Page 86 of Her Football Star Ex

If he wasn’t interested in spending more time with me, I wouldn’t push it. I didn’t want to have the sting of rejection be the last thing I felt with him tonight.

So I fished my key fob from the pocket of my coat and unlocked my car. “Thanks for walking me to my car.”

He stepped closer, and my heart skipped a few beats when it looked like he might kiss me. But instead of a kiss, he put his hands on my arms and pulled me close before gently pressing his lips to my forehead.

My forehead…not my mouth.

I mean, it was sweet…but not exactly what I’d been hoping for after the fireworks I’d felt all night.

“I’ll see you tomorrow when I bring Jaxon by,” he said, rubbing his thumb across my chin.

“Okay.” I nodded, fighting back the disappointment crashing over me. “I’ll see you then.”

He pulled me in for one more hug, so I let my body relax against him, breathing in his cologne and telling myself that even though it wasn’t a kiss, it was still more than what we’d been doing two days ago.

Maybe he, like me, wasn’t exactly sure where we were going to go after tonight, so he was playing it safe.

He pulled away from the hug. “Good night, Emerson.”

“Good night, Vincent.” Before I could let him see how disappointed I felt at the lackluster goodbye, I turned and climbed into my car.

As I drove home, I went over the evening through my mind.

I hadn’t imagined all those sparks, had I?

He’d been smiling just as much as I had. And when I’d rested my head against his chest a few times as we’d danced, his heart had seemed to pick up at all the same times as mine had.

I was just coming to the Sutton Creek exit that would take me home when my phone started ringing through the car speakers. I glanced at the screen in the center of my dash and saw it was Vincent.

“Hello?” I said after pushing the answer button, wondering what he would be calling me about.

“Hi. Emerson?” He sounded out of breath for some reason.

“Yeah.” I frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he said. Then after a short pause, he said, “So, I feel like a huge idiot right now. I guess I’m still unsure about how to navigate this thing we have going on between us and I don’t know…I’m second-guessing everything.”

Hope bloomed in my chest as I waited for him to continue.

He was going to say more, right?

But when he was quiet for too long, I wondered if that was all he had called to say.

“What are you trying to say?” I asked when he remained quiet.

The exit sign came up, so I turned on the blinker to take the off ramp. I checked my rearview mirror and saw Vincent’s dark gray truck right behind me. And his blinker was also on.

That was strange.

There were two exits in Sutton Creek and to get to his apartment, he should have taken the second one.

“I’m coming over,” he said.

And then the song “Here I Am Again” from my favorite Korean Drama started playing through the car speakers again.

He’d hung up.

My heart raced as I drove the rest of the way to my house—anticipation throbbing in my veins as I wondered what he intended to do once he got there.

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