Page 20 of #Awestruck

She opened the door, and sure enough I heard Evan Dawson’s voice for the third time in as many days.

They said their hellos and how are yous, and Joey came over to hold on to his mom’s leg while staring up at Evan. His little jaw hung slightly open, and he finally uttered the wordfootball.

Evan crouched down to be eye level with my nephew. “I do play football. Do you like football?”

Joey nodded enthusiastically but didn’t say anything else.

“I love football, too. But probably not as much as your aunt Ashton does.” Evan caught me watching him, and that overgrown idiot winked at me.

It was not charming. It was not. At all.

He stood up, and Aubrey led him into the kitchen, giving him the same introductory spiel she’d just given me. She took out the list of students and split it in half, handing him his part.

“If you’ll excuse me for a minute, my daughter has been upstairs and completely quiet for too long. I’ll be right back.”

The ends of his hair were slightly damp, as if he’d recently showered. He put his jacket over the back of his chair and sat down, the cotton fabric of his dark-green shirt tightening around his muscles.

Why did I notice little details like that about him? What was wrong with me? “You do know that in some states this basically constitutes stalking, right?” I hissed at him. I’d already agreed to hear him out at dinner. What more did he want from me?

“I’m not stalking you. I’m just ... around you a lot recently. And is this a bad time, or are you just randomly pissed off?”

I clenched my fists. He did not get to make judgments on what my mood should or shouldn’t be where he was concerned. “You have ten seconds to get out of ... Wait, stay right there.”

“Indecisive. I like it.”

Instead of responding to him, I ran for the stairs, grabbing Joey on the way. I’d been on the verge of forcing Evan to leave when it occurred to me how this had all happened.

Aubrey.

He’d said he’d talked to her.

My sister was not going to interfere like this. I wouldn’t let her. I dropped off Joey to play in his room. I found Aubrey in the master bathroom scrubbing lipstick off Charlotte’s face and arms. Charlotte again looked at me with her puppy dog eyes, silently begging for assistance.

That kid was on her own. I had something else I needed to deal with first. “Are you serious with this? You’re going to leave me here with him?”

“I’m not too worried. It’s not like he’s going to try to S-L-E-E-P with you.”

“You can spell that again,” I told her. Definitely not happening. No matter how happy it would make Brenda. Or certain dumb, irrational parts of mine. “You need to toss him out of this house.”

She added more cleanser to the washrag she was using on Charlotte’s face. “You need to act like an adult. You promised you’d do whatever I asked, without question. He volunteered to help me out, and I’m not in a position right now to turn down that kind of help.”

“Yes, I’m sure the superfamous star of the NFL has loads of free time to help plan your reunion. That sounds so in character for him. He is such a devious piece of ...” I glanced at my niece. “Work.”

“I need you to go downstairs and just be nice. Don’t swear at him or anything.”

“What good would that do me? I can’t tell him to go to, er, Hades because I’m pretty sure the devil still has a restraining order out against him.” I sighed loudly. “You do know he’s forcing me to go to dinner with him at Rodrigo’s, right?”

Aubrey stopped scrubbing her daughter’s now bright-pink face. “That jerk. Want me to beat him up for you?” The sarcasm was strong in our DNA.

“I would think as an officer of the court you’d be a little more concerned about someone blackmailing me into a date.”

“And I think you could have fun with Evan if you’d just let yourself. You don’t know. You might actually like him. There could even be sparks.”

“Only if I burn down the restaurant in my failed attempt at escape,” I muttered.

She rinsed the washrag in the sink. “You could have fun under the right circumstances.”

“In these circumstances, am I sedated?”

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