AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll have to let you know about tomorrow,” I told him. “Like I said … I have this little punk to think about.”
Sage ducked when I tried to slip my arm around her shoulder. “Oh, Grandma actually asked if me and my cousins could do a sleepover tomorrow night. Is that okay, Mom?”
Scott’s dimple appeared as his grin deepened, and I couldn’t help but exhale a small, incredulous laugh. You know what we called this shit in fiction? A plot device. A wrench in the story that forces action, and man, did it feel different to be on the receiving end of one of those. Maybe I should send my characters an apology note.
I looked down at Sage, who was blissfully unaware of the position she was putting me in, and smiled as I shook my head slowly. “Unbelievable.”
“Is that a yes?” she asked, eyes big and hopeful.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
She whispered a yes, and ran off to say hi to my parents, Sheila and Ian.
And then there were two, I thought. Slowly whittled away until I had no choice but to a) lie to him, or b) look like a jerk who didn’t want to help my daughter get the thing she wanted.
“So,” I said slowly, “dinner tomorrow night, huh? I’m still not sure how much help I can be. I pretty much just showed up when the schedule told me to.”
He laughed heartily, and I couldn’t help but admit it was a nice laugh. Not as nice as Ian’s, of course. But no one’s laugh did to me what his did.
“I’ll pick you up around five thirty?”
Oh no. That would not do. I tried to imagine Scott showing up to Ian’s house, and the sheer panic almost had me bursting into hysterical laughter.
“Umm, how about I meet you there?” I asked. The crestfallen look on his face was enough to make me want to bolt from this entire conversation, playing out way more publicly than I would have liked. “I have something I need to do beforehand, and it might make things a little,” I paused, searching for the right word, “easier, maybe. I think most people drive separately to meetings,” I said pointedly.
He recovered quickly. “Of course. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I’ll text you the address of the restaurant.”
I smiled. “Perfect.”
The way he was looking at me was like I hung the fricken moon, and if I was being honest, I couldn’t understand why. Were the men of Sisters so hard up for single women that the mere presence of a new one sent them into a spiral?
I crossed my arms, shaking my head as I turned. Ian had started walking toward me, and we both froze before we crashed into each other. His hands reached out to steady my elbows, eyes anywhere but on mine.
“Good game,” I said.
He nodded. “It was.”
“Maybe you should coach if she can get enough girls to start a team.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You looked like you were practicing out there.”
Ian winced. “Yeah, I didn’t expect it to feel so intense.”
“No shit. Did you hear me screaming? Sage is going to ban me from the sideline at this rate.”
“At least we’ll be banned together.”
We shared a brief, amused look, and then he dropped his gaze down to the turf again.
“Coach Scott was chatty today,” he said easily.
I nodded, my stomach in my throat as I answered. “Remember I told you he asked me out to dinner to talk about a girls’ team?”
Ian’s jaw flexed, his eyes locking on mine. “Yeah.”
My chin rose an inch. “Sage is sleeping over at my parents, so I don’t really have a reason not to go.”
I wasn’t trying to test the man, none of this was manufactured for some chest-pounding display of possessiveness. But there was a tug of yearning again, a curling ache where I wanted him to tell me not to go. To pull me into his arms and let the heat of his body make everything feel better, more settled.
But he wouldn’t. Certainly not now.
