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“You too,” Derek says, with a final nod. Derek presses a kiss to my temple as the couple walks away, and I’m left wondering why that interaction felt so strange. Hardly anything passed between us, though Karlie looked genuinely happy to see Derek. If she was happy to see him, wouldn’t she want to know how he’s doing?
“She seemed nice.”
“She is,” he says, crunching into his cone.
I wait for him to say something else about her, but he doesn’t. I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to push him away. We’re having such a nice evening with my weird strawberry-and-vinegar ice cream beneath this shady, leafy tree. But I can’t hold it in.
“You two keep in touch?”
“Not really,” he says.
“She knew who I was though?”
He nods and frowns. “I guess so.”
My ice cream doesn’t taste good anymore. It’s melty and too acidic and all I want to do is pitch it and get some lemonade. Even if I don’t think it has anything to do with the quality of the treat.
“We were never really together,” he says, tucking a stray strand behind my ear. “But it’s possible she’s seen my social media. I posted a photo of us.”
Oh.That… makes sense.
“You posted a photo of us?”
“Yeah,” he says, taking my soggy waffle cone from my hand and walking it over to the garbage can. He returns and lifts my sticky hand to his lips, running his tongue along my thumb, licking up the melted ice cream and sucking my digit into his mouth. I shift in my seat.
“I’ve posted a couple of photos of you…” He runs his tongue along the fleshy skin between my thumb and forefinger and sucks. I gasp at the sensation, and he continues on to licking the melted ice cream off my index finger. “A couple of photos of us…” He continues to lick between my fingers, and I watch him, unable to do anything but pant. “But never my favorite photo.”
“Your favorite—” I stop as he nips the pad of my middle finger, realizing what photo he means. The one in Vegas, from behind.After.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” His eyes are heated as I squeeze my legs together.
“So, about dinner,” he says, leaning in to press a kiss to the edge of my jaw.
“Yeah?”
“I think I’d still rather eat out… at home…”
“Yes, that sounds good.” He laughs and we’re in an Uber and back to his condo within ten minutes.
CHAPTER31
DEREK
SEPTEMBER
“They weren’t jokingabout mosquitos being the state bird of Minnesota,” Freddy says, smacking his arm.
“Bug spray, my man. You gotta suit up, chief,” Bishop, our defensive coach, says with a crack of laughter.
This trip has felt never-ending. Especially being in Hirschfeld’s territory. I haven’t seen him, but it’s felt like he’s been breathing down my neck the whole time we’ve been here. The phone call yesterday didn’t help. I almost didn’t answer it, but it was a Minneapolis area code.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?” Hirschfeld was never one for polite introductions. He sounded odd, almost off-kilter. “We could’ve called one of those girls, had a little party like old times.”
My chest tightened, filling with a wash of anger. “Is there a point to this phone call? If not, I have somewhere to be.”
“We like the same kind of thing, you know.”
