AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Me: Also, you’re not a shit friend. You were in the writing cave, so I forgive you.
Paloma: I sure was. Wrote 8k yesterday and 6k the day before.
Me: I won’t even cuss you out for that blatant display of bragging because I had a perfect birthday, and I sent my pitch and first three chapters to my editor right before Sage and I left for our girls’ day.
Paloma: Yeah, you fucking did! Feel good about it?
Me: I do. She said she’d read it ASAP. We’re supposed to do a Zoom and talk in a couple of days. Cora too.
Paloma: Gawd, Cora probably drank an entire gallon of wine when you actually finished, she was so relieved.
Me: Ha. Probably.
Paloma: What are you up to today since that’s off your plate?
Me: Waiting on the bleachers right now. Sage has her first flag football game, and we had to be here early so she could warm up. My parents and a couple of friends are coming to watch. They should be here soon.
Paloma: Aw. Cute small-town shit. Are you going to a quaint diner afterward? Walk down Main Street with a broad-shouldered hottie who keeps giving you intense looks full of longing?
Me: Umm, wasn’t planning on it, but if that changes, I’ll let you know.
Paloma: Get anything good for your birthday?
My cheeks heated, and I took a strategic hard left out of the conversation because when this particular topic was visited with Paloma, I’d need to be able to see her face, preferably with a glass of wine in hand. I already had a broad-shouldered hottie giving me intense looks full of longing. Any more of those and I’d lose my shit. Unless he started following it up with intense tearing of clothes and some honesty, I could only take so much. I was ready to burst out of my skin if there wasn’t a reckoning with that man soon.
Me: Nothing crazy. Gotta go, I need to keep an eye out for my parents.
Paloma: Love you, tell Sage to kick some ass and knock someone over for me!
Me: That’s literally against the entire purpose of flag football, P.
Paloma: Your point?
I exhaled a small laugh and tucked my phone away. Since we were in the farthest field away from the door, I watched for my parents. My dad’s head appeared first, and after shooting them a text that they likely wouldn’t see until they left, I stood and waved my arms over my head.
After a few seconds, he saw me, lifting a hand in acknowledgment. Behind them, I saw Sheila and Poppy walk in, and I couldn’t help but shake my head that they’d come. It would be almost impossible to hold much of a conversation with them, given how loud it was, but the fact that they showed up at all said so much.
There was no sign yet of Ian—the man who’d disappeared before sunrise for the second day in a row after The Kiss—but he’d left Sage a note promising he’d be there. It wasn’t even just his fault that we hadn’t seen each other because there’d genuinely been no opportunity to talk the past couple of days.
Before my birthday, I knew he was pulling a few early days because of something Cameron needed help with at the site of their future store. The frame was going up on a new build, and they were working on split crews, so he wanted Ian to take over supervising the crew at the other site until he was free.
And in the evening, I’d had back-to-back podcast interviews, so I kept myself locked in my bedroom recording. By the time I finished, slipping briefly into Sage’s room to help her with some homework, I heard the shower crank on in his bathroom, and I knew he was taking his shower before bed.
That helped nothing, if I was being honest. Lying in my bed, I stared at the ceiling, imagining the man in his shower. I swear, if I saw him wearing those gray sweatpants again, I couldn’t be held liable for my actions.
The Thoughts and Feelings had streamlined now, in the wake of such a kiss, and oddly enough, I wasn’t scared. We needed to talk, I was ready for all the cards to be out on the table—his and mine and why he’d kissed me like that and then apologized, and why I very, very much wanted to do it again.
It felt a bit like the universe conspired against us because the first time I’d really seen him since I’d left the porch and went to bed very much alone, we’d be in plain view of his family and mine, in a giant metal building where half the town could eavesdrop. They wouldn’t have to work very hard either because in order to carry on any conversation here, you’d have to practically yell.
The building was cavernous, the sound echoing everywhere from the four fields that made up the entire place. They were separated by floor-to-ceiling nets, hung on hooks and draped to the ground to keep the game balls separate. On the field in front of me, the kids from both teams ran drills, flags streaming from their waists as they bounced around on the artificial field. The energy was palpable, and even with all the unknowns hanging over my life, I was so damn excited for my kid.
With Keaton and the number 18 emblazoned on her back, Sage looked like she was about to vibrate out of her skin if the game didn’t start soon. As my parents, Sheila and Poppy made their way through the maze of nets and fields, moving slowly through the stream of parents leaving the earlier games, Coach Scott looked over at me, catching my eye for the first time since I’d arrived.
He looked handsome, wearing a hat with the team’s logo, and a matching shirt stretched over his barrel chest. The smile he aimed in my direction was intentional. That was the only word for it.
He didn’t even attempt to hide how happy he was to see me. A few of the parents seated around me noticed, glancing back in my direction when he raised his hand and waved, and as I returned it, a slight curl of anxiety unspooled in my stomach.
A man asked a woman out to dinner when he wanted her.
