“Do you like Vegas?” I ask.
He nods. “I’ve been here nearly a decade now. It’s home.”
“Where’d you grow up?” I ask as we pull into the driveway.
“Michigan. I was recruited by Wisconsin and drafted right out of college by the Aces.”
“Lucky Luke,” I say.
“My grandfather used to call me that.” He chuckles. “Hence the Lucky Charms. But honestly it was luck combined with a little hard work.” He opens the door and runs around the car to my side to help me out. He bids goodnight to the driver, and then we walk together up to the front door.
We stand there on the porch for a beat. He watches the driver as he backs out of the driveway, and he hasn’t moved to open the door yet.
The light breeze in the night air makes me shiver.
My eyes meet his, and he takes a step toward me. He’s close enough for me to feel his heat.
“This is the part of the night where I’d usually kiss my date goodnight,” he says softly.
I look up at him as nerves rattle around in my chest.
We’ve kissed before.
I mean, we’ve had sex, so of course we’ve kissed too.
I think back to that first kiss in the lounge chair by the pool at the Cosmopolitan, and another shiver runs through me. This one isn’t from the chill in the evening air, though.
He reaches beneath my hair to cup my neck, his fingers curling around me as the heat in his eyes turns to an inferno.
He moves a centimeter closer, and my heart races as my knees start to shake.
I want this.
God, do I want him to kiss me.
He moves in even a little closer, his big hand warm on my skin.
That fresh scent of his plows into me.
Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, I chant in my own head.
And just when I close my eyes to wait for his lips to meet mine, he sighs and pulls away.
He unlocks the front door, and I follow him into the kitchen. He loosens the knot in his tie and unbuttons the first button of his collar, revealing a delicious peek of skin.
I want to lick it. I want to lick him. Everywhere.
I want that kiss we missed out on...but I’m afraid the spell has been broken. Whatever drove him to nearly kiss me appears to have evaporated, and I can’t recreate the quiet peace that nearly brought us there.
“I’m uh...” he begins. “I’m sorry. I realize I’m sending confusing signals, and I think it’s because, well, I’m confused. I like you, Ellie. A lot.” He clears his throat as he looks away, and I wish I could get inside his mind and figure out what he’s thinking.
“I like you, too.” My brows dip down.
He blows out a breath. “This is all just so complicated.”
“What is?” I ask.
“I feel like I keep doing all the wrong things. What happens when this is all over?”
“My brother is your best friend. If we fake this engagement for another day or another year, it doesn’t matter. He’ll still be in your life, which means maybe it’s okay for me to be, too.”
He nods. “What if I push you away and you hate me?”
“Come on, Luke,” I say a little more loudly than may be completely necessary. “You’re grasping at straws here. You’re finding ways to sabotage our arrangement before it even gets off the ground.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” he counters. “I’m just being realistic. I’m analyzing. I’m looking at it from all the different angles and perspectives.” Just like he does when he studies film.
Looks like I’m not the only one who overanalyzes things.
“What are you so scared of?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, but I think I already know. He hasn’t healed from his past relationships. His ex-wife and his ex-girlfriend were manipulative. They scarred him, and now he’s scared to get into something with another manipulator, so he’s written off relationships.
He wants to focus on his career, and that’s an awfully big hurdle for someone like me to overcome...especially when he’s so damn stubborn.
“Look, I won’t lead you on,” he says. He presses his palms to the counter, his elbows straight as he hangs his head down a bit, his eyes focused between his hands. “I like you, and you like me, but I can’t give you the kind of future you want.”
“You don’t know that,” I say softly...hopefully. And for the tiniest flicker of a second, I think about a friends with benefits sort of situation. Whatever he decides next, we’re faking this thing together for at least the short term. I could get some pleasure out of it. But a friends with benefits thing won’t work. I’m already falling for him, so adding sex to the mix (again) will only push me there faster.
“Yeah, I do.” He presses his lips together a little sadly as he looks up at me. He opens his mouth to say something else, but then he seems to change his mind. “I’m going to go take a shower. Goodnight.”
He turns and heads out of the room at that, shattering that tiny ray of hope he gave me when he almost kissed me.
CHAPTER 7
On Monday morning, Luke gives me specific instructions for how to find Erin at the staff offices located inside the practice facility.
“Why are the offices at your practice facility and not at the stadium?” I ask.
“The team doesn’t own the stadium,” he says.
This is one of those times I don’t even know what I don’t know. Same with his directions. It’s the kind of thing you can’t find on your phone’s GPS as he explains how to navigate the hallways of the building, and I stare at him like he has two heads.
He glances at his watch. “You want to just go together?”
I nod. His meeting with Calvin starts an hour after my meeting with Erin. “Pretty please?”
He chuckles. “Of course. Let’s take two cars, though, because I have a workout planned with Tristan and I don’t want you to have to wait around for us to finish.”
“Who’s Tristan?” I ask.
“The new guy,” he says, giving me that look like I know nothing about football again. “Tristan Higgins.”
I shrug. “Maybe I could stop by your workout to snap a few pictures for Instagram. Imagine how good it’ll make you look. You’re extending goodwill toward the new guy, you’re confident about your place on the team, you’re introducing him to what you do. Plus it would give your fans an insider look of where you work out with the team. They’d love it.”
“I’m not doing it to look good. I’m an actual decent guy,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say softly, thinking of my history of men who really weren’t such good guys versus this man who gave the girl he doesn’t even know a place to live and a job. “You do seem like you’re one of the good ones.”
He joins me for my meeting, and there are multiple reasons why it’s actually a good thing to have him with me. For one, I never would have found Erin’s office without him. And for another, I end up looking to him to answer a lot of the questions Erin has. I don’t want this to be my event. I want it to be his. I want it to be something he can carry with him beyond our time together, however long that might last.