“Ah. Congratulations.”
I’m happy for him. I am. On a human to human level, I know how hard he’s worked and how much he deserves something to show for that. But this proves my point—it was never about me. It was about the chase. And at the end of the semester, he’s going to move far away from here and never look back. He’s going to be some multi-millionaire baller and I’m going to be nothing more than a blip on his college timeline.
And I’m fine with that.
I am.
Or I will be …
Sometimes it’s nice being right.
Other times it stings a bit.
“I haven’t signed anything yet,” he says. “We’re still in the negotiation stage. But there are a lot of phone calls and back and forth. So if I’ve seemed preoccupied lately …”
“Talon, it’s fine.” I wave him away.
“Obviously it’s not if you’re bringing it up,” he says.
“I just thought, maybe, at some point we should address the kiss, that’s all.”
“All right, fine. I’ll go first,” he says. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
I’m mid-sip of my coffee and he’s lucky I didn’t spit it out all over him.
“You have the softest lips I’ve ever tasted,” he adds. “And I really wish you wouldn’t have run off to catch that fucking bus.”
I glance down, away. I wasn’t expecting him to say any of that. I was hoping we could agree that it was nice and that it shouldn’t happen again, that we could be adults and “study buddies” and get through the rest of the semester now that we got that out of our system.
I peer up at him, speechless, my pathetic ego wishing it could hear him say those things one more time.
“You’re shivering,” he says, situating his sweatshirt over my lap.
It isn’t the cold making me shiver, but I don’t tell him that.
His fingertips trace my knee and my skin flashes hot. It’s funny how something so small can overpower me, reducing my resolve to rubble.
“Now it’s my turn to ask if you’re okay …”
“Of course,” I say, forcing myself to snap out of it. I need to pull myself together. “Maybe we should study now?”
“No,” he says, examining me. “I told you how I felt about the kiss, but you didn’t tell me how you felt.”
My lips part but no sound comes out. I shrug, letting my hands fall in my lap, on his ridiculously soft PVU sweatshirt that smells like him.
“It was nice,” I manage a moment later.
“Just nice?” He scratches his left temple.
“Yeah. It was nice, but I think it was a one-and-done kind of thing,” I say. “We got it out of our systems.”
“Did we though?”
My cheeks flush. What is it about this man that makes me a bundle of nervous energy? No one else—and I mean no one else—brandishes this kind of physical influence over me.
“I didn’t,” he says, voice low. “I didn’t get you out of my system. Not even close.”
“We really need to get on track here.” I check my watch.
“Why won’t you give this a chance?”
“Give what a chance?”
“This.”
“What do you mean by this? You’re going to have to be more specific,” I say.
“You and me,” he says, careful not to use labels. He’s strategic, which serves him well on the field I’m sure, but in real life, it’s infuriating.
I burrow my trembling hands in the folds of his sweatshirt, my mind and body and heart waging an epic battle on the inside.
“Tell me what it’s going to take to tear down this fucking fortress you’ve built around yourself,” he says. “And while you’re at it, tell me who put it there so I can kick his fucking ass.”
He manages a sniffled chuckle out of me.
But if he only knew …
“I appreciate the chivalry, but we really should start studying,” I say, retrieving my materials from my bag. “I have to catch the bus in a half hour.”
“One date,” he says.
My gaze flicks to his as I click the end of my pen. “Talon.”
“Give me one date and if it’s the worst date of your life … I’ll never bother you again,” he says. “I swear on my life. On my career.”
Before I realize it, I’ve already spoken the words, “I’ll think about it.”
Talon’s mouth curls wide and his eyes flash, and without saying another word, without pushing it, he grabs his notebook and begins quizzing me on the week’s topics.
There he goes, tackling my self-control, dominating the game like he does so well, and I have no one to blame but myself.
I’m letting him win.
The only question … why?
Chapter 14
Talon
“Take it easy, Tal. You don’t want to show up with a beer gut your first week,” my stepdad says Friday night at Miato’s in Laguna Cove. “You’re still hitting the gym every day, right?”
I drove two hours here per my mother’s request, all so I could partake in some bullshit celebration of my contract, which is really a roundabout celebration for Mark.