Page 66 of Tempting

I pick up the apple next and toss it up in the air again, like I’m going to juggle. “Now, Leo. I know your Momma didn’t raise you to talk to women that way.” I throw it up and watch it come down.

“And I’m pretty sure you’d gut a man if they talked to one of your sisters that way.” Another toss up and another catch, while Leo groans and adjusts the ice pack. “I also know if I told your brother what you just said, you’d be walking out of here with, at the very least, a black eye. He might go easy on you because he’s your brother. But your team captain... my brother—he wouldn’t be so kind.”

“I was just kidding, Kenz.” If that’s his apology, he’s going to have to do so much better.

I toss the apple one more time and wait until the last possible second to catch it. “Four years all state softball pitcher in high school. Don’t piss me off, Sinclair.”

“I’m sorry,” his voice cracks as he screeches, and I smile.

The front door creeks open, and Gordie comes barreling into the kitchen, followed by his very sexy owner.

I squat down and let Gordie jump all over me like he didn’t spend half the night sleeping by my feet.

Nixon hangs up Gordie’s leash and cups my face as he drops a kiss on my head, and my face flushes because I like the familiarity of it. I probably shouldn’t, but I do.

“What the hell, man? What’s with the peas? What did you do?” he asks Leo, and I giggle.

“Let’s just say Leo was trying to catch an apple, and it didn’t go his way. Right, Leo?” I wait to see if he’s going to tell Nixon what really happened or if he’s going to save his own ass. Because I might not know where Nixon and I are headed, but I know with absolute certainty, he’d kill his brother for talking to me like that.

Leo glares. “Yeah. Something like that.”

The coffee pot beeps, and I stand back and watch the sexiest man I’ve ever known make me a cup of coffee. Everly’s right. Coffee is a love language.

Nixon hands it to me, then cups my ass right in front of Leo and leans into my ear. “I fucking love you out of my clothes, but I gotta say, Mac, seeing you in them is pretty fucking great too.”

“Jesus Christ. Get a fucking room,” Leo whines, and I pick up the apple from the table. “Fuck. I’m kidding.”

Yeah . . . that’s what I thought.

KENZIE

It’s in the eyes... Always in the eyes.

—Kenzie’s Secret Thoughts

I’m the first person to admit how quickly life can change. That doesn’t mean I like change. It just means I know how precious time is. Change is still a bitch I fight constantly.

Nixon and I have kept things between us what I like to think of as low key. We’re not hiding anything, but his schedule has been full steam ahead since the start of the hockey season. Most weeks, he’s gone two, three, and sometimes four nights for away games, and another night or two for home games. Add that to the time I spend at the hospital, and most of the week, we’re like ships passing in the night. But if he’s in Kroydon Hills on that night, we’re in bed together. And I’ve never slept better.

It works for us.

Leo knows. But then Nixon’s younger brother has toned down the teasing ever since the apple incident. We haven’t gone out of our way to broadcast it with anyone else yet. Yet being the operative word.

We’re not hiding anything, no one has asked, surprisingly enough. But in all fairness, everyone has had a ton on their own plates, leaving us this perfect little space in time to figure out what the hell we’re doing without them all butting in.

It’s been incredible. But it’s also coming to an end.

Nixon has been asking me to come to a home game since the season started, but my schedule hasn’t worked out so far. Well that streak is coming to an end. I’m off Friday night, and the Revolution are playing Nixon’s younger brother Hendrix’s team that night, and he asked me if I’d come. I can’t really say no.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

I’ve worked so hard to get where I am and spent so much time thinking I’d never find anyone who understood how important my job is to me... But he gets it. Hell, he supports it.

You always said you didn’t need a man, and I didn’t want to need one either. But I don’t think I ever really had a chance. Not with Nixon. It’s like the universe was waiting until the perfect time to bring us together, then decided to smack us both upside the head and say, hey, stop what you’re doing and pay attention. This is important.

I just don’t know... I don’t know how to do it. How to open myself up to the kind of pain I could be inviting in? I wish you were here to help me through this.

I wipe the leaves off Mom’s headstone and sit back on my heels.

---