Page 30 of Offside

“Because you’re the most beautiful woman in every room. I can’t keep my eyes off you. I’m clocking you all the time, making sure I get even just a glimpse of you. The things you do to me… Do I need to go on?”

I was practically breathless and if it were any other time, and any other person, I’d have jumped in his lap and stuck my tongue down his throat. My mouth did fall open and I licked my lower lip, biting it after and I’d forgotten entirely how to speak.

I didn’t stick my tongue down his throat, unfortunately. I’d sobered just enough to remember why. My brother. Fuck him.

“Griffin would lose his mind,” I said. God I was the buzzkill. And again, fuck Griffin. Ugh.

“Yes, he would,” he said with no change to his expression.

“And we work together.”

“We do,” he replied, unmoving.

“And it would be complicated.”

“Very.”

I nodded and he did as well, neither of us taking our eyes off each other’s. So reasonable. Me and Ryan Lindqvist having such a reasonable conversation like two adults. I leaned forward, just slightly, without a plan, more with an intention my sensible brain hadn’t caught up to yet. God I wanted him to kiss me. Just once. I bet he’s an amazing kisser.

His hand came up and he tucked my hair back behind my ear, just that, just his fingers brushing my cheek as he did it, and I forgot entirely what I’d been about to say. It wasn’t important. The buzz from his touch was electric.

He left his hand there. Not moving, just present and warm against my jaw, his thumb barely touching my cheek, making its way toward my lips.

Despite the counter arguments for the words unspoken, the moment held.

Then from the hallway, loud and immediate, came the sound of Cole’s voice. “Babe, the taco truck guy said he’s free in March—” Then Cole himself, crashing through the kitchen door with two drinks, a woman, and Griffin behind him, and the moment shattered into completely normal pieces.

Ryan’s hand dropped. I straightened on my barstool and picked up my water glass and drank from it with the focused intention of someone deep in the important business of hydration.

“There you both are,” Griffin said, opening the fridge. “Cole’s trying to hire the taco truck for his birthday.”

“It’s not until March,” Cole said, not bothered by any of this. “Planning ahead. Lindqvist, what do you think, the backyard or should I look at a venue?”

“Backyard,” Ryan said. His voice was exactly as it always was. Unaffected.

I studied my water glass. My cheek was still warm where his fingers had been.

“Backyard,” I agreed, nodding vehemently.

Cole launched into taco truck logistics. Griffin argued about March weather in Phoenix. The kitchen filled with noise and I sat on my barstool and was completely, totally, professionally fine.

We weren’t alone again the rest of the evening, and I called a rideshare to go home forty minutes later after stealing more glances and watching him do the same. Lying in bed with the ceiling fan turning slow circles in the dark, I thought about his hand in my hair and the way he’d looked at me and the word very when I’d said complicated.

Not yes. Not I know.

Very. Like he didn’t give a shit.

I pressed my face into the pillow. The reigniting of this crush was overwhelming.

On top of that, I was embarrassed. I was also, underneath the embarrassment, lit up like the string lights on Cole’s patio, and I didn’t know what to do with either of those things so I did what was…responsible.

I went to sleep.

I dreamed about blue-gray eyes and a warm hand and another moment that didn’t finish and woke at five in the morning thinking about it some more.

CHAPTER 7

RYAN