Page 42 of Necessary Roughness

“Of course,” Tanner said. He took Jordan’s elbow.

“This place is amazing,” she whispered to him.

They were shown to the empty table in front of one of the windows she’d spied when they first walked in. She reached out to pull the chair away from the table.

“Allow me,” Tanner said. She wanted to ask him if he was going to pull the chair away from her before she sat down, but she bit it back. She settled into the chair he still held.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Perfect. Thank you.”

He moved to his side of the table and sat down.

The hostess handed them both a menu. “Your server will be with you in a moment.”

“Have you been here before?” Jordan said.

“Several times. Order whatever you’d like. It’s all good.” He put his menu down next to his plate. “How was your day?”

“What?”

“Your day. What happened? Did your appointments go well?” His mouth curved into a grin. “I know you didn’t have to deal with a certain ex-football player, so it must have been heaven on earth.”

“You’re not that bad,” she said.

“Now. I’m sure you wanted to hit me with my walker or something the first few times I showed up there.”

“That’s not true,” but they both laughed.

She took a sip of ice water. “My day was fine. I had some cancellations, so the work portion was over by about three PM. It’s better to be busy, but I made it home a little earlier today.” She took a breath. “How was your day?”

“I made some business calls. I have been thinking about what I’d like to do for work. I contacted some of the guys I used to work with to ask them if they’d put in a good word for me if their team is hiring.”

“What do you think you’d like to do?” she asked.

“I might like to be a coach. I’d have to start out at the bottom—be an assistant to an assistant and work my way up—but it sounds challenging.” He’d taken several calls already from interested coaches around the league, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her until there was something concrete to say.

“Do you want to work for a college team or for the NFL?”

“Probably the NFL.”

She grinned across the table at him. “I never knew you wanted to coach.”

“I can make other people run wind sprints and laps. Works for me.”

“That’s always better than having to do them yourself,” she said. He smiled at her in response.

They were making the small talk other couples would on their first date, but Jordan couldn’t believe the butterflies in her stomach. She’d seen him at his worst—cranky, demanding, and unreasonable, and that was the day they met. She’d spent the first week or so after she moved into his house wondering if she should do humanity a favor and push him off his dock into the lake. The more time they spent together in his gym at home or talking at the end of the day when she got home from work, though, she realized he wasn’t as much of a jerk as she originally thought. She figured out she actually liked him. She was still trying to think of a way to broach the fact he’d kissed her and never said another word about it. If that wasn’t enough to shred her nerves, he didn’t try again.

He’d kissed her, he tried to date someone else (which didn’t work), he flirted with her, and he’d kept to himself for the past couple of days. She couldn’t figure out what he was doing, besides the fact he’d brought her here to impress her. It was working.

Tanner glanced up at the server who’d just taken their orders. “We’d also like a bottle of pinot gris.”

“You’re eating red meat,” Jordan said.

“Is there a law against drinking white wine with steak? I’m having lobster too, and bacon. Don’t forget the bacon.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out besides a laugh. “We’re going to get busted by the wine police.”

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