Page 65 of Holding On To Good

Except… she nibbled on her lower lip… if she hadn’t touched him, she wouldn’t know how soft his hair was. How thick. She wouldn’t know what it was like to trace the hard ridge of his cheekbone. How smooth and almost delicate his skin was under her fingers.

Still, she’d been careless. Worse, she’d let her guard down. Something she’d promised herself years ago she’d never, ever do again.

And now, thanks to that moment of weakness, a rumbling freight train of awkwardness and tension had been set into motion.

Time to pull the brakes.

Turning, she found Urban on the other side of the island, getting on board with her wall-of-Jericho idea.

“Look,” she said, gaze down as she traced a circle design on the counter. “I’m sorry I interrupted your Sunday and barged in on your family dinner.”

“You’re always welcome here.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Was there something else you wanted?” she said, mimicking his deep voice.

He winced. Flushed.

The man looked good in a blush, damn him to hell.

“It was pretty clear you wanted me gone,” she continued.

“I was giving you an out.”

“Yeah. A shove out.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to stay,” he insisted, getting that stubborn look of his she recognized well, all set lines and lowered brow. Once Urban dug in, nothing short of dynamite could move him. “You stopped coming to Sunday dinner a long time ago.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” she muttered, hating that she felt defensive. As if she’d somehow let Urban down by putting Caleb first. By keeping that distance even after she and Caleb broke up.

It’d been easier to keep her friendship with Urban separate from her relationship with Caleb. Safer to limit the time she spent with Urban outside of work.

Better to continue to try and hold on to that distance even now that she was single.

Especially now that she was single.

“It’s been over two years,” Urban pointed out. “I figured you’d had your fill of us.”

“Who could get enough of you people?” she asked softly. “Dinner tonight was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

Urban stared at her as if she’d admitted she repeatedly whacked her head with a hammer because the pain made her feel alive.

“Miles and Toby almost came to blows over whether the Drillers should fire their current batting coach. Verity complained so much about being without her car for two weeks, I expected children’s services to show up and whisk her away to safety, and Ian had a meltdown when his salad touched his pizza.”

All true and, really, nothing out of the ordinary when it came to his family. And Urban had handled every part of it in his usual controlled, patient way, changing the topic from baseball to the last city council meeting, giving Verity permission to use his credit card to start ordering things for her dorm, and getting Ian a clean plate for his pizza and putting his salad in a bowl where no mingling of food could occur.

Willow shrugged. “I enjoyed it.”

A muscle ticced in his jaw. He shifted. “Miles flirted with you.”

“Miles flirts with every woman.”

“But tonight,” Urban said, walking around the island toward her slowly, giving her the strongest urge to back up. “He flirted with you. And you flirted back.”

The Wall of Jericho has fallen.

Next time she was picking a bigger immovable object.

“I was being polite,” she said.

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