I don’t feel unsafe—especially with Dogzilla, my guard cat, in my lap, even if she’s more terrifying because she’s so lazy I sometimes worry she’s dead—but I also know it’s not normal for someone to just sit on another person’s doorstep well past dark, and this isn’t the house you’d expect a guy to live in when he makes millions playing baseball, then tops it with millions more in haircare product endorsements, which makes me worry I’m in the wrong place.
None of my research on Luca said anything about where he lives. This was the address where we sent his wedding invitation, therefore, it was natural to assume he lives here.
Also, if it’s weird that I did research on Luca, I don’t want to hear it. It’s professional research because he has an interesting personality.
Mostly.
Kind of.
Alright, fine.
It could be professional research, but it wasn’t. And I could be living in my mother’s pool house back in the Chicago ’burbs where I grew up, like I did for a few months after my last weddings that didn’t happen, but this time, I’m standing on my own two feet, and I’m actively doing something to get over myself.
Even if it’s probably weird to be sitting on the doorstep of the man I cyberstalked after his whole love sucks speech. Which I won’t apologize for, by the way, because you don’t get what you need in life if you don’t go for it.
But maybe Dogzilla and I should be waiting in my car instead? At least that way, I could turn on the radio while we wait. And the air conditioning.
I’m about to move to the car when a clunker chugs around the corner, one headlight out, and turns into the driveway.
This is definitely the wrong house.
I’m sitting on the porch of a stranger’s house, hoping that’s a woman driving, because if it’s a woman, at least I know I won’t be in danger.
Of falling in love with her at first sight, I mean.
The engine shuts off, and while I don’t often trespass at midnight, I have this feeling that jumping up with Dogzilla and making a run for it right now is exactly the wrong move. A well-timed, “Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else,” will give us all a laugh, I’ll take my cat and leave, and then two complete strangers will have a weird story to tell their friends over margaritas—or an iced tea, in my case—and huh.
This would make an excellent meet-cute for my friend Dorothea’s next steamy romance novel. I’ll have to drop her a note too.
The occupant of the car is still sitting in it, and the figure illuminated by the street light looks too big to be a woman.
Dang it.
He also seems to be—
Is he hitting his head against the steering wheel?
Uh-oh.
If I picked the house of a nutjob, all bets are off.
“Be ready to run, Dogzilla,” I whisper.
My lazy cat doesn’t move, and instead snores in my lap.
Easier this way anyway, since it’s not like I can count on her to follow alone when I take off running at full-steam.
Which doesn’t happen all that often, if we’re being honest here. I’m a writer, not a runner.
But—wait.
The way his hair is moving—
That is Luca Rossi.
I rise, cradling Dogzilla, and when Luca looks my way, I give him a finger wave and a smile.
The light isn’t bright enough for me to see what he’s saying, but his lips are definitely moving, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s wearing the same long-suffering expression my father usually has when I tell him I’m engaged.
Again.
It might also be remarkably similar to the expression Luca was wearing when he recognized me at Duggan Field earlier today too.
Not my intention to ambush him at work, I swear. I was curious about the ballpark—I’m curious about a lot of things—so when I caught wind on social media of a writer organization that was touring the park, it was easy enough to get here in time today to join the group.
And it was fascinating to see where the players work out, to smell the chairs the announcers sit in, what it feels like to stand in the dugout, and hear how many light bulbs have to be replaced every day.
There’s a pop and a creak as the car door swings open, and I suddenly desperately need to know why Luca Rossi, millionaire sports star, lives on a grocery store clerk’s salary.
For research.
I swear.
I like to do research.
It’s one of the things my ex-fiancé Kyle liked about me.
“Henri,” Luca says.
My brain hears what the hell are you doing here, and why are you between me and my bed, and I’m not asking out loud because I don’t honestly want to know.
I either have a lot of experience understanding people because I write good characters, or I have a lot of experience with frustrating men after five failed engagements.
Plus my lifelong relationship with my father.
“Hi, Luca! Great game tonight. That catch you made in center field was like—”
“The one where I didn’t move, the one where I stepped three feet to my left, or the one where I had to take two steps back?”
Okay, yeah, he had an easy game. “How did you know where the ball was going to be? That’s like—it’s like you’re psychic.”
“It’s called being a professional.” He squeezes his eyes shut briefly, opens them, eyeballs Dogzilla in my arms, and then sighs again. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company tonight?”
Wow. He’s cranky.
Not gonna lie.
I know it’s probably me.
But that’s no excuse for not forging ahead. I didn’t come all this way to chicken out. “You remember the last time we saw each other?”
“This afternoon in the clubhouse?”
“I liked your hat, but I meant the time…before that.”
He closes the distance between us with three casual steps. “Nope.”
And I go momentarily speechless as a waft of something delicious teases my nose.
But only momentarily. A quick recovery is a gift. Or possibly a defense mechanism. “The time we were together…in that town…with that big monument…and the event thing…”
No answer.
“The event thing that didn’t—”
“I’m trying to block it from my memory.”
“Oh. Oh! Thank you. That’s very kind of you. Sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“That I wouldn’t want to remember your ruined wedding, that you like to redecorate people with dessert, and that your ex-fiancé is the first man that my mother’s dated in three years and I might have to start calling him Stepdad?”
I wince.
My heart also weeps because yeah, still not over seeing Jerry lock lips with a woman who could’ve been my mother, and hearing that it might actually be going somewhere is salt in the wound.
“So, no, Henri, I don’t remember the last time we were together. At least, I won’t, once I get inside and pour myself a large enough vodka tonic. Care for one?”
Once again, I’m momentarily speechless. “Um, I’m kinda allergic—”
I cut myself off when one of his brows rises infinitesimally, and then I gasp. Of course he knows I’m allergic. We had an entire conversation about it. “Are you trying to send me to the hospital?”