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She stroked his hand, feeling the tension rising in all those masterful muscles and tendons. He could field a ball like nobody’s business. But that didn’t mean he could handle everything that came his way.
“I should have believed you when you said you weren’t cheating on me,” she said softly. “I thought you were hiding something. But I should have trusted that it wasn’t that.”
With his gaze holding hers, he gave a slow nod. She knew it had always bothered him that she worried so much about the women who swooned over his baseball star status. No matter how much he reassured her, her anxious imagination got the best of her.
“Thank you,” he said simply. “That means a lot to me. I never wanted to be a cheater. I never wanted you to think that I was.”
“I know.” She whooshed out a long breath. “Why couldn’t we have had this conversation years ago?”
“Older and wiser?” He pointed a finger at himself. “Or maybe just older, in my case.”
“No, you’re wiser too. You told me, this time. That means everything to me.”
“Everything?” His lips curved in a tender smile. “If I’d known that, I would have spilled all this shit years ago.”
“Timing is everything.”
“Are you saying we met too early? Before we were ready?”
She shook her head so fiercely that her hair whipped against her cheeks. “Of course not, I’d never say that. We have Zack and Bean and that means it all happened the way it was supposed to. But maybe…” She gave him a rueful smile. “Maybe we met before we knew anything about relationships.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
She got to her feet, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off her. He was telling her the truth, all of the truth. But she had to give herself credit too. She’d asked the hard questions, and listened to the answers. She hadn’t danced around anything.
It felt good. Solid. Powerful.
He snagged her and tugged her close to him. He gazed up at her as if she was a goddess in yoga pants. “The only thing I knew for sure was that I would have done anything to be with you.”
The longing in his voice sent a chill down her spine. He didn’t sound like he was talking about the past. He sounded as if it was still true.
“Maybe we didn’t do so bad,” she whispered. “Here we are, after all. Still friends.”
Friends.
The word hung between them, so inadequate. It didn’t even begin to describe their relationship. They were so much more than friends; and yet, she would call him a friend. She could always rely on him, after all. She could even confide in him.
“I’ll always be your friend,” Billy said slowly. “Don’t get me wrong. But—” She put a hand over his mouth. She didn’t want him to say it. Whatever he was going to say, it would change things.
“Remember when we used to curl up together in your old Sentra?” she murmured. His first car had been so dorky that he’d somehow made it cool. “The back seats went down and there was all this storage space in the back. You had your baseball gear stashed back there, boots and cleats and bats, and we’d just make a nest for ourselves in the middle and hold each other?”
“I remember.” His voice was nothing but a husky murmur. “We slept together like that. Before we slept together.”
“Right. Way before. Can we do that again?”
His eyebrows lifted. “You want to sleep together?”
“I do. I’m nervous about the storm and the kids, and it was always so comforting curling up with you. We were kind of like…” She paused, not finding the right words.
“Like kittens missing their mama cat,” he supplied.
“Yes. Exactly.” Back then, they’d both felt alone in the world, in their own way. That was part of why they’d gravitated to each other. Now she felt alone in a different way. So far from her boys, so helpless to do anything except hope and pray they’d all be okay.
“I’d love to sleep with you.” He said it cheerfully, skating over the double-entendre. If he meant that other kind of “sleeping together” too, he didn’t show it.
He rose to his feet and extended a hand to her. She nestled her hand in his and they walked toward his bedroom. “I bet mine has less stuff scattered everywhere,” he teased.
“You’d be right. Some things never change.”
