Page 85 of Sweet Thing

My phone buzzed with a text from Ryder.My office. 8 a.m.

Theo offered a knowing smirk. “Our illustrious leader?”

“Meeting in his office in an hour.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Adeline said, her voice threaded with worry.

“Probably a game suspension. Maybe two.” Theo put his coffee mug in the sink. “You played right into MacFarlane’s hands and now I’ll have to work with him when I hate his guts. He’s a good player but he’s not Dream Defense material!”

“Sorry, Dad.”

Theo kissed his daughter on the forehead. “This isn’t your fault. If he hurt you …”

“He didn’t. Don’t be an asshole to him. Be professional.”

Her dad clutched his chest, wounded. “I am always professional! Okay, laters, kids.”

And then he left as noisily as he’d arrived.

She raised an eyebrow. “Think he bought it?”

“Not entirely. But he’d rather not consider the alternative, that I showed up at that club because I was ragingly jealous.” Mabel stuck her finger in my mouth, almost as if she knew I needed to shut the hell up now.

“You were?”

“Of course I was. I hated that you were going on a date. I hated that anything I’d said might have driven you to make that choice because I was too much of a coward to admit I wanted you.”

She bit her lip, a very sexy move. As I didn’t want to be thinking sexy things right now, I looked away. Or maybe I didn’t want to be thinking honest things right now.

“Are you really going to be suspended?”

“Probably. But it was worth it.”

She rolled her eyes. “And what about the aftermath? Was that worth it?”

Trust Adeline to refuse to dance around the issue. I’d once considered her shy, but now I saw someone different. A woman who called it how she saw it, who wasn’t afraid to be direct with me. Last night, we went into this agreeing not to discuss what came next. But now the time had come to be straight with each other.

“Yes.”

She held my gaze with those beautiful, shamrock-green eyes. I’d expected she would be nervous because her dad showed up and we were hiding something huge from him. She seemed different this morning. More assured.

“I know it can’t go anywhere, Lars.”

“That’s supposed to be my line.” Here she was, giving me an out, and I was arguing against it?

She smiled, rubbed at a scuff on the kitchen counter. “There are a lot of reasons not to do this?—”

“And we’ve blown right past them and done it anyway.”

“Have you had enough?”

Of her? Not a chance. But I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t make any promises.

“If we had any sense we’d call a halt.” Her father had almost walked in on us. How long could we keep this between us in the company of other people, especiallyherpeople?

“Are you feeling sensible?”

I stood and approached her, Mabel still in my arms like the cutest of chaperones. Leaning in, I kissed Adeline, first a gentle press, then deeper, making clear my intent.

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