Page 47 of Passion’s Song

“What was that?” she asked.

“It’s called a kiss,” Damien answered.

She gave him a “No shit, Sherlock” look.

“Are you upset that I kissed you?”

“Surprised would be a better word,” she said.

“Why are you surprised? You’re a smart woman, April. I know you’re not blind to what’s been going on here over the past few days. You feel what’s been happening between us.”

“So, you’ve noticed it, too?” she asked in a shaky voice.

Damien leaned forward again, and pressed a kiss against her temple. “Yes, I have,” he whispered into her ear. “I never allowed myself to imagine that something like this was possible with you, but lately it’s all I can think about.”

Her big brown eyes widened.

“What do you say, April? Maybe it’s time we stop playacting, and see where this goes.”

“Are you—” She stopped, swallowed deeply and then started again. “Are you sure?”

Damien couldn’t stall the grin that tipped up the corner of his mouth.

“I’ve never been surer of anything else in my life.”

Chapter 8

April was still several yards away from the open meadow in Armstrong Park when she heard the sounds of the flag football game in progress. She came upon the couple dozen men scampering around the grounds and had to take a minute to collect her senses.

They were shirtless. All of them.

She didn’t think she had a thing for sweaty, shirtless men running around trying to grab a flag from each other’s back pocket, but apparently she did.

She spotted Damien among the pack of players and instantly the others ceased to exist. There had never been a doubt that she had a thing for this particular man. She’d always had a thing for him.

And yesterday he’d kissed her.

April waited for the tingles she knew would travel across her skin at the thought of the kiss she and Damien had shared. Those tingles had popped up so often since last night. She craved them. Relished them. Because they signaled a change in their relationship. The change she’d spent more than half her life hoping and wishing would happen.

April took a seat underneath a tree, just to the right of the lighted archway at the park’s entrance.

She put all thoughts of yesterday’s kiss out of her head and just allowed herself to enjoy today. As she observed Damien playing, she remembered how much she used to enjoy watching him on the field back when they were in high school. Even though she’d never been much of a football fan, Damien made her appreciate the sport, simply because of what it had meant to him.

Football had been Damien’s way out of his old life. April didn’t want to think about what could have happened to him if he had not had the sport as an outlet. He’d been smart, but he hadn’t started applying himself early enough in school to get an academic scholarship. Football had been his ticket to his college education and eventually to a graduate degree. Without this sport, Damien could have very well gotten caught up in these streets, becoming another statistic.

She shivered at the thought of that happening.

It was what she and her colleagues at A Fresh Start were trying to prevent with the boys who attended the program. She wanted them to all beat the odds the way Damien had.

April stopped short. She slapped a palm to her forehead, blown away by her own lack of vision.

“Why didn’t you think of this before?” she said.

Football. That was what those boys needed. It could be the same outlet for them as it had been for Damien.

“Now to convince him to teach them,” April murmured.

Once the flag football game ended, Damien and the rest of the guys on the field lined up to give each other handshakes. Once he reached the end of the line he jogged over to a patch of grass where all their shirts lay, picked up a pewter T-shirt and pulled it over his head.