Page 6 of The Crush

I’m not backing down. I want what I want. “Yes. Really.”

Here in my home, the day after a nasty crash, with my father off doing whatever, his handsome, sexy, nearly inscrutable business partner wiggles three fingers on his right hand. “Broke these when the center stepped on my hand during football practice in junior high.”

“You were the quarterback?” It delights me to no end, learning these details.

“Of course.” There’s a smirk on his face, like he couldn’t be anything but the team leader.

“Were you good at football?”

He tilts his head, his gaze a little challenging, a touch cocky. “What do you think?”

“Yes,” I say, feeling a bit fluttery. A bit naughty too.

“Good answer,” Bridger replies, sinking deeper into his chair, looking comfortable or maybe even relaxed at last.

“How many games did you win? Touchdowns did you throw? Passing yards did you log?”

He raises an appreciative brow, whistling low. “Someone knows football.”

I bob a shoulder playfully. “I know a lot of things.”

His expression shifts, going dark for a second. Then he swallows and answers in a businesslike tone. “I did well,” he says, like he rearranged his answer at the last minute.

I ease up on the Lolita. “What else did you break?” Surely, this is a less sexy comment. I hope it’s enough for him to stay.

“I broke my kneecap a couple years later,” he says, recounting a high school injury.

“How’d you manage that?”

“Playing soccer my sophomore year. I planted my foot wrong while I was twisting around to try to score, and then it snapped. Felt like it fell down to my shin.” He shakes his head in remembered pain, wincing.

“That sounds terrible,” I say in sympathy. “Did it really fall to your shin?”

He taps the side of his calf under his black pants to show me where his kneecap had landed. “It was knocked about two inches out of the socket.” He blows out a sharp breath. “That hurt.”

“That sounds like an understatement,” I say.

“Yeah, it is.”

“That’s awful,” I say, but I’m giddy for more of his stories, more of him.

Just more.

He regales me with tales of his high school sports, from soccer games to football plays, till I say, “Is that all you did growing up? Play sports?”

With a laugh, he shakes his head. “It wasn’t all I did, but I was good at sports for a while there. Until I stopped playing,” he says, and I file that detail away as I keep listening. “Plus, I think my mom just wanted to balance out all the show tunes and cabaret I’d grown up with. You know, just to give me a full sense of the world.”

Is he for real? I nearly bolt out of the chair with excitement. “I love cabaret,” I say, breathless.

He shoots me a doubtful look. “You do?”

“Cabaret, show tunes, Broadway, you name it,” I say, enthused by this bond I didn’t know we had.

“Yeah?” His tone pitches up, maybe with excitement too.

“I do. I could spend all night in the theater,” I say, and that flirty purr returns to my voice, unbidden.

Dammit. I didn’t mean to go there.