Page 20 of Her Football Star Ex

I ran a hand through my hair and leaned back in my stool. “Which means she’s probably matching with all kinds of guys right now.”

“Probably.”

I sighed and pushed my plate away from me, suddenly not feeling so hungry anymore.

“I’m supposed to be focusing on winning our game this weekend,” I said. “I don’t need this in my head.”

Cole pushed a button, making the screen go dark so I couldn’t see the photo of Emerson smiling coyly up at me anymore.

“Just don’t think about it.” He set his phone on the counter and picked up a piece of his pizza. “You tried to make amends, but she wasn’t interested in fixing things.”

“I cheated on her. Can you really blame her for not wanting to trust me again?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Not really.” He took a bite of his pizza. After he swallowed, he said, “But you need to stop beating yourself up over it. You can’t change the past. You can only do your best to be better from now on. And if that means you have to watch your ex-wife fall in love with another guy, just try not to look too closely.”

“Says the guy who spent the last three years watching Arianna date a guy everyone knows is all wrong for her.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “What are you trying to say?”

I picked up my empty glass from the counter then stood to take it to the fridge. “That I think I’ve finally figured out why you don’t date any of the girls throwing themselves at you.”

“Hey.” He pointed to his phone. “I signed up for online dating.”

“And didn’t you say you only did that because Arianna was making fun of you?” I raised an eyebrow at my friend as I walked around the kitchen island. “Because if you were really serious about dating, you’d be at a club with the other guys tonight instead of hanging out with an old divorced guy and his kid.”

I glanced at Jaxon just as a big piece of his pizza broke off and landed in his cup of milk with a thunk.

“Here, let me get you some new milk, buddy,” I said, taking the cup with who knew how many pizza floaties in it and dumped its contents in the sink.

“Just so you know,” Cole said as I grabbed a new cup for Jaxon from the cupboard and filled it with milk. “I signed up for online dating because Arianna offered to be my dating coach.”

“Your what?” I lifted my gaze to him after setting the cup of milk in front of my son who immediately started dunking his pizza in it again.

Cole shrugged. “I pretend like I suck at dating and she teaches me how to win a girl over.” He took a sip from his water and set it back on the counter. “Sure, it’s not exactly dating her, but until she sees that Chad is a jerk, I can be her special project and she will be forced to look more closely at me and maybe see how dateable I really am.”

“You’re not delusional enough to think she’s going to teach you kissing techniques, are you?” I pushed my cup against the filtered water dispenser in the fridge.

“I wouldn’t stop her if she tried.”

I shook my head and took a sip of my water. “Let me know how that works out for you, bud.”

He shrugged. “It’s part of the long game, my friend. It’s not like I can just tell her I’ve been in love with her since we were nineteen and hope she’ll still want to be my friend.”

“Yeah, I get that.” I leaned over the island and pulled my pizza over to me. “But in the meantime, don’t accidentally message Emerson when you’re trying to find a date. I don’t care if these coaching lessons from Arianna are the only part of the dating process that you care about.”

“Of course I’m not going to message her. Emerson may be hot, but she’s not even my type.”

But apparently, my sister was.

“Good.” I picked up a piece of pizza and took a bite. As I chewed, I tried not to think about how if I could just figure out a way to keep all the other guys out there from hitting on Emerson I might be able to concentrate on the biggest game of my career so far this weekend.

6

Emerson

“I sawin your profile that you enjoy traveling,” my date Dave said after the waitress brought our entrees to the table Friday night. “So my question for you is, if you could only travel to one place for the rest of your life, where would you go?”

Dave and I had been messaging off and on all week, and the conversations had been interesting enough. So when he asked me to meet him at my favorite new restaurant in Sutton Creek, Element 47, I had said yes and hoped it would go well.

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