Page 52 of Playing Games

I kiss her back, wrapping one strong arm around her back so firmly I almost lift her feet off the ground and sinking my other hand into the back of her blond hair. I get lost in the feel of her body and the smell of her hair and push her backward, all the way until her back is against the hard brick exterior of the stadium. I taste and touch and feel every bit of her mouth with my tongue, and when she finally manages to push me back, the two of us are breathless.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her eyes looking up to meet mine. “For avoiding you.”

“Shit, Lex, if it always resolves like this, you can avoid me all the time.”

She laughs through a sigh, pushing me back just enough that there’s a six-inch space between us. I frown, but she smiles. “I…I want to really try this. It’s not been fair that I’ve been fighting you every step of the way, and these ten days of no contact fromyou… Well, they’ve helped to make me see that. But I’m not ready for anything to be public yet, Blake.”

I look around at the space on either side of us. “We’re in public right now, Lex.”

“I know. Which was pretty stupid of me, I can see now, but at the time, I just…needed to talk to you as soon as possible and I knew you would be finishing up with practice now.”

It’s not exactly a Shakespearean love poem, but damn, coming from Lexi Winslow, everything she just said is practically a sonnet.

I can be patient on the public thing if it takes a little longer. The important thing is that she wants to give this an actual try.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Let’s try this in private first. I can do that.”

“You can?” she asks, a beautiful beacon of hope shining in her voice.

“Yeah. In fact, let’s go—”

The door bangs open beside us, and Lexi jumps as I turn, distancing myself from her warm, beautiful body just a little more. Hank and Ron are laughing and chatting on their way out, when Hank spots me standing there. “See you tonight, man.”

I nod.Fuck. “Yeah, dude. See you tonight.”

He jerks up his chin, and he and Ron move on. I blow out a breath, reality having smacked the air clean out of me. “I…well,I told the guys I would go out with them tonight. I’m supposed to meet them at seven. I didn’t know you were going to show up here, though, because I sure as fuck wouldn’t have if I had. But I’m not supposed to meet up with them until later.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “Just get in touch with me later tonight when you’re done.”

“Wait…what? But I have a few hours. I can—”

“Later, Blake.” She steps forward to press a quick but discreet kiss to my lips. “I promise.”

“Because we’re really giving this a shot?” I ask, the need for confirmation undeniable.

“Yes.”

“Well, Lex,” I say and wink at her, “I think it’s going to be a very short night.”

She laughs and waves, walking away with only one look back. My pulse pounds and my ears ring as I think about just how down the river I’ve already sold myself.

How I might already be in love.

I sure hope she gets in a boat and follows because, if not, it’s going to be a hell of a long row back to reality.

Lexi

After I left Blake at the stadium, I decided to busy myself at the lab, adding a particular algorithm into my test app for my dissertation just to see if it changes any of my conclusions. But when I ran into Ginger there, she all but forced me to follow through on the meal I promised her a week and a half ago.

And since it’s already seven, it’s technically a dinner meal, not a lunch meal, but Ginger clearly doesn’t mind.

Now, I sit across from her in a corner booth at Zip’s Diner, my burger and fries untouched as I mentally catalog what I’ve learned about Ginger Lewis over the course of this meal that I surprisingly didn’t already know about her from all the time we’ve spent together in the lab.

For starters, she’s older than me by a few years—twenty-nine to my twenty-five—and this is her first PhD. She’s laser-focused on finishing it and has a very clear vision of her future—developing code for a tech giant like Apple or Google.

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