Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
“Does that surprise you?” he asks, his voice gravelly.
I place my pen on the clipboard and take a breath. “Honestly? Yeah. It does. I mean, a lot of people, men specifically, it seems, have a hard time talking about mental health.” I give him a half grin. “But I think it’s great you have someone to talk to, and I appreciate you telling me that.”
He holds a slice of orange in the air, and I put my palm out.
“You’re probably thinking that if I’d see my therapist more, I’d be less of a dickhead, huh?” he asks, grinning.
I laugh as the tightness in my chest releases. “They’re a therapist, not a magician.”
Gray pops another slice of fruit into his mouth, and his jaw moves as he chews. He eats slowly. Intentionally. It’s as if he’s unbothered with me in his space and is living his best confident, alpha life.
I shiver. “That’s all the questions that I had for you.” I climb off the stool, my skin tingling from the thoughts splashing around in my head—thoughts that have absolutely no business being in my brain. “I better get going.”
“Did you get everything you needed from me?”
Oh, the comments Gianna would make right now. I eat the piece of orange in one bite and then pick up my bag. “I expected to leave here with a couple of answers and a giant headache. So unless you do your famous one-eighty on me, I’ll leave with the answers and no headache. And I’m not mad about that.”
His chuckle is low and deep. He leads me to the door and pulls it open.
“What’s that all about?” I ask.
“It’s hard for me to think that you’re not mad about something,” he says, leaning against the doorframe.
I laugh, stopping beside him. “I’m not out of here yet. You still have time to piss me off.”
Fresh air flows into the house, picking up notes of Gray’s cologne and swirling them around me. The way he looks my way—curiously, but also without the hatred I’m used to—stirs a soft sense of vulnerability inside me. A warmth climbs up my neck and colors my cheeks, and I know he notices. How could he not?
He starts to speak but stops himself and then starts again. “This coming week is a bye week.”
I nod, my tongue too thick to allow words to form.
“I’m probably going to head back to Sugar Creek for the weekend.”
Where’s that water when I need it? “Okay. Do you need me to make your reservations at a hotel or something?”
He smiles. Not a grin and not a smirk. An ear-to-ear smile that is unlike any I’ve seen from him yet.
“There’s not a hotel in Sugar Creek,” he says with another chuckle. “I’ll stay with my brother at the ranch.”
The ranch? I shake my head and hold up a finger, suddenly sparked back to life.
“Whoa. Hold up a second,” I say. “Your brother has a ranch?”
“Yup. I grew up there. It’s been in our family for over one hundred years.”
I laugh freely, imagining Gray with a cowboy hat and boots. It’s so different from this Gray—the sweatpants-and-T-shirt-wearing athlete in front of me. It’s nearly impossible to see. “You were a cowboy?”
He snorts. “Hardly. I got out of as much of that as I could. Thank God that Hartley, my brother, loved that shit. It saved me hours of work.”
“Gray the cowboy,” I tease as I step onto his small porch. His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Did you have stirrups and the whole bit?”
“Bye, Astrid.”
“What about holsters like in the old movies?” I say, wrinkling my nose.
His dimples sink deep into his cheeks as he shakes his head and starts to close the door.
“Are there pictures?” I ask, giggling and moving so I can see him as the door closes. “Give me one good yeehaw!”
I hear him groan as the lock clicks in place.
Gray as a cowboy. I laugh all the way to the car.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Astrid
“What’s that look about?” Renn asks me, laughing.
I survey the scene around us and try to decide where to start. First, the air stinks like grass, mud, and water thanks to what can only be described as a deluge overnight. Puddles form on the edges of the pitch, and I’m certain the guys are intentionally getting as muddy as possible.
Children. All of them.
Then there are the things I heard shouted from player to player, things that I would take my earrings out to fight over if someone said them to me. Yet they all share a laugh and prepare to scrum again. I think. I can’t quite tell if this is a free-for-all or if strategy is involved.
“I’ll never understand rugby,” I say, furrowing a brow as another scrum begins. “It’s like football, soccer, and cheerleading had a baby with big thighs.”
Renn’s laughter grows louder at my analysis. “I don’t know how the hell you got cheerleading in the mix.”