Page 17 of Fearlessly Us

Fuck, he looks good.

Too good.

His gray Renegades T-shirt stretches over a well-defined chest, and I’m quite sure I’ve never found biceps sexy before but holy Jesus, this man’s biceps belong in a museum. And it’s better I don’t even think about his muscular forearms. Or the way his black joggers hug his thick, perfect thighs. Or what he could do with those thighs.

My body explodes in inconvenient heat.

“My eyes are up here, Princess.”

The heat moves to my cheeks as I snap my gaze up to Drew’s face, where the crooked grin has turned to a smirk and did I say anything about this man is sexy? Strike that from the record because I’m suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to punch him in his stupidly gorgeous face.

“Is there something I can help you with?” I ask, trying my most bored expression on for size. Nothing to see here. I was definitely not ogling Drew Ellicott’s thighs in my place of business.

Drew chuckles like he can see right through me, and the urge to punch him turns into a murderous rage. Sauntering over, he grabs a mini-Snickers from the pile next to my computer and takes a seat in the chair opposite my desk. “So, so many things.”

I roll my eyes at his suggestive tone and sit down in my own chair. “Work things, Pretty Boy. You obviously need a lawyer for some reason, and I have a to-do list ten miles long, so get talking.”

Drew’s easy expression drops and he swallows hard, his right hand gripping the arm of the chair. Dred and anxiety radiate off him and fill the space between us, and I practically bite my tongue off to keep myself from telling him that whatever it is, I can fix it.

I can always fix it, even if the person I’m fixing things for once made me cry and I hate him a little for it and was fantasizing about burying him alive thirty seconds ago. My feelings for him are…confusing, and I really, really don’t do confusing well.

“This is weird,” he says finally, running a hand through his tousled brown hair, his eyes locked on mine.

“It’s weird you need estate planning advice? You’ve been an NFL wide receiver for like fourteen years. You’re one of the highest paid offensive players in the league. What’s weird is if you haven’t had estate planning advice until now.”

His smirk makes a return appearance. “Looks like someone’s been keeping tabs on me.”

I roll my eyes. “For reasons unknown, this city worships the ground you walk on, and I live here. The details of your last contract were front-page news. I don’t even like football that much.”

He clutches a hand to his chest dramatically. “You wound me, Catie. Football is the best sport in the world.”

I shrug, pasting on a bored expression, trying to cover how him calling me Catie makes my whole body tingle. “I’m not really a sports fan.”

Drew shakes his head. “I’ll have you cheering for me at a football game before you know it.” He grins wickedly. “Preferably wearing my name on your back.”

I snort. “Don’t hold your breath. As thrilling as this conversation is, I have shit to do, so why don’t you tell me why this is weird so we can get this done and I can move on with my day?”

His face shutters again, and the speed with which he can flip from cheerful and cocky to wounded and sad kind of makes me want to know everything about him, despite my better judgment. “I’ve gotten plenty of estate planning advice. What’s weird is what I have to tell you to get the advice I need.”

“I’m a trusts and estate lawyer, Drew. I’ve only been practicing for a few years, and I can already confidently say there’s nothing I haven’t heard before. I’ve had clients divulge secret second families to their first families while sitting around the conference table down the hall, and last year a client asked me to draft a will conditioning inheritances for her children and grandchildren on them accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Oh, and a few months ago there was the woman who told me she had fourteen million dollars literally hidden in her mattress because she doesn’t trust banks. Whatever you have to tell me, I’ve definitely heard weirder.”

Drew blows out a breath. “It kind of has to do with why I stood you up the night we were supposed to go out.”

Record scratch.

My brain immediately does the thing I’ve forced it not to do for the last six months and flashes right back to that night. Getting dressed up despite the period from hell. Waiting for a guy who never showed and never called. Eating ice cream practically naked on the couch. Alone. Blocking his number. The tears. I cried over this man, and that’s the most unforgivable thing of them all.

“I’m sorry.” Drew takes advantage of my silence to do the thing I haven’t let him do because I’ve shut him down every time he’s tried. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, the most earnest expression I’ve ever seen on his face. “I’m so fucking sorry, Caitlin. Standing you up was the worst thing I’ve ever done, and if I could turn back the clock to that night, I would have called you and explained everything.”

He pauses and shakes his head, laughing a little. “Okay, I probably wouldn’t have explained everything because I’m shit at talking about personal stuff, but I would have found a way to tell you something important came up. Something that had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me and a past that suddenly slammed straight into my present.”

Drew takes a deep breath and sits back in his chair, stunned expression on his face and conflict in his deep brown eyes, like he’s shocked he divulged even that much and doesn’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know how to feel about it either, so I grab one of my emotional support pens from my desk and default to lawyer mode. I know exactly what to do in lawyer mode. What I suck at is dealing with a genuine apology from a man for whom I’ve spent the last six months wishing a slow and painful death while also battling weirdly complicated feelings.

“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here now, and pretend I’m not the person you stood up six months ago,” I tell him, and I understand the relief in his eyes at being let off the hook, at least for now. He’s not the only one in this room who sucks at talking about feelings.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, finally unwrapping the mini-Snickers he took from my desk when he first walked in, popping it in his mouth and chewing so slowly it can’t be anything but a stall tactic. He swallows and straightens his shoulders, as if he needs the extra surface area for whatever he’s about to carry. “I have a sister.”

His breath whooshes out like saying the words is putting down a heavy weight he was carrying, and there’s a strange satisfaction in being the one he feels comfortable letting go around.