Page 23 of Alive At Night

A whoosh of air going by my ear and the cough of a nearby person explained it. I’d been about to run into someone. Again.

“You distracted me with your grabby hands,” I accused, swatting him away.

He let go of me but moved closer as we maneuvered through the crowds entering the stadium. When he spoke, his voice was grumbly and gruff. Warm breath brushed the shell of my ear. “I grabbed you because you were walking straight into the oncoming traffic of people. Again.”

He was being overdramatic, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Did I clip someone’s shoulder while crossing the street to the stadium? Maybe. Did they give me the finger while yelling a derogatory word that I refused to repeat in my head? Yes, that might have happened.

But as a small-town girl who’d only left her home zip code for a bank-draining education, I’d never been to a stadium of this magnitude. The size of it distracted me, looming even larger as we approached.

Julian’s heavy sigh startled me back into awareness. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were such a hazard to take into public?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that professional football spectators were such a hazard?” I shot back at him. “I might have bumped into him a little, but that man was—”

“He was an ass,” Julian growled in my ear, his fingers squeezing my hip again as he directed me through the stadium traffic.

Finally, something we agreed on.

Julian seemed eager to find our seats, and I noticed the appreciation in his eyes when he realized how good they were. I wasn’t sure if these tickets would be worth ruining my monthly budget, but the entire point of coming tonight was to sit close to the players and the field.

“How much do I owe you for the tickets, Rosie?”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it.”

Julian’s displeasure with my response was evident. That starry-eyed look he’d showcased a minute ago vanished as he looked down at me. “Part of our deal was that—”

“I don’t remember what I paid for them off the top of my head,” I said, which was technically the truth. I couldn’t remember the exact amount, not down to the very dollar. “But they weren’t that expensive. I’ll let you know.”

“You’re lying.”

Okay, yeah, the second part was definitely a lie.

I didn’t know why I was trying to let Julian off the hook for the tickets. God knows I could use the money, but part of me felt bad for dragging him here last minute when I knew he wasn’t precisely a last-minute person. Besides, relying on him to help me talk to Noah made my stomach churn unpleasantly. I shouldn’t need his help, but here I was anyway. And refusing his money somehow made me feel better.

“I don’t know why you want to pay so badly.”

“It’s weird having you pay for me to come see my friends play.” He wrinkled his nose, eyes moving to scan the field. “And it won’t cost money to uphold the other side of our bargain.”

That was the thing about Julian. While I’d been pegged for law school because of my sharp tongue and determined spirit, Julian had always held a firm philosophy of fairness. Justice. Not that I didn’t believe in those things, too, but sometimes it seemed the people we grew up with thought Julian had gone into law for all the right reasons while I’d pursued it for all the wrong ones.

My passion for my career had nothing to do with my aptitude for arguing. Even if it did give me a little adrenaline rush from time to time.

“Let’s just enjoy the game,” I encouraged, turning back toward the field.

“Do you think you will?” Apparent curiosity lingered in Julian’s voice.

“What?”

“Enjoy the game?”

“Of course I will.”

Julian glanced sharply down at me. “What do you mean,of course? I’ve never once seen you interested in football before today.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, slight irritation coursing through my veins. “I went to every single one of your games in high school, didn’t I?”

His brows furrowed. “You did?”

“You might not remember me, but I was that girl who sat with your family in the crowd and tried to blend in with all the redheads.”

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