Page 91 of Someone to Have
Bryan stills like a deer caught in headlights.
Melanie shakes her head. “Your brother is a walking example of why I instituted a moratorium on dating athletes. It never ends well with those guys. Am I right?”
She grins, and I manage to nod, even though my mouth has gone dry. She can’t know, can she?
Bryan sits back and looks past my shoulder.
“Fancy meeting you here.” Toby crouches down and wraps his arms around the back of my chair, picking it up with me in it.
“Oh my God, put me down,” I say through clenched teeth.
“You smell good.” Toby leans in and sniffs my hair. “Like a vanilla candle or something. New conditioner? What’s the occasion?”
“Seriously, Toby. Put me down.” His arms are tight bands around my waist.
“You break that chair, and Stu is going to take it out of your beer tab,” Mel observes dryly.
“Did you just fat-shame my sister?” Toby asks, still holding the chair aloft.
“No, I asshole shamed you,” Mel answers.
“You like me,” he counters, lowering the chair to the ground. “And I like you right back, Melanie.”
“You’ve had too many concussions.” She rolls her eyes and moves into the crowd. But I swear I saw a flash of something that looked like fear in her eyes.
I straighten my sweater and draw in a deep breath then smack my brother’s thigh. “You need to leave her alone.”
“I’m just flirting, Tink.”
“She’s a single mom, and she’s been through a lot. She doesn’t like your brand of flirting, Toby.”
He looks at me like I’m speaking in a different language, one he doesn’t understand.
“Everybody likes my brand of flirting.”
“Hey, Taylor.”
My gaze catches on the man who walks up behind my brother.
Why does my heart always do that stupid flutter-skip thing when I hear Eric’s voice? And when our eyes meet, the rest of the restaurant disappears for a split second—the noise, Bryan, even my own embarrassment. Eric’s looking at me like I’m the only person in the room, and I have to force myself to break eye contact before I do something mortifying like forget how to breathe.
I glance between Eric and my brother. “What are you two doing here?” My voice sounds like I swallowed a squeaky toy. “I thought you were having a team dinner at Dad’s tonight.”
Toby chuckles while Eric’s expression remains stony. There’s something almost protective in the way Eric’s jaw tightens as he takes in the scene—me, Bryan, the half-drunk margarita and the untouched wine glass between us.
“Dad wanted to do his own armchair quarterbacking with the team, so we have strict orders to stay away from the house for two hours.”
Across the table, Bryan clears his throat again.
“Toby, this is Bryan Connor. He teaches English at the high school.”
I can practically see my brother’s hackles rising. “Oh, I know.” His tone means trouble. “I’ve had a bizarre number of players nearly benched because of their weekly grade checks from his English class.”
“Priorities,” Bryan says with a tight smile. The smugness in his voice makes me want to sink into the floor.
Toby pats Eric’s chest. He’s as stiff as a wall of granite. Tension radiates off him in waves, and my stomach twists with anxiety and regret. With how I feel about Eric, I never should have agreed to a date with Bryan.
“This is?—”
