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He glanced at me briefly, and his fingers twitched on the wheel. “Yeah.”
“What’s this one called?”
“Stop Touching the Radio, Mac.”
I laughed and turned it up a little. His shoulders relaxed. Was he nervous at all about being alone with me or did he not feel the pressure in the air between us?
Parker nodded at his phone sitting on the dash. “Why don’t you look through the playlist and pick something?”
I liked the music already playing, but if this whole trip was about getting to know each other, I could play along. At least it would distract me from staring at him while he drove. I reached for the phone without really looking and knocked it off the dash with a glancing blow.
Lightning fast, Parker reached out to save his phone at the same time I did. We both missed. The phone clattered to the console, and he caught me instead.
His hand wrapped around mine, like before but so very different. A flush warmed my cheeks, from both my clumsiness and the contact neither of us rushed to break. When he’d held my hand earlier, it had felt like an afterthought—a means to make sure I followed him. This time was different, a conscious choice to prolong the contact.
I stared at our entwined hands, mine cradled in his, and told myself to pull away. One second passed, then another. He didn’t move, and neither did I. My gaze shifted to Parker’s face. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t the struggle evident from his tight jaw.
His thumb stroked a line of heat across my wrist, then he let go. My arm dropped back into my lap, and he retrieved his phone to hold it out for me.
“Pick a song,” he repeated. If I’d had any doubts before, his husky voice cemented the truth in my mind.
He felt it.
I shook off the heady effects of Parker’s touch and tried to steady my erratic breathing. Parker’s playlist was extensive, but I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to play the game anymore. I hit shuffle and let fate decide.
Out of the corner of my eye, because I was decidedlynotgoing to look his way again until we were out of the car, I saw a smile flash across his face. Something told me he’d gleaned a lot of information out of that exchange.
Several seconds passed as the random song played, then Parker shook his head and launched into a story about Mac at karaoke. We drove back toward campus, chatting about Mac’s need to sing along to every song, before Parker slowed and turned onto the road behind the training facility.
Like that first disastrous day when I’d been late, my heart raced as we approached the parking lot. The same exhilaration fired my blood—this time caused by the man sitting next to me rather than a roomful of strangers. Parker pulled into a spot on the far side next to the thick line of trees. He got out and opened my door before I had unbuckled my seat belt.
I couldn’t think of anything I hadn’t already seen at the facility, but Parker knew it much better than I did. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone making assumptions about seeing us together. We were both here so often no one would think twice to see us like this.
Mac knew we’d left the party together, but despite his love of hearing himself talk, I didn’t think he’d tell anyone.
Instead of heading toward the building, Parker stepped off the concrete toward the trees. Once again, I considered changing my mind. I wasn’t a hiker on the best of days, and it was dark under the pines. The lights from the parking lot didn’t reach much past the edge of the grass, but Parker seemed to know where he was going.
With heavy reluctance, I followed him into the forest at a slower pace. “If you’re not going to murder me, where are we going?”
He grinned over his shoulder. “You’ll see.”
We walked for maybe five minutes in relative silence. The branches creaked above us in the slight breeze, and something skittered in the underbrush, making me draw closer to Parker. I could handle angry linebackers, but rodents freaked me out.
He glanced over at me, and his arm twitched like he wanted to reach out then stopped himself. Brambles caught at my jeans, making me glad I’d opted for comfort instead of fashion. The fleeting thought of Parker bringing girls out here made me frown, but I couldn’t imagine someone making this trek in stilettos and a short skirt. Then again, jersey chasers did a lot of crazy things to get the attention of football players.
While I was mentally scolding myself for thinking about Parker’s potential hook-ups, he stopped abruptly, and I smacked into his back. He twisted to steady me, and I got my first look at what I assumed he wanted to show me.
My mouth dropped open in shock. Moonlight reflected off the shiny exterior of a tiny camping trailer parked in the middle of the woods. It sat at one end of a small clearing next to a handful of cheap patio chairs and a rudimentary firepit.
Maybe I hadn’t been that far off after all. My first, third, and fourth thoughts involved how perfect this place would be for a sneaky booty call. Heat coiled inside me at the possibility, and I had to remind my lady bits to calm down. We weren’t about to get any action.
I turned my raised eyebrows on Parker and went with thought number two. “Is this where you keep your victims?”
He laughed and ran his hand through his short hair, making me want to do the same. “Not as far as I know, but Noah can be scary quiet sometimes.”
My eyes narrowed. “Creepy hook-up spot?”
“I can see how it would look like that, but this is for our crew only. No girls allowed. Except for you.” He sank into one of the chairs scattered around the cold firepit and waved me to another. “The pressure is hard on all of us. Sometimes we want to get away. Mac, Noah, and I pooled our money, then Soren found this beauty.”
