Page 68 of Her Coach

“No.”

“Or go all —” I made a vague gesture.

“Protective? Overcautious?” He tilted his head. “Back off entirely and spend the next week reconsidering everything?”

“Any of the above.”

“No,” he said. “You told me something true. I’m going to treat it like something true.” He reached across the table, and his hand covered mine the way it had before — both of his around both of mine, unhurried. “It changes what I want to do. Not whether I want to.”

I let out a breath I’d been holding since the appetizers.

“How does it change it?” I asked.

He looked at me for a long moment. “I want to take more time with you than I might have otherwise. I want you to know what you’re walking into before you walk into it.” A pause. “And I want you to tell me what you want. Not what you think I want. What you actually want.”

“What if I don’t know yet?”

“Then we figure it out.” His thumb moved across my knuckles. “No more moving faster than you’re ready for.”

I looked down at his hand on mine. At the way his knuckles were scarred and thick and covered in black hair and mine disappeared underneath them. The size difference had seemed almost cartoonish at first. Now it just seemed like the truth of him.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said back.

“For what it’s worth,” Colton said after a while, eyes on his food, “twenty-six is not the number you seem to think it is.”

“I know.”

“You’ve also put your whole life on hold for other people for the better part of five years.”

“I know that too.”

“So there’s nothing —”

“Colton.” I said it gently. “I know. I’m okay.” I speared a piece of my steak. “I just wanted you to have it from me.”

He nodded once. Let it go. That was another thing about him. He knew when a thing was done.

The check never actually came to our table. The waiter just appeared at Colton’s elbow at some point, and Colton pressed his card into the man’s hand without looking up from the conversation. I never saw the number. I had a feeling that was intentional.

To-go plates were a thing in our world as we kept to the small talk over the course of dinner. Well, I did, at least. One heavy topic was enough for one evening. Plus, I had a million other things to look forward to.

Like the promises Colton made me earlier in the week.

His truck was one of those blacked-out things that looked like it ate other trucks for breakfast. No badge on the back, no dealership sticker, nothing. The inside was some kind of custom leather that I’d never felt in a car before in my life, all dark and clean-smelling, and the console between us had more buttons than I knew what to do with. I’d been in nice cars before — my mother owned one. But this truck cost more than my mother’s car, and Colton drove it the same way he did everything else. Like it was just a thing he had.

“Different car,” I said.

He glanced over. “Bentley’s for dates.”

I looked back out the window so he wouldn’t see me smile.

The ride back to his place was filled with idle conversation. I learned a lot about him as the city lights of Vegas shifted and changed outside the window. I learned that his first career passion had actually been teaching as well. History, if he’d had the choice. I learned his favorite color. His favorite Christmas traditions. I learned that he rarely celebrates his birthday, unless he travels out of town for that weekend.

I knew there was a story there as well.

But us pulling up to his building pulled me out of my reverie.