“Why was it so uncertain?”
“It’s a really long story; especially for someone who hasn’t read my biography on Wikipedia,” he said drily, and I giggle-snorted some red wine at his words. He winked at me, then cut some pizza and sighed again, this time with pleasure, when it didn’t burn his mouth. “It’s a good temperature to eat,” he informed me.
I smiled and picked up my cutlery. Daintily cutting into the pie, I murmured, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You’re not prying, it’s just a hell of a long story,” he said with a grunt. “My background is poor. Dirt poor. Actually, dirt poor looks generous when I think back to where we lived when I was a kid. Getting that scholarship was my ticket out of there, but more importantly, it was the ticket to get my family out of there. My brother took the army, and that screwed with him, my sister went the college route too but it didn’t go so well for her although she has her own business now,” he conceded. “I knew, I always knew, that it would rest on my shoulders.”
I tilted my head to the side at the conviction in his voice. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just was really aware that I could make a difference. Teachers always told me I was good at math and science. I shot into AP classes back when I should still have been learning basic trig. It always just made sense to me, and though we were in a shitty district, the teachers rocked and helped me succeed.” Once again, he wriggled his shoulders, like unease made him edgy. “If I hadn’t been good at football, I’d have probably got another kind of scholarship, but that was the easiest way. Or, so I thought. At least, it paid for a larger chunk of my fees, so there’s that.”
“You mean being on the football team gave you a better scholarship than a mathlete?” I gasped in mock outrage. “You don’t say.”
He grimaced. “Not fair, but true. Still, I took advantage of that but I burned the candle at both ends, you know? Worked too many hours, didn’t sleep unless I had important games. Lived off coffee. I almost tried cocaine once, almost, until I reasoned that if they did a drugs’ test, they’d pick it up in the screen.”
“They did drug tests on your college team?” I demanded, aghast.
He nodded, but he was smirking too. “For good reason. Half the team was doped up on steroids.” He pumped up an arm and tensed his bicep. Now he’d taken off his thick woolen coat to reveal a wool sweater with a thick cable knit, I could still see how huge he was—the wool didn’t hide that damn much. “This was built on Giorgio’s pizza,” he teased. “Speaking of which, how is it?”
“Pretty damn great,” I told him with a grin as I covered my mouth to hide the bite I’d just taken.
And it was. Cheesy and gooey and meaty and delicious.
Wow, I’d needed this tonight. My ready meal was waiting in the fridge and would feed me tomorrow, but tonight, I feasted.
He winked. “Told ya. Still on for that second date though?”
Having finished my mouthful, I grinned at him and nodded. “I think you might like mine too.”
He quirked a brow. “It must be pretty damn special if you think it can compete.”
“I think it can,” I told him confidently, but what I didn’t tell him was that I just wanted the second date.
The desire had crept up on me, leveling me from out of nowhere. I’d gone from being semi-hounded and coaxed into being here into wanting more.
Especially now I’d seen this side of him.
He was more than just the face on a magazine cover, and I wanted to know the man behind that face, warts and all.
r />
Chapter 5
Max
The evening couldn’t have gone better.
I knew it, she knew it. When I dropped her off, I kept it light, fully aware that one wrong move could shatter the perfection of the evening.
And that was no bullshit.
Perfect. It really had been perfect.
As I climbed in the passenger seat beside Mackenzie, I could feel the stupid grin on my face as he chauffeured me away from the grimy estate where Jessica lived. I’d hated dropping her off here, had hated leaving her period.
Every instinct in my body had yelled at me to grab her, take her home, and keep her somewhere safe.
It didn’t even have to be in my bedroom, my bed, just somewhere in my apartment. Hell, camping out in my office would be safer than that dump she called home.