Page 15 of Resisting the Running Back

He laughs. “I forgot about your road rage.”

“Me?” I ask dramatically. “I don't have road rage.” I toss up a middle finger at the car next to us as I yell, “Asshole!”

“Be careful with that shit here. You'll meet your match when it comes to road rage, and they don’t play here.”

I take the warning to heart. We stop and go a little longer before we turn off and start climbing into the hills of San Diego.The views are beautiful from here as traffic starts to thin, and I look out in the distance and see the ocean.

“I can't believe you opted for a house in the hills and not on the beach,” I say.

“There are surprisingly few houses on the market directly located on a beach in this area. This was closer to the stadium and still offered gorgeous views, so Tanner and I agreed on it when we moved here.”

“How far is it to the closest beach?” I ask.

“Fifteen or twenty minutes, depending on traffic. Or if I’m driving, closer to twenty. If you’re driving, ten.”

I giggle. “Where’s the lie?”

He pulls into the driveway of a gorgeous mansion and opens his garage from some app on his phone, and I can't believe I haven’t been out here to see him since he moved to the area.

“This is gorgeous, Miller,” I say.

He pulls my car into the roomy garage with a Ford F-150 Raptor parked in it, and he pulls to a stop and hands me my keys.

“New truck?” I ask, nodding toward the army green truck.

He nods. “I treated myself with my new paycheck.” He wiggles his eyebrows, and I laugh. He always had a truck—his first vehicle was a used Ford Ranger. Mine was a Camry, and we just made the trip here in my little Honda SUV.

I follow him inside. We walk in through a laundry room, and that room alone should be my first hint that this house is a little nicer than the apartment I shared with Tyler. Even the countertops in the laundry room are quartz, while the laundry room at the apartment was down in the basement and shared with all the other tenants in the building.

From there, we walk into a gourmet kitchen that looks out over a family room with a beautiful couch and entertainment setup. I gaze at the kitchen table, which is whereI seem to do the majority of my writing, and I can already see the seat that will be the one where I spend time dreaming up my next bestseller. I walk over to the slider doors to study the pool that’s shimmering in the sunlight. Just beyond the pool, there’s a view of the gorgeous valley peppered with beautiful homes, all looking out over a similar yet different view.

It's totally dreamy.

I glance over at Miller and see his blue eyes are lit with the natural light streaming in from the slider doors. My breath catches in my throat for a second as I realize yet again how hot he is. I am pretty damn lucky to have him in my life—not because he's hot, but because he's been such a good friend to me.

There's nobody else who literally would have left his birthday party in Vegas to be by my side during one of the worst moments of my life, but he did. And then on top of it, he bailed me out of that situation and offered me a chance to start over.

I feel tears pinching behind my eyes at the thought of what a wonderful friend I have.

He glances over at me. “What's wrong?” he asks.

He knows. He just always somehow knows. He can read me like a book, which is one of the many things I'm so grateful for in our friendship.

“I was just thinking about how grateful I am that you're in my life. You're such a good friend, Miller, and I don't know what I would do without you.”

He tilts his head with a bit of sympathy and offers a small smile. “I feel the same way.” He slings his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into a side squeeze, and I slip my arm around his waist.

Has he always smelled this good? Warm and clean and masculine all at the same time, and it makes me want to stay here a little while longer.

He shows me around the rest of the house, including the primary suite, which used to be Tanner’s room, the same room Miller never moved into once Tanner moved out.

“Do you want this room?” he asks.

I glance around at the ginormous room. There’s a built-in bench beneath one window where I can sit and look out the window over the view with my laptop perched on my lap and a blanket over my legs. The room is absolutely luxurious, and I think it might be exactly what I need as I move here temporarily to try to start my life over.

“This will do, I guess.” I smirk at him.

“Yeah, I guess my job comes with a decent paycheck, so if you need anything at all—”

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