Page 115 of The Route to You

Her finger traced a circle against the front of his shirt. “What about you?”

“Do I want it to be more?”

She nodded.

Not with Anna. He cleared his throat. “I’m not really looking to date right now,” he said instead. “I have a few other things that I need to prioritize. Like employment.” And figuring out how to navigate my relationship with my ex-girlfriend.

“Do you like her, though?”

“In the circle yes, no, maybe sense?” He laughed lightly. Sloan had a way of asking these things that made her sound almost innocent.

“No, in the, would you date her if your employment was figured out sense.”

His thumb tapped lightly against her shoulder. “She’s not really my type.”

“So why were you being so weird when we drove to the bar then?”

“You want the truth?”

“No, I love lies.” The sarcasm dripped.

He sighed. “I was weird because I didn’t know how Anna was going to act. I knew she was interested in me, and Jeremy has been trying to set us up. I wasn’t expecting her to come tonight. But mostly . . . I didn’t know how she would make you feel. Our history makes situations like that feel complicated.”

Several beats of silence followed. To the point that Kyle had to look down, half-convinced Sloan had drifted to sleep. But she was awake, breathing softly, the soft, occasional tap of her thumb indicating she was still processing.

“We’re friends,” she answered carefully. “You’re allowed to date anyone you want to. Women are allowed to be interested in you.”

Huh. Said with the sort of stoicism he remembered—painfully—that Sloan was quite capable of when she decided it was called for.

“Is that what you want?”

“What I want”—she took a long pause, like she was struggling to stay awake—“is for you to be happy.”

Considering she was much more likely to speak the truth right now, when she wasn’t sober, and her guard was down, he didn’t quite know how to take that.

He breathed out slowly, trying not to think about the fact that she was in his arms, already half-asleep from the sound of her light breathing. Yet that didn’t stop him from turning his head and lowering his face against the top of her hair, breathing in her intoxicating, sweet scent.

She hadn’t said she wanted anything more than friendship from him. Hadn’t made a move, really.

And do I want something more with her?

This friendship felt rife with the potential for everything to blow up in his face.

Stay, she’d asked.

So, he had.

And he was slowly beginning to realize that no matter how many times she asked him, he would. Because even though Sloan was the one who broke them up all those years ago, he knew now that a part of him had never truly stopped loving her.

I’ll probably always put her first. Even if he knew he shouldn’t.

29

KYLE

The front door to Elle and Quinn’s house flew open before Kyle was even halfway up the walk. Tara came barreling out toward him. “Uncle Kyle!” she shouted, arms stretched wide.

He caught her, lifting her off her feet and twirling her, grateful that he could do this again. She wasn’t that heavy, of course, but after months of having to tell her that he couldn’t lift her, couldn’t play the way she loved, he was finally starting to be able to get back to being fun.