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“Well, then, what do you do?”
I could show her.The thought popped in my head before I could chase it away. In the decade that I had spent in the league, I’d never invited a woman to come to one of my games. It was a notion that slammed into me with the force of a pissed off linebacker.
“Do you have plans next Sunday?” I blurted out the question without consideration for the repercussions if things went south.
Wren’s face fell. “Yeah… I, um…” She looked out across the river and clammed up. “I have a prior commitment.”
I tried not to let it show, but it stung. I fucking wanted her. More than I’d ever wanted someone in my life. But it wasn’t just me who was keeping secrets. On more than one occasion Wren had alluded to prior commitments that didn’t sound like they had anything to do with her job as an interior designer.
“Will you tell me something about you?” I asked. Maybe I could coax her into telling me about the skeletons that she was trying to bury.
She smiled sadly, as if she knew life was cruel and responsibilities got in the way of living. “I like being around you. Does that count?”
“Same.” I sighed and pressed my lips to her head. “What did you mean earlier?” I asked. “When you said that you had given me all you could?”
Wren’s silence was deafening. When she didn’t immediately offer up any information, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and tucked her into my side.
It was as if she had been waiting for my permission to let her guard down. She closed her eyes and rested her head on my chest. “This year has been hell. Back in February, I was engaged… Not anymore, obviously.” She looked down at her vacant ring finger. “And my mom passed away unexpectedly—a heart attack. It was sudden and really hard for my dad and me. But I had my fiancé—or so I thought. The day after the funeral, he dumped me. Said that I wasn’t the kind of girl he should be with and that he would have ended our engagement sooner, but he didn’t want the optics to be bad if I attended the funeral alone.”
That motherfucker.She hadn’t even given me his name and I was ready to go on a rampage. What kind of dick weasel did that?
“A week later, I blew out my knee. I was stuck at home, surrounded by my wedding dress, guest lists, and flower arrangements from my mother’s graveside.”
“Shit, baby,” I murmured as I wrapped both arms around her, pulling her into my lap. Wren closed her eyes again and tucked her head in the crook of my neck. “Everything fell apart. And it feels like I’m just now getting back on my feet. I don’t want to risk falling again.”
“I’ll catch you,” I promised, drawing her lips to mine. “It’s what I do.”
