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He lets go of me, then answers. “If I say something literary, I sound like a douche. If I say something by a dead white guy, I sound patriarchal. If I pick something by a celebrity, I sound star-obsessed.”
“Are those your favorites?”
“No,” he says with that familiar twinkle in his eyes.
“Then why don’t you just tell me your favorite book?” This is important. I need to know him.
“The truth? The one I’m currently reading,” he says, and honestly that’s a pretty good answer. He reaches for his mug and I expect him to take a sip, but instead he hands it to me.
“I don’t like—” I swallow the word coffee because it’s a vanilla latte.
“I know,” he says with a smile. “I made you a vanilla latte. Just the way you like it. With two shots of vanilla and extra foam.”
Oh. My chest warms, a little tingly now. He was making a drink for me. Like we’re having a coffee date. He picks up a cup of coffee. He must have poured that before I came in.
I take a drink and my taste buds dance. “Stop making such great lattes,” I tease.
“Not likely to happen,” he says, then takes a swallow of his coffee. “And you? What’s your favorite book?”
“The next one my friend Hazel writes.”
“Good answer,” he says with a chin nod.
“Do you miss baseball?”
He pauses, giving that some thought before he nods. “I do. But I think I always will. And I’m okay with that. I loved it madly as a kid, as a teenager, then in college. It was my whole entire heart growing up and it’s gone.” He gives a wistful shrug. “But at least I got to play. And I played at the highest level—one year in the majors is nothing to sneeze at.”
“One year is amazing. And it was an incredible season,” I say, since I researched his stats. “I even saw some of your videos on YouTube.”
His grin is nothing short of magical. “You did?”
“I looked you up. Watched some clips of you on the mound. You were ice.”
Impossibly, his grin grows even wider. “Best compliment ever.”
“You looked good. You looked great,” I say.
“It was a good year. I try to remember that. I achieved my dream.”
“You did.” I hesitate but ask the next question anyway. “Is it hard watching your brother play?”
Without a second thought, he shakes his head. “It’s one of my favorite things. I love rooting him on. You really need to see him play. We should go to a game.”
He doesn’t say next season. But I flash back to when we first moved into this house a few weeks ago. He said he wanted me to meet his brother, and right now it’s all I want. This time I answer him a little differently. “We should.”
It’s not quite a promise. More like a hope.
“What about you?” he asks. “Do you miss…your parents?” It’s said so gently, without any judgment in case the answer might be no.
“I wish I missed them more,” I say, sadly.
He runs a hand down my arm. “I understand. I do.” He lifts his cup again and swallows, then meeting my eyes, like he’s trying to figure me out, he says, “You’re awfully curious today.”
“I had a nice chat with Eliza this morning,” I admit, then take another drink of the latte.
He lifts one brow, inviting me to say more. “What did Miss Chatterbox talk about? She’s been telling me how much she wants a snow day. She’s never had one.”
“She mentioned that to me too. Amanda hasn’t either. But she also…” Should I mention Kylie? Gage and I haven’t really talked about exes in detail. But I am intrigued by her comment. Kids see things we don’t. “Eliza said that she liked the way I listened and maybe she compared me to somebody else who she didn’t think listened as well,” I say, but once the words land, I wish I could take them back. Comparison is the thief of joy. I wave a dismissive hand. “Ignore me. I sound like I’m fishing for compliments.”
