how sexy it looks and that chicks love half-naked men.
I pose, posturing so Harlow can admire me.
But she’s not in her bedroom.
“Harlow?”
I stick my head out the door and call to the kitchen, thinking she must be there. Living room?
Negative, Ghost Rider. My calls are met with silence.
“Harlow?”
Her house isn’t big—like, at all—finding her should not be this difficult, and Kevin is here, which means she didn’t randomly up and decide to flee, and she did not take little dude for a walk. She is also not standing in the yard watching the dog use the bathroom.
So where the hell is she?
I stalk back to her bedroom, where I discard my towel on the floor as I bend to snatch my boxer briefs from the carpet, stepping into them—then my pants.
My phone buzzes.
Without hesitating I grab it, but the notifications take me aback—one notification from Big Steve ... and four missed video chats from Paisley.
Four missed chats from Paisley?
That can’t be right.
I tap my call log to verify.
When I check the call history, her name is there in red. Bright and bold, there is no mistaking it.
Why the fuck is she calling, let alone video chatting me? What reason could she possibly have for contacting me once, let alone four times?
It’s been five months since we ended things and five months since we’ve had any contact. Funny how she finds the need to contact me now.
My eyes go to the time stamp for the first missed call: thirteen minutes ago.
While I was in the shower.
While Harlow was still lying on the bed, blissfully luxuriating in the afterglow of a baller fucking.
She must have seen Paisley calling—there can be no other explanation for it.
You don’t have to worry about my ex-girlfriend, I had promised Harlow. We don’t speak. We don’t call each other. We don’t text, I had assured her in my most determined voice. There is nothing to worry about. She is not in my orbit.
Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck. Not in my orbit, my ass!
Paisley made me look like a goddamn liar. My vision clouds—by the mounting frustration brewing inside my belly and, more than that, by the regret.
This is all my doing, and it could have been prevented if I had been honest from the second Harlow asked my name.
I palm my phone, staring down at the notifications and messages, spying one from Harlow’s dad, grateful that he insisted we share contact information, just in case.
“Sure, Steve. If you insist,” I’d said to patronize him.
I didn’t actually think I would need to contact him.
Big Steve: Harlow is at my house, and she seems Real Pissed !!!!! Pacing around ranting and raving—you might wanna come over since it’s your name she’s cussing out. Here is my address: 1010 Carter Blvd, Condo No. 789, Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States.
I chuckle at that last part—as if he had to clarify that we are in the United States?
Me: Thanks, be right over.
Big Steve: She definitely saw the call come in from Paisley, that model ex-girlfriend of yours.
That model ex-girlfriend of mine. If I weren’t so frustrated, that sentence may have made me laugh.
Instead, I pull my hoodie on when my phone pings again.
Big Steve: Also, do you want anything to eat? I can whip something up?
No i do not Want Anything to Eat ! This dude is killing me.
I shoot my driver a text, hoping he’s not in the middle of something. I need him here stat so I can get to Steve’s house. I give the dog a scratch behind his giant ears—Kevin is the only one in this house on speaking terms with me right now.
It’ll take ten excruciatingly long minutes for my ride to arrive, and while I wait, I bound out the back door, almost forgetting to lock up.
I step off the porch.
“Hi.”
A voice stops me in my tracks, and I turn.
A teenage girl is standing at the hedgerow, staring over at me.
“Hey there.” I give her a wave.
“I’m Lydia,” she informs me. “You must be the ‘something’ that came up.”
“Scuse me?”
The girl laughs. “Harlow texted me earlier today when I was walking Kevin and asked me to keep him a while longer because something came up. I take it you are that something.”
Well, shit. What am I supposed to say to that? “I’m Andy.”
“I’m Lydia—the neighbor.” She squints at me. “Is Andy short for Landon Burke the football player? Because you look just like him, and my dad said he’s rumored to be in town. Tons of pictures on Instagram.”
I nod, holding my finger to my lips. “Don’t tell anyone I’m here.”
“I mean—people know you’re here.” Her eye roll is legendary. Way better than any eye roll Harlow has given me.
“I meant here ,” I explain. “With Harlow. At her house.”
Even though the press knows her name and that she lives in Green Bay, we’re lucky enough that no one has shown up outside as they sometimes do.
“Oh. Gotcha.” She gets closer to the hedge. “Are you dating her? Because if you’re not serious, I don’t want her to get hurt. Plenty of guys are interested if you’re only playing games.”
Is this kid giving me a warning?
Because I have never been given a dressing-down by a teenager, let alone a teenage girl .
Mind. Fucking. Blown.
Even Harlow’s father didn’t interrogate me like this.
In fact, the old man was practically throwing his daughter at me, planning our vacation-destination wedding with three hundred of his closest friends and frenemies, and naming his unborn grandkids.
“I’m not playing games with her,” I tell Lydia. “In fact, I’m taking this more serious than she is.” Crap. Should I not say shit like that to the neighbor girl? “We met when we were both in New York last week for work.”
“Really? How?”
“In Central Park.”
I can hear her sighing from here. “That is so romantic.”
“Kind of.” I laugh, not mentioning any of the gory details. “It was sort of a ‘hate at first sight’ situation.”
“Was it?”
“Nah—who could hate this face?” I flash her one of my famous megawatt grins, and the kid doesn’t even crack a smile, totally unimpressed with me.
“If you say so.”
Damn. Tough crowd.
“Well. I should bounce—I have to meet her at her dad’s house.”
Lydia nods. “Yeah, I saw her come out before, slamming the door and stuff.” She tilts her teenagery head. “What’d you do to make her mad?”
“Me? Nothing. Unless you count the fact that my freaking ex-girlfriend called me four times—that could have pissed her off. Which, by the way, I haven’t spoken to my ex in months—not since I broke things off with her.”
And why am I telling this kid this? She can’t be older than, what, fifteen?
“Your ex-girlfriend? She called you and Harlow saw it?” Her eyes are bugging out of her little girly face. “Dude. You are so screwed.”
“Thanks for the vote of self-confidence.”
Her shoulders move up and down in a shrug. “Just bein’ honest.”
I see the black sedan pull up to the curb out front.
“I really do need to jet. Time’s a wasting.”
“Good luck.” Lydia starts to walk toward her house. “Let me know how it goes.”
“Sure thing, kid. You’ll be the first person I tell.” After I put out a press release to the entire franchise— not .
I have to admit, Big Steve lives in a sweet condo complex.
I also have to admit that when I approach the door, I get the same feeling I had when I got food poisoning—as if I could shit myself, my stomach nervous and queasy and rolling.
I count to three and take a few deep breaths before raising my hand to knock on Steve’s door—the same deep breaths I take in a game to quell my nerves, which I hardly get anymore because I am a goddamn professional!
The door flies open.
Steve regards me before shoving the storm door open and inviting me to step inside.
He goes up on his tippy-toes to hug me, smacking me on the back. “Glad you could be here.”
He’s whispering.
“Is this a funeral?” I whisper back.
“Could be.” He shuts the door behind me and locks it. “ Your funeral.”
I put my palms up in defense mode. “Jesus, Steve—help a guy out here. What am I walking into?”
“It’s Big Steve.” He gestures me closer, and I lean in so I can listen good and hard. “Honestly? It’s not good. All I’ve been hearing for the past half hour— she is calling him, why is she calling him , and how can I compete , and he could have just told me I’m his rebound girl. ”
Rebound girl?
Say what now?
“Don’t you think she’s being a tad dramatic?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.”
I get the feeling that Steve could be overexaggerating, but according to him, Harlow is in one of the rooms pacing back and forth like an angry tiger.
Lord.
When have I ever worked this hard to win someone over?
Literally never.
I have no choice but to follow her dad through the house, the adrenaline rush usually reserved for game days charging through my veins. With my head held high, I walk through the tiny foyer into the living room to find her sitting on a love seat, furiously typing away on her phone, no doubt to her group of friends. I have yet to meet them.
Her fingers are flying.
“Hey.” My voice rumbles in the room, causing her head to shoot up and her eyes to meet mine.
Her fingers stop typing. “What are you doing here?” Then, “How did you find me?”
I nod toward Steve, who hovers in the doorway. “Your dad texted me.”
I stuff my hands in my pockets as if I were in high school all over again, asking Cammie Bennet to go to the homecoming dance with me, not sure if she would say yes.
Harlow glares at her dad. Traitor. “Of course he did.”
I mean—this is Big Steve we’re talking about. What does she expect? For her dad to behave and act normal?
Steve reacts before I can.
“Don’t be mad at me—he’s the one who has his ex-girlfriend calling at the same time you’re having sex with him.” He’s pointing a finger directly at me.
“Gee. Thanks, Steve,” I say as sarcastically as I can. “Way to have my back.”
“ Big Steve,” he corrects me. “And you’re welcome.”
Pfft. “Whatever.”
I am in no mood to have him running interference. I came here on a mission, and I’m not leaving until I get kicked out of the house or we resolve this, whichever comes first.
“Can we go somewhere private we can talk?”
Her chin notches up. “Whatever you have to say to me you can say in front of my dad.”
Oh. Because that works out so well? The man was so quick to finger point in my face the second I ratted him out.
“Fine.” I stalk across the room and plop down on the love seat next to her, hoping she’ll stop being stubborn long enough to hear me out.
“So,” she starts. “Have you called her back yet?”
She’s so transparent with her pettiness it almost makes me laugh.
I love it.
I love the fact that she has a catty side to her, damned if I don’t.
“No. I have not called her back yet. My first priority was coming to find you.” I have nothing to say to Paisley Blue. “I have no clue why she would call me. I haven’t spoken to her in months.”
Harlow purses her lips, another thing about her I find cute and endearing, despite her snit.
“Harlow. If you have something you want to say to me, please say it to my face. Don’t run away.”
I can see the cogs turning in her brain as she debates whether or not to unleash her thoughts on me.
“Are you still seeing her?”
“No.”
“Then why is she calling you?”
“No idea. She didn’t leave any messages.”
Harlow inhales. “Am I a rebound?”
I want to roll my eyes but refrain; it’ll only piss her off even more. “No—isn’t a rebound when you sleep with someone right after a breakup?”
“Yes.”
“So how would you be a rebound? We broke up months ago.”
“Five months,” she tells me.
I stare at her. “I’m sorry—were you there ?”
Harlow seems surprised by my sarcastic rebuttal, settling back into the love seat, crossing her arms and legs in a defensive pose. Closed off.
“Valid point, I guess.” She sniffs indignantly.
“You know what would be nice? If you wanted to learn about me directly from me and not from the media.” That’s one way to kill this relationship before it starts.
I feel my nostrils flare.
“I didn’t learn about you from the media! I barely googled you—it was my friends.” Harlow’s voice has risen several notches. “I saw her calling, and obviously I was confused. She called twice in a row, and then I started getting all these text messages from my friends, telling me about the statement posted about you on social media.”
Statement posted on social media?
“What statement?”
Harlow gapes at me. “Are you telling me no one has called to tell you about the Paisley press release? Please, don’t you have, like, forty agents and publicists at your beck and call whose literal job it is to inform you about this crap?”
She is so pissed that she actually snorts.
“I ...” Yes, I do have people who should tell me this shit. “I got out of the shower, found you gone, got dressed, and came here as quickly as I could.”
But now I’m reaching around to my back pocket to retrieve my phone and find several missed calls and texts from Trent. The texts from him include a screenshot of some bullshit paragraph that Paisley apparently wrote—it definitely sounds like she wrote it herself.
I begin reading her words out loud furiously:
“ Landon and I might have not had a perfect relationship—but it was a passionate and incredible eight months. While I don’t know the details or current status of his relationship with this woman ... ”
I feel my lips moving as I read the rest to myself.
“What the actual fuck is this?” I whisper, horrified, running a hand through my hair. “I have no idea what this is about.”
Why would Paisley do this?
“Welp.” Harlow slaps her palms to her knees. “Maybe she called you a billion times to give you a heads-up about the statement.”
Maybe. “It wasn’t a billion times—don’t overexaggerate.”
“You don’t get to tell me not to overexaggerate.” She huffs.
Her father lingers in the room next door, pretending to poke at the arrangement in the center of his dining room table.
“I cannot pretend to know why she called or what she wants.”
Harlow doesn’t look like she believes me. “If you haven’t spoken in months, then why would she bother to call you?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “This is what I’ve been saying!”
“It really does not look good,” Big Steve butts in from the other room, desperate to insert his two cents. “But you know these hot Hollywood types.”
“Dude.” I shoot him a look. “Could you not ?”
His short arms go up, hands waving as he goes back to fake fluffing his table. “I’m just saying!”
“Steve.” I sigh. “Can you please just give us a bit of privacy. Give me a few minutes, that’s all I need.” I pause. “Please.”
Harlow and I both watch as he wars with himself. On one hand, he hella wants to be nosy—on the other hand, I’ve asked for privacy, and who is going to tell Landon Burke no? Then again, he has a loyalty to his daughter.
He could just as easily kick my ass out.
It’s one hell of a decision for Big Steve; I can see him debating and the way he’s biting down on his bottom lip ... such a difficult decision.
Finally, he nods. “All right.” Gives his daughter a look. “If you need anything, I’ll be in by the computer.” Looks at me. “I matched with a woman named Linda last night. Widowed, sixty—but she has a seven-year-old, so I’m not sure if it’ll work out.”
“Dad!” Harlow can’t stop herself from admonishing him. “Dear God, could you not make this about you? Now is not the time!”
We watch him slither off into his Big Lair, and I can’t help but wish Kevin were here to round out the crew, this odd little trio I seem to have recently found myself in the center of.
“I can’t think of a single thing to say that will make this better,” I admit. “The only way out of this is to call Paisley back.”
Harlow answers by snorting again.
I pull the phone out of my back pocket. “I’ll put her on speaker so we can both hear what she has to say, at the same time—then you’ll know I’m not hiding anything or harboring any feelings for her.”
While Paisley and I might have spent many months together having fun, I am not in love with her and not sure I ever was—returning her phone call with Harlow in the room is the only way out of this mess.
“She made that statement to save face,” I explain. “I’m sure she saw that picture of us and got jealous—this is her way of pouting and trying to keep her name in the news.”
Harlow tilts her chin up. “Most people just eat a pint of ice cream and chocolate and bitch to their friends when they’re upset about their ex moving on.”
Paisley isn’t most people.
She is a model, a popular, spoiled woman who loves being the center of attention.
Her statement was a strategic power move to make Harlow feel shitty and insecure—the only way Paisley knows how to make other women feel—and it worked.
“She did this to take the attention off me and our happiness and place it on her.”
Funny how much clarity we have after a relationship has ended, how we change as people, therefore being so turned off by the things we once wanted and needed and sought out.
Like beauty and fame and money.
Her actions revolt me.
Slowly, Harlow nods. “Okay. I’m open to calling her.”
Thank fucking God.
“I’ll put her on speaker, ’kay?”
She nods again. “Okay.”
I tap through my phone and select the contact, careful not to hit video chat. How fucking terrible would that be? The last thing Harlow wants to see beaming back at her is my ex-girlfriend’s face.
Three rings and Paisley answers.
“Hey there,” she says by way of greeting. She hesitates. “Am I on speaker?”
“Yes.”
There’re a few more seconds of silence. “Are you calling because I called you or because you saw my statement?”
“Both.” I pause. “Why did you do it?”
On the other end of the line, Paisley lets out a long, dramatic sigh. “Honestly, I don’t know. I wrote it, and then they printed it—and I immediately regretted it.” She laughs. “And you know I don’t regret many things—I don’t possess that gene.”
No. She’s pretty self-centered.
“We haven’t spoken in months, and you do this? It makes no sense.” I wait for her to confirm what I’ve told Harlow several times, that she and I have had no communication.
“I know. But then I saw you on the news with that ... person, and it got me thinking about how much fun we used to have.”
“First of all, her name is Harlow—and making that statement was really fucked up. It makes you look really petty.”
“So?”
Beside me, Harlow’s eyes almost bug out of her skull. “Is she being serious?” she mouths, clearly shocked at Paisley’s candor, her lack of empathy, her lack of giving a fuck about how the situation affects me.
“And before you accuse me of being jealous, don’t make me laugh.” Paisley’s high-pitched laugh is the kind of sound that comes out of your throat when you know you’re full of shit.
“I never said anything about you being jealous.”
“Of some farm girl from Wisconsin .”
Harlow rears back, eyes wide. “That bitch,” she mouths. Then, “How dare she!”
I pat her on the leg to soothe her. “So you saw me on the news with someone new and you wanted to what? Get back together?” I add a chuckle to the end of my statement to let everyone know how preposterous the idea is.
“No.” She hesitates before slowly uttering, “Well, may be.”
Shit.
That is not what I wanted or expected her to admit, especially while Harlow is listening.
“Yeah—that’s never happening.” I say it with a firm tone. “Ever. Just so we are clear. If you missed me, waiting until you saw me with someone new is shady and petty, and telling the whole fucking world I’m going to come crawling back is absolutely bonkers.”
Bonkers.
I pat myself on the back for inserting the word petty into my sentence as if I used it in everyday jargon.
“I didn’t miss you.” Paisley has condemnation in her voice. “I’m just letting you know what you’re missing out on.”
Spoken like a true narcissist who was only using me for clout.
Mama Burke was right.
I burst out laughing while Harlow glares daggers down at the phone—she probably wants to smack the damn thing off the coffee table.
“Why are you so mad?” my ex-girlfriend asks. “It was just words; I wasn’t hurting anyone.”
“How do you know you weren’t hurting anyone? Now I have to call my parents and explain it to them. My agent is pissed, Harlow is pissed. So yeah—your words hurt people. They hurt me.”
I’m not sure if any of those words are going to matter to her, but she seems to take them in and quietly consider them.
Then.
“I’m sorry, okay? Jeez. ”
Harlow’s brows rise, mouth agape.
“Calm down,” Paisley adds, as if that were the right thing to utter in an irritated tone of voice. “You’ll both get over it. Every one will get over it.”
“She is so rude!” Harlow whispers.
I loll my head and roll my eyes. “Yeah, I know.”
To Paisley I say, “Can we agree that it’s not necessary to ever contact each other again?”
“Fine.” I can hear the stubbornness in her voice.
“No more statements to the press?”
“Fine.”
“No planting stories?”
Paisley must be tempted to argue but probably doesn’t want to sound needy; she loves attention.
“God, Landon,” she says at last. “What sort of asshole do you think I am?”
The kind of asshole who releases a statement to the press because you’re jealous and catty and only did it for attention!
“I’m blocking you, and I would appreciate if you deleted my contact from your phone.”
She sucks in a breath. “That’s harsh, but whatever.”
“Cool. Good talk.”
I’m glad we got what we wanted out of this call—Paisley admitting there is nothing between us, and her apology that she went to the press. Probably got paid too.
I end the call before she has a chance to say goodbye, and leave the phone in the center of the table.
Several things are on the tip of my tongue; I’m not sure which to choose that won’t get me in more trouble:
Can we be happy again and go back to having fun?
Wow. She’s worse than I remember.
I love that you didn’t walk out on me.
“Thank you for doing that,” Harlow says quietly. “For us.”
“Listen, babe.” I take her hands in mine. “None of this is going to be easy—you have to understand that. Nothing about a relationship with me will ever be normal. I mean, maybe once I retire and people forget about me ’cause a better player with more talent rockets onto the scene, but today, I’m the news.”
I continue to hold her hands as I speak, and she lets me, nodding along slowly with my words.
“There are going to be fans who blame you when my team loses. There are going to be stories about you, your family, your dad. Probably your dog too.”
She lets out a little smile at the mention of Kevin.
“Hell. My guess is that for once, the public is going to be fucking thrilled I’m dating someone relatable instead of ...” Let’s see, how do I put this. “Some people from my past.”
“Do you really think so?”
I nod. “One hundred percent. America is going to love you.”
“I don’t need America to love me.” Then she says, “And let’s not get ahead of ourselves—I don’t even know what your favorite foods are, or where exactly you live. What was the name of your first pet?”
“Baxter. He was a beagle.” I laugh. “He used to play hide-and-seek with us, but he howled all the fucking time.”
She giggles. “My point is—we don’t know each other. You could still be a murderer.”
“I don’t have enough free time to murder people—when would I get around to it?”
We’re both laughing now. From the corner of my eye, I see Big Steve hovering in the kitchen, pretending to wipe off his kitchen counter. But his eyes and ears are on us, head tilted in our direction. He’s been listening to everything we’ve said.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about your dad, though,” I say loud enough for Steve to hear. “Probably have to give him a new identity and put him in the witness protection program to be on the safe side. We want people to leave him alone.”
Her dad stops spraying the counter—no doubt he’s sprayed that same spot dozens of times already, the rag in his hand paused midwipe as he eavesdrops.
“Good idea.” Harlow nods in agreement. “He hates attention.”
It is taking every ounce of self-control that man possesses not to come busting into the living room and interrupt us, and it takes everything we have not to burst out laughing.
“I guess I could try to get used to the idea of dating someone ... uh.” She groans, covering her face with the palm of her hand. “I literally hate using the word famous .”
“It does sound weird.” I pause. “All it would take for you to see how normal I am is to get you around my parents. They love lecturing me and putting me in my place. They treat me like I’m still fourteen.”
“How so?”
“Uh, this week while I was at their house, I lost track of the number of times Mom reminded me to pick up the wet towels off the bathroom floor and hang them on the hook—and pick up my dirty clothes and put them in the hamper. Oh. And I’m not allowed to use all the pillows on the bed for sleeping—only the designated sleeping pillows.”
Harlow clicks her tongue. “You poor baby.”
I nod. “I know. It’s awful. You have no idea how humbling it is having your mother slap your hand away when you’re trying to steal bacon out of the pan before it’s done.”
My hand takes hers again so my thumb can caress her palm.
“And you’re willing to, like, fly here for dates and stuff?” Harlow asks, a bit abashedly.
“Yeah—I can fly here to take you to dinner. I can also fly you to where I’m at.” It makes me proud to admit I can do those things for her. “Not an issue at all.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“I know we’ve literally only known each other for a week, and we’ve already had some fucked-up shit happen. But, Harlow, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make this work.”
“Like move to Green Bay so you can sleep with your biggest fan?” She gives me a teasing laugh.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But maybe.
“My biggest fan? You didn’t even know who I was.” I roll my eyes. “I’m still insulted.”
“You’re too cocky to be insulted.” Harlow leans forward and kisses my jawline. “I love it when you pout.”
“I’m not cocky—and I’m not pouting. I’m stating facts.”
The fact is, now that I’ve made my mind up to date Harlow, no matter where in the world she’s located, I’m going to see it through. I am going to date the shit out of her, so it’s best she buckle up for the ride.
“I need to know if you’re in or out. For my own sanity.”
She shivers. “That sounds so final.”
“That may be true, but I go balls to the wall when I commit to something—and this life ain’t for the faint of heart. So I need someone who’s in this with me.”
Harlow nods slowly, absorbing the words and what they mean. “I see.”
“So are you? In—or out.”
Her hesitation is one of the longest pauses in history. The clock ticks in the background. My heart beats loud enough for me to hear it.
The sound of Steve wiping that damn counter ...
Finally, Harlow nods. “Yes. I’m in.”
In the kitchen, Big Steve lets out a whooping sound so loud, we both flinch.
Laughing, Harlow wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me in for a kiss.
“Are we sealing the deal?”
She nods again. “We’re sealing the deal.”
God, I love her lips.
Her mouth.
I love listening to her talk as much as I love her tongue down my throat.
She licks her lips when we come up for air. “Wait. Does this mean you’re my boy friend?”
I have no idea.
Hadn’t thought this whole thing through.
“We don’t have to put labels on it if you don’t want to—I only want to know if you’re willing to try. We can depend on each other in the next coming months because they’re going to be crazy.”
I lean into the love seat, bringing my arm up and wrapping it around her shoulders.
“I have meetings with one or two more teams, gotta narrow down who I want to play for. It’s a fuckton of pressure having to choose.” I run my free hand through my hair. “Before being a free agent, I was drafted. Then traded. Deciding on my own where I want to go is an entirely different kind of beast.”
“I imagine it would be.” She leans into me. “New team. New city.”
New relationship.
Next level in my life, unlocked.
“Just so you know, I have no idea what I’m doing,” she whispers. “In case you were wondering.”
As if she had to tell me she had no idea what she was doing, ha ha.
“Don’t worry—neither do I. In fact, the only thing I have a handle on is football and not much else. By the way, I met your neighbor Lydia on my way over here.”
“You did? Isn’t she the best?”
“She is like no other teenager I’ve ever met.” I laugh. “She all but cornered me in the yard.”
“Cornered you?”
“Not literally, but she put me in the hot seat and wanted to know what my intentions were toward you,” I explain. “That’s one kid I want to have on my side in a battle of wits.”
“Pretty sure she’s going to be a lawyer someday.” Harlow chuckles, rising from the couch, reaching to pull me up along with her. “We should get back to my place—have to let Kevin out.”
I grin. “Is let the dog out code for let’s go back and have makeup sex ?”
“Wink, wink.” She goes up on her tiptoes and kisses me on the mouth. “Dad—we’re leaving!”
We make short work of the goodbyes to Steve; I hug him, too, Harlow promising to call him later.
“Oh my God, that man is living his best life,” she mutters as we climb into the black sedan and pull away from her dad’s condo building. “He’s probably already on the phone calling all his friends.”
No doubt.
“We’ll have to get you down to Ohio so you can meet my parents too. My mom is going to love you.”
“We’ll get there.” She pats me on the thigh, a constant reminder that I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Leave it to Harlow to put me in my place.
God, I can’t wait to bring her to a game and put her in the stands—then have victory sex afterward.
Just gotta find my team, first.
Harlow is going to be my biggest goddamn fan. I can feel it in my gut.
And I’m ready.
Hell yes, I’m ready.