Page 64 of Cross-Checked

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” I joke.

“You’ll see,” he says. “Someday, you’ll meet that person you can’t live without. Everything changes then, and you’ll wonder how you survived before.”

I glance sideways at him, afraid to turn toward him because I’m not sure what he’ll see on my face. Because in my head, I’m thinking:Is AJ that person for me?

For as long as I’ve harbored this attraction to her, I never truly envisioned a scenario where things could work out for us. Not until recently.

Suddenly, I don’t want a life where I don’t get to see her chatting away to Abby in her highchair in the morning while she sips the coffee I made her, where I don’t get to bury myself inside her every night while telling her how fucking magnificent she is.

But I don’t know if that’s what she wants.

“Dude,” Colt laughs, the low rumble rolling out of him from beside me. “Something you want to tell us?”

I glance up, and though the treadmill is facing the wall, Drew’s watching our conversation in the mirror with interest. That’s when I notice his headphones are still around his neck, so he’s clearly listening as well. Thank god Walshy isn’t here, because given what he knows about AJ and me, it would be easy for him to assume there’s something romantic going on.

I bark out a laugh, like the idea of me having feelings for someone is ridiculous. “Yeah, like I have time to have a woman in life.”

“You dated that chick, what’s her name . . . ”

“Annabelle,” Drew chimes in, and I’m not even sure how he knows that.

“Yeah, that’s the one. You dated her in the fall,” Colt reminds me.

“Which is when I realized the only girl I have time for is Abby.”

What I actually realized in dating her was that most women aren’t interested in a guy who already has a kid with another woman.

Colt looks like he’s holding in a laugh as he nods. “Okay. Sure.”

“You know you could tell us if you were dating someone, right?” Drew says.

“I’m not dating anyone.”

“Yeah,” Walsh says from the open doorway, and our heads all swing toward him. How is he so fucking stealthy? “McCabe has too much on his plate right now for a relationship.”

But from the look in his eyes, I can tell that he’s starting to connect the dots.Fucking hell.

“Speaking of,” I say, glancing at the clock on the wall. “I’m supposed to check in with the nanny before he takes Abby to the sing-along at the library this morning.”

Hopefully, none of them knows that the library doesn’t even open for a full hour. But given that Walsh has several kids, I’m sure he suspects I’m just trying to get out of this conversation—and out of this room—as quickly as I can.

“Inever in a million years would have imagined that this is how I’d be spending my day off,” AJ says, pulling her sunglasses onto the top of her head as we come to a stop on a covered bridge. When I told her to be ready for a day of sightseeing, I neglected to mention that we were leaving the city in a rental car, or that it was a convertible. She’s windblown and her cheeks are pink, even after spending the last hour walking through the mostly shaded trails of Valley Forge.

“Sorry, I’m a bit of a history nerd and a national park enthusiast.”

Her shoulders shake with laughter. “Yeah, I got that from how riveted you were by the intro video we watched at the welcome center. And then the way you dragged me through several historical buildings, looking like a kid in a candy shop.”

“Hey,” I say, stepping up behind her and fully boxing her in against the low wall of the bridge as she looks out at the creek below us. It’s quiet at the park today. We’ve barely seen anyone on the trails leading from one site to another, probably because it’s a weekday. “You can take the history nerd out of the classroom...”

“I forgot that’s what you were studying in college.” Looking up over her shoulder at me, her eyes search my face like she’srunning through the memories of when she scouted me all those years ago. “Didn’t you say that if hockey didn’t work out, you wanted to get your PhD and become a professor?”

“Yep. Why do you look so amused by that idea?”

A scoff rattles around in the back of her throat. “I can totally imagine how packed your classes would be...all those girls wanting to fulfill their history requirement with the hot, grumpy professor who growls at them when they don’t know the answer.”

My bark of laughter echoes against the hillsides. “So you think I’m hot?”

She chuckles. “I think that’s your only saving grace, given the less charming aspects of your personality.”

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