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“You ready?”
She nods and turns to give Leanna a quick hug.
“I’ll bring your clothes with me to work in the morning. You’re coming in for pancakes, right?”
Leanna grins. “Yes. But no promises on how early I’ll get there.”
Raelynn smiles and then says bye to Trey on her way toward the door. I nod to my friends as I head after her, grateful that my stride makes it easy to catch up to her.
“That looks like a ton of food in there,” she notes once I’m walking beside her with the to-go bag at my side. “I didn’t think we had that much left over.”
“I just ordered two more entrees and had them package them up.”
She shakes her head. “Of course you did.”
I smirk. “Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time for you to take your anger out on me on the drive.”
“You act like I’m a pain in the ass.”
“Maybe you are.”
A laugh bursts out of her like she can’t believe what she just heard.
“I’m the pain in the ass? Me?”
“Keep walking, Birdie.”
She stops just outside the restaurant. The bodyguards who were stationed by the door are waiting to walk us to my car. She notices them and immediately falls into line beside me as I curve around the parking lot and unlock my SUV.
I open her door for her and help her climb in. Then I hand her the food and walk around to my side to get in, nodding at the guard stationed there. I’m habituated to them at this point, but it’s obvious Raelynn’s not.
“Are they always around when you guys go out?”
“More or less. I have my own security team for when we travel and when I’m back in Los Angeles. There are guys posted back at Coach Dalton’s as well. You’ve probably seen them.”
We’re quiet for a bit as I head out on the highway, driving back toward Pine Hill.
“I’m surprised there wasn’t any press there tonight. Leanna said you heard about some guys coming into Dale’s the other day asking about you?”
“Yeah. You did the right thing by not engaging them. Tonight was a last-minute thing, and most of the reporters that are here in Texas cover sports, not pop culture. They want to get the scoop on our practices, playing strategy, final team lineup, that sort of thing, not follow us to dinner.”
“Oh…right.” She’s quiet for a beat before she asks, “Back home, if you were at dinner, would there be paparazzi?”
I hesitate before I answer, hating the truth. “Yes.”
She nods solemnly. “Right.”
Then she sets the bag of food on the ground and undoes the buckle of her high heels, letting out a quiet moan when she peels them off her feet.
I watch with rapt attention as she draws her legs up and sits crisscross on the front seat, her dress sliding higher up her thighs.
I turn the radio on and it plays quietly in the background as I continue driving down the dark highway. Raelynn’s looking out the window, so lost in her own world that I’d feel bad interrupting whatever she’s thinking about.
I see her hands clutched in her lap, the way she draws the pad of her pointer finger over her thumbnail over and over again as if something is worrying her. I can see the edge of her profile, the worry lines between her brows.
Even though I’m tempted to, I don’t pressure her to talk.
I lean over, dropping my forearm on the middle console, warring with myself over whether or not I want to take her hand in mine. This is ludicrous. Whatever she’s worrying about, I can help her with. I can make all her problems go away if only she’d let me.
“Raelynn—”
She cuts me off. “There’s a turn up here, out onto an abandoned road. It used to dead-end at a limestone quarry, but it’s been deserted for years. Turn off when you see it.”
She doesn’t look over at me when she issues these instructions, but when my headlights catch on an old road sign hanging on one hinge, I turn off without a word, curious.
“Keep going,” Raelynn says quietly, pointing forward.
I inch along slowly, wondering why she’s having us go out here in the dead of night. The road is definitely deserted. Even a few yards off the highway, the concrete starts to show its age. The forest encroaches on either side, trees spitting their limbs out over the road, shrubs overgrown in every direction.
“Slow down!” Raelynn shouts suddenly, reaching her hand out to squeeze my forearm.
I slam my foot on the brakes and my tires squeal. The car comes to a sudden stop feet away from a fawn stopped in the center of the road, its eyes gleaming bright in my headlights. A second later, a doe emerges from the forest behind it, darts in front of the fawn, and the two of them scurry across the road and disappear again into the dense foliage.
