Page 67 of Third and Ten

I shrug innocently. “You don’t get good at teaching high schoolers without fostering your inner fifteen-year-old boy.”

“Hmm, that’s funny,” she remarks, her hand traveling back over to my right shoulder, then running down my arm slowly. “These feel more like grown-man arms.”

I shake my head, growling as I try to focus on the road.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll stop,” she concedes, grabbing my hand and lacing her fingers through mine instead. “But you’ve been teasing me with those guns for months.”

I glare at her in disbelief. “Me…teasing you? You’ve got to be kidding me, woman.”

She laughs softly. “I am sorry that I tried to convince myself not to like you for so long, JD. It’s not that I couldn’t see that you’re great. I was just trying to keep one aspect of my life simple while everything else was so complicated.” She looks down, and I squeeze her hand gently. “And to be fair, I wasn’t sure if you really liked me or were just a big flirt, at least in the beginning.”

“The most nervous and awkward flirt in history, you mean?” I admit with a self-deprecating smile.

“Well, yes, but apparently I find ‘dorky with big muscles’ cute,” she reassures me. “Thank you again for not giving up on me and for being here with me today. You know that things with Ethan still aren’t completely settled, that we’ll be grieving my dad any day now, and that I have a demanding career that sometimes pulls me out of bed in the middle of the night. And I just want to make sure that you’re okay with all my baggage, because I’m sure there’s more to come.”

I do my best to ignore the implications of her warning me about her bedtime habits as I bring her hand up and kiss the inside of her wrist. Her lips part as she releases a shuddery breath, and I make a mental note of her reaction.

“Tenley, you couldn’t chase me away if you tried. I’m here for all of it. The good, the sad, the tough…I want to be the friend you can count on and the man who makes you feel loved at the end of the day. I’ve just been waiting for you to want it, too.”

I hope I’m not scaring her off with my mention of the L-word, but it’s not like I’m proclaiming actual feelings—only goals, right?

“Okay,” she says meekly, her eyes watering again.

“And we’re going to get through this stuff with Ethan together. I promise.”

She nods. “Do you think he’ll really be okay with this?”

I consider it for a second before I answer, because I’m all too aware that the teenage brain is a complex and unpredictable minefield. “I do. But, as much as it pains me to suggest it, maybe we should keep things quiet for a while—you know, lie low in public, for Ethan’s sake. I can’t imagine that the rest of the team wouldn’t give him a hard time.”

“That’s probably for the best,” she agrees. “At least until football season is over and our custody arrangement is settled.”

I can’t help but smile when she implies that there will be an “us” in a month from now, since I’m still in disbelief that I’ve gone from nursing an unrequited crush to kissing Tenley in a parking lot within the last half-hour. “But after that, plan on embarrassing the hell out of him with our PDA.”

She rolls her eyes and nudges me, but I see the corners of her mouth curling up.

I drive up to the restaurant and give the back of her hand another kiss, noticing the worry returning to her face. She’s probably drifting back to the logistics of Ethan’s situation again. “Are you okay? Maybe a little overwhelmed?” I ask.

She gives me a half-smile. “Maybe a little.”

“Hey, you know how I feel about Ethan. We’re on the same page. His needs will always be our priority, right? But we can do both. There can be an us-two and a we-three.”

“Thank you,” she says, her voice thick and tears threatening to spill over again. I figure she needs a second, so I take my time going around to open her door.

“Are you going to do this every time?” she asks. I offer my hand, and she takes it as she steps out.

“I might. As long as you let me.”

Ethan meets us at the front door, handing Tenley the keys. “Finally. You’d think the adults who take you to court to stake their claim would want to feed you, but you two would just as soon get a room and leave me to starve.”

I shove him back behind me, making him stumble and raise a few more complaints, but he catches up to us in time to pull out a chair for his aunt before I can. It’s likely done out of habit, but the gesture isn’t lost on me.

The waitress comes over, and I clear my throat after we’re left with our menus. “So, ah, this”—I draw an imaginary line between Tenley and me—“is finally happening. But we’re not going to talk about it at school for now, right, E?”

He smirks at her. She says nothing when their eyes meet, but she does blush a little. “Cool,” he replies after a second. “And don’t worry, I’m not going to bring it up. Although the entire football team’s been rooting for you to get together all this time.”

Tenley cringes. “What do you mean? How do they even know who I am?”

We both shrug guiltily. “They may have caught me waiting for you to show up at the end of practice or staring a little too hard, just once or twice,” I admit.

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