Chapter Six
SAMMIE FIDDLED WITH her straw wrapper, eyes glued to the table, because it was a lot easier to look at than the man seated across from her.
She’d always found Kieran attractive, that was no secret. But he was just sitting there, freshly showered, damp curls falling around his face, a glow lighting his expression that he always seemed to have after a win.
He was just sitting there, looking annoyingly cute under the unflattering fluorescent lights, and all Sammie could think about was the video she’d watched. She could almost transpose his face over the one that had been hidden in the video, could almost picture the expressions he might make.
Terrible thoughts to be having in a family friendly diner as she awaited her waffles.
“So,” Kieran began, and Sammie’s stomach swooped. Guess they were going to dive right in. “You know about my other job.”
Sammie couldn’t help it. The laugh bubbled out of her before she could contain it, a nervous, wheezing thing that made her want to crawl under the table, regardless of the way her shoes kept sticking to the linoleum.
“Oh my god.” She pressed a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s not funny.”
Kieran didn’t seem perturbed by her reaction. He looked rather unbothered, actually. A small smile tilting one corner of his lips, showing off his rarely seen, shallow dimples. He was, however, waiting for her to continue, and his unwavering scrutiny was going to give Sammie heart palpitations.
“Calling it your other job,” she continued, avoiding eye contact by scanning their surroundings for the fifth time since they’d arrived.
The diner was mostly empty. The only other patrons were a group of teens bouncing around in a corner booth, lost in their own little world.
That had been her, Atticus, and Kieran once.
Kieran’s unblinking stare pulled at her attention.
“Putting it that way just struck me as funny.”
“It is a job, though,” he finally responded. “It started out as something fun, but I take what I do seriously and treat it the same as I do my volleyball career.”
He didn’t seem annoyed or angered, but that matter-of-fact tone told Sammie that she needed to rein it in a bit and stop treating this conversation like she was one of those teens giggling in the corner at the mention of porn.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh.” She hesitated, shrugging. “I’m nervous.”
Kieran nodded, snatching the salt shaker to slowly rotate it between his fingers. The glass made a satisfying scratching sound against the vinyl of the table, a constant, gentle thing that was almost hypnotizing.
“I’m nervous as well.” Kieran sucked in a deep breath. “You’re the first offline person in my life to find out.”
Sammie blinked. “Actually…” Kieran raised a brow and she winced. “Technically, Ivy found your page first. But she didn’t recognize you.”
He froze, and Sammie began to fear she had misstepped once again.
“I didn’t tell her it was you,” she blurted.
“She really has no idea. And I shouldn’t have told Attie, I’m so sorry, I was freaking out and sent it to him before thinking and that was a mistake.
” She pulled in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. ”
Kieran shook his head. “You don’t have to keep apologizing. I appreciate it, but I figured someone would find out eventually. You and Atticus aren’t so bad.” He gave her a lopsided smile that made her heart stutter.
“And Kai.” Sammie looked down at her hands. She was unconsciously picking at her nails again, and her thumb was bleeding. Fuck. She grabbed a napkin and tried to hide what she’d done, but Kieran’s perceptive gaze followed her. “Kai knows too,” she continued.
Kieran laughed. “So Atticus truly is just bad at secrets?”
That loosened something in Sammie’s chest, the fact that he could laugh any of this off. “I’m not really any better.”
“Is that so?”
“I can be bribed, though, and that’s not really his style.”
A bigger laugh escaped him, and Sammie fought back her own grin. This was better, the easy back and forth.
“A bribe?” Kieran leaned back in his seat, resting an arm on the booth. Sammie could still feel the weight of that arm around her shoulders. “Is that what we’re doing here? Are you going to blackmail me?”
His questions tugged at her guilt again, but he was still smiling, so Sammie pushed on. “Not exactly. I’ve just got questions.” Questions. One of them was big, something she hadn’t even let herself put into words in her own head yet. A question she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to ask.
“Well,” Kieran said, still leaning back so casually, still watching her with that unreadable gaze, a tiny smirk playing across his lips. “Shoot.”
Sammie hesitated, mulling over her options. If they were diving right in, she might as well start in the deep end.
“Is it scary, putting yourself out there like that?”
She’d somewhat expected him to laugh off the question, maybe put on an air of bravado. But, well, that wasn’t really Kieran. Instead, several quiet seconds spread out between them as he gave his answer some thought.
“It was, at first.” He twirled the salt shaker again, this time one-handed.
She could still see a scar between two of his fingers from where the skin had torn when they were in high school.
A block gone wrong, but he’d given Atticus a bloody high-five right there on the court when it had earned them the win.
“Not knowing what to do, but wanting to try something,” he continued. “That’s always scary. But it got easier the more I did it, and it wasn’t long before I found the enjoyment in it that I’d hoped for.”
Sammie liked that. She liked hearing that he’d eventually felt comfortable with putting himself out there in such a way. Especially considering the direction she wanted her questions to head.
“But you never told anyone?”
Another shrug, another twirl of the salt shaker. “My ex knew.” Sammie had known Kieran had an ex out in Seattle. She’d never done anything crazy, like look up the woman’s online profiles to learn everything she could about her.
Atticus had, though. And he’d given Sammie the CliffNotes version of everything he’d seen.
“And she was…” Sammie paused. She didn’t want to pry. But hadn’t she already blown past that point when she’d asked Kieran to meet with her about all this? “She was okay with it?”
Kieran chuckled. “It was her idea. Her sister had started making good money this way, and she got it into her head that we needed to try it out. In the beginning, I was just going along with it to support her, but I started… enjoying myself after a while.”
The words were so innocent leaving his lips, paired with the sweet, nostalgic expression he wore. Unfortunately, Sammie’s brain zipped right back to the images she’d seen of him enjoying himself, and her cheeks flamed red.
She hid behind her glass of water, gulping it in an attempt to not look like a sex-brained moron. Another question came to her as she carefully sat the glass back down.
“But you two broke up.” Well, not so much a question, more a blurted statement that did nothing to dull the heat warming her face.
“We did.”
“And you kept going on your own.”
“I did.”
Ah, so he was waiting for Sammie to figure out where she was going with this.
“And you still work alone?”
Kieran gave that one some thought. “For the most part, yes.” He opened his mouth to continue, Sammie’s heart thumping in her chest as she waited for the rest of his answer, when their waffles finally arrived.
The server placed their food down, topped off Sammie’s water, asked if they needed anything else, all of which took only a matter of seconds but felt like a lifetime.
Sammie couldn’t eat waffles until she heard the rest of what he’d been about to say. She waited, fighting the urge to once more pick at her nail.
“I mostly work solo now.” Kieran started sawing at the food on his plate, spearing a bite with his fork and shoving it into his mouth, chewing slowly.
Sammie was going to die.
“I haven’t found any partners here yet to collaborate with,” he finally continued.
Yet.
“So you prefer to work solo?” Sammie was sure she was failing to be discreet with her line of questioning, but if Kieran had caught on he wasn’t letting it show.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Another pause, another big bite. More slow chewing. He pointed with his fork. “Your waffles are going to get cold.” He waited until Sammie had hastily shoved a bite in her own mouth before continuing. “The right opportunity just hasn’t presented itself yet.”
Yet.
Bingo.
Sammie sucked in a deep breath, threw all hesitance and timidity out the window, and blurted her next question.
“What about me?”
Kieran choked on his waffle.
Kieran wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that his life could have ended over a breakfast food item, or the fact that every teenager from the corner booth was definitely laughing at him now.
He thought he would maybe take deadly foodstuffs over cynical youths any day.
“Okay,” Sammie said, folding her napkin delicately and placing it next to her own barely touched waffle. “I’m going to go now. Maybe I’ll dig a hole and hide in it until the heat death of the universe, who’s to say. It was nice knowing you.”
She made to stand up, to actually leave, so Kieran leaned over the table, gently grabbing her wrist.
“Wait.” He was still sort of choking. Sammie froze, and he took the opportunity to sip some water. “Wait. I was just shocked.”
“Still not the reaction I was hoping for.” She pulled against his grip. If Kieran didn’t think fast, she really was going to leave, and maybe never talk to him again. Atticus would murder him.