Page 35 of Blindsided

He used a finger to tip my chin upward, though I resisted enough he still had to angle his head to the side to look me in the eyes. “Link, you might be right. I don’t know how I would have reacted if you’d dropped a Barrington bombshell on me when I had just been drafted. I’d like to think I could have taken it, but I don’t know. And if I hadn’t been able to and I bolted, would we be here today? Able to have this conversation?” He finished with a shrug of his shoulders. “We’ll never know. What I do know is that we’re here right now. Talking. And, while we have gone about it in some crazy, possibly wrong, ways, we’re working on it.”

I blinked rapidly, trying to figure out if I’d heard what I thought I had. Had he really told me we were working on it? It wasn’t quite a full acceptance of my apology, but it was an acknowledgment of our past as well as an olive branch to our possible future.

When I didn’t speak, Easton leaned in and kissed me, sweet, soft, and chaste, in front of whoever was in the lobby with us, without a care to what attention it might bring us. “Let’s go to dinner.”

A smile grew on my face as he slipped his hand into mine and began leading us toward the plaza across the street that housed some of the best food I’d found in Nashville as well as a number of restaurants I hadn’t tried yet.

“Are you going to tell me what’s in the bag?”

Easton held up the hand the bag was dangling from and shot me a wicked grin. “Nope. Not tonight at least.”

CHAPTER 16

EASTON

“Be careful. Let me know when you get to the hotel.” I placed a kiss on Lincoln’s lips before he could respond.

He rolled his eyes, much like Trevor did when Brax was being overprotective. Instead of the exasperated Yes, Daddy Trevor would have given, though, the corner of Lincoln’s lip twitched with amusement and his voice came out breathy. “Yes, Sir.”

The way he wiggled in the plush leather seat of his SUV, I knew he was remembering the spanking I’d given him that morning. It had taken me way too long to realize he was antsy about the owners’ meeting he was heading to. Over the last week and a half, we hadn’t really defined our relationship. We were both moving forward slowly, trying to figure out where we were.

For my part, I still held hurt and confusion and my heart was leery of opening up again. Was Lincoln going to decide this job was too much and leave me again? Would he decide the risks were too great and ghost me? Not knowing was scary. While I hated watching him walk out of the car and toward the airport knowing I wouldn’t see him for the rest of the week, part of me was relieved to have some space to start working through my thoughts.

Of course, when Lincoln turned around at the door and gave me a bashful wave, all my plans to take the week to examine my feelings were forgotten. I waved back, wishing like hell he didn’t have to leave. So maybe I’d already worked through more than I’d given myself credit for.

“This is good for you,” I said into the empty car as I drove it back to my place. The radio’s traffic report was in the middle of informing Nashville of yet another traffic snarl downtown and I was thankful I would be missing it all by heading to my house.

Three hours later I was going out of my mind with boredom and Lincoln was still in the air. My eyes fell on the little white bag that had been sitting in my room since the week before and it gave me an idea. Foregoing my phone, I jumped up from the couch and grabbed my laptop off the desk in my office, then returned to the living room to settle back into my spot on the couch. I tried to remember why I’d insisted on the front room being an office when Trevor had told me it would be a perfect playroom for him. I’d sat at the desk precisely one time, every other time choosing the couch over the desk chair.

With the browser pulled up, I stared at the blinking cursor as I tried to figure out what to type to find the book Lincoln had read. Every search term I thought of returned so many results there was no way I’d be able to figure it out. Fifteen minutes into the search, I decided I needed a change of scenery and headed out back to sit by the pool.

I tried to remember anything I could about what I’d overheard and what Lincoln had told me. There was something about lace and hockey, spankings, and a guy named Pretty. I typed it all into the search bar and hit enter. A book with a description sounding vaguely promising had just popped up when a bark came from the side of my yard and a giant dog came running my way, followed by Brax’s exasperated voice. “Gretzky!”

Because of course Brax was going to show up now of all times.

“What’s up?” I asked before I could even see Brax.

He came around the house shaking his head and holding an empty collar and leash in his hand. “Sorry. We were going for a walk. He saw your house and came flying over here like his ass was on fire.”

I scritched behind Gretzky’s ears. “Wanted to come hang out, huh?”

The dog barked and ran in a circle. I couldn’t be mad at the brown and black fuzzball; he was too damn cute. Which was why I was never getting a dog. Ever. The thing would give me sweet eyes and I’d melt into a puddle of goo. It would be the worst-behaved dog of all time.

Gretzky hung out with me for a few more seconds before he got distracted by the pool. Brax and I noticed at the same time, and we both yelled some variation of “No!” but Gretzky took off like a shot and dive-bombed the pool.

Brax groaned. “Damn dog. Hope we weren’t interrupting anything good. I’m not going in there after him and he’ll be in there for the next hour given half the chance.”

I shook my head. “Only some research.”

“Work research or good research?” Brax waggled his eyebrows dramatically.

“I really wish I had something other than my laptop with me that I could throw at you right now.”

Brax flopped backward on the lounge chair he was sitting on and rolled his head to grin at me. “Nope. You lost the right to complain about me prodding into your personal life when I moved into Trev’s place and you hounded me about needing to find a boy. For weeks, mind you! You have no idea how much you fucked with my head during that time.”

I cackled. “It was for your own good.”

“And so is this. So, what are you looking at?”

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