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“Touché.”
Wyatt watched her go, her hips swinging with each step she took. The smile he’d forgotten he was wearing wore off when he saw at least three guys watching her as closely as he was. He tightened his fists and turned back to his old friend, stiffening when he saw him laughing. “What?”
“You’ve got it bad.”
He stiffened even more and sat down. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes. You do.” Waverly shook his head and sat, too. “You gotta keep this one around, Hamilton. Girls like her are one of a kind.”
“I won’t be keeping anything around. She’s a person, not a possession.” He lifted a shoulder. “Besides, it’s not like that with us. We’re just friends.”
Waverly snorted. “Yeah. Sure you are.”
“We are,” he said, leaving it at that. Protesting more would only make Waverly think he was right, and he wasn’t. He and Kass knew what they were, and that was all that mattered.
No one else needed to know or understand.
“So, then, you wouldn’t mind if she was flirting with a guy while waiting for the restroom to open?” Waverly asked slowly.
Wyatt snorted. “Of course not.”
“Good. Because she is.”
He glanced over, and sure enough, she was chatting it up with a tall dude who probably never skipped a day in the gym his whole life. She laughed at something he said, playing with her glasses nervously and then turned toward Wyatt.
He cocked a brow.
She smiled at him.
He forced a smile back. It hurt.
“Yeah. You look thrilled,” Waverly said pointedly.
“I don’t have room in my heart for anything but the game. Nothing has changed in that regard.” He glanced Kassidy’s way again, but she was inside the restroom, and the man who’d been talking to her was alone. He sagged against the chair. “Nothing ever will.”
Waverly rubbed his jaw, his old green eyes far too astute for Wyatt’s liking. “A man can love the game and a woman at the same time.”
“Not this man.”
“If you say so,” he said slowly. “What do you have against love, anyway?”
“Nothing. I love football. I love my team. I love my coaches. I love my family. Hell, I even love you most of the time,” Wyatt said, sitting up straight. “I just don’t need that kind of love in my life. I don’t want it. Never had. I’m happier alone, and there’s nothing wrong with being in love with being single, despite what everyone else in the world seems to think.”
Waverly held his hands up in surrender. “I never said it was wrong.”
“But…?” Wyatt supplied, sensing there was more. “Spit it out, old man. You’ve never been one to hold back on me before.”
“But you seem to like this woman a lot, and she clearly likes you for some reason, so I’d hate to see you let her go because you were too scared to try to care about someone.”
“I’m not scared,” he said immediately. “I’m just not interested.”
“When someone speaks to your soul, when you can’t stop thinking about them, when they matter to you…you don’t just let them go, son.” Waverly shrugged. “You hang on tight, and you fight for what you have, and you sure as hell don’t refuse to admit it’s there.”
“We don’t have anything there besides a friendship we both respect and understand. There’s nothing to fight for.”
Waverly shook his head. “If you truly believe that, then you’re even worse off than I thought. Admit that you like her. Admit that she makes you feel alive.”
Wyatt said nothing.
