Page 42 of Home Game

I collapse against him, my glistening skin sticking to his. He rakes his fingertips lightly up the small of my back to the curve of my shoulder blades. The gentle tickle sends shivers across my skin, and Wyatt reaches to the passenger seat, grabbing his T-shirt and slipping it over my head. While I wasn’t done feeling his bare chest against mine, I also wasn’t going to refuse him taking care of me. Of getting inside his clothes and smelling him, keeping this shirt and taking it home. Wearing it to bed at night. Dreaming of him and this, and when we can do this again. When we can do more.

Wyatt slips into a pair of sweatpants he pulled from his gym bag. I sneak a peek at him as he changes outside the truck, though all I can really see is the curve of his ass as his back is to me and the moon is barely a sliver.

I haven’t said it out loud, but my inner voice keeps asking me what I’m doing. Did I really trade one quarterback for another? And this one should be, by all terms and conditions, off limits. Yet no kiss has ever felt so right. No person has ever made me feel so seen. In all the months I spent with Bryce as his “lucky girl,” as he called me, never once did he make me feel the way Wyatt did just now.

Beautiful.

The chicken is cold, so Wyatt and I share what’s left of the kettle corn and the pumpkin cupcakes I brought. He flips down his tailgate then lifts me by the waist so I have a place to sit, and we look out at the dry, rolling hills that are going to be turned into some housing project in the next year.

“What’s the story with the driving range?” I take a nibble of my cupcake as I glance his way. Our eyes meet for a second and he pivots as he laughs, eventually making his way to the space next to me. He pulls himself up to sit and takes the second cupcake.

“It’s going to make me sound like an angry rage-head or something,” he says, his fingers struggling to peel away the paper cup from the cake.

“Here,” I offer, resting mine on my thigh. I pull his paper back easily with my fingernails.

“Universal tools,” I say with a shrug.

He smirks and touches the tip of my index fingernail.

“And weapons.”

I wince and he leans into me, dropping a soft kiss on the tip of my nose.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I kinda liked the scratching,” he whispers. He takes his cupcake back, and I cover my heated cheeks with my hands.

“Come on, don’t get shy on me now,” he laughs out.

I bite my bottom lip and uncover my face, but quickly dive into eating my cupcake to take the attention away from the fact I got worked up enough to scratch him like a werewolf.

“Okay, now you have to tell me how you’re a rage-head because I feel like a horned-up vixen.”

He coughs out an instant laugh, sending crumbs from his mouth.

“Wow, I wasn’t going to call you that, but since you said it?—”

I lean into his side and he quickly puts an arm around me, so I decide to stay.

“It’s not much of a story, but I found this place on accident the day we signed for the new house.” He takes another bite, then sets his cupcake to his side, glancing to me then out into the very still, extremely warm night.

He runs the back of his hand over his eyes, squinting with thought.

“You remember what I told you about my dad?”

He drops his gaze to me, and I nod.

“We were close. Like the way you and your dad are. At least, Ithinkyou’re close.”

I nod and utter, “We are.” I’m hit with a sudden appreciation of the fact.

“He was a firefighter, and he got cancer. Everyone knows the risks of the job, and it’s hard not to believe that his cancer—the type he had—was related to all the shit he inhaled over the years.”

I thread my hand with his and squeeze, and he brings my wrist to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss against my veins. He holds his mouth there for a few long seconds as his eyes close, then moves to hold the back of my hand against his cheek as he looks at me.

“I’m so sorry.” I know he’s heard those three words a lot, but it’s all I can think to say. His soft smile lets me know it’s enough.

“Thanks,” he says, loosening his grip on my hand but keeping our fingers linked, moving his touch from one finger to the next.

“Losing him was—” His shoulder lifts slightly.

---