Page 132 of Text Me Baby One More Time

I nod. “Yes.”

“There are a lot of what-ifs in life. Being chickenshit isn’t a reason to walk away from something,” he says softly, repeating my words from our heated conversation in the truck. “I’m done being scared, Denny. I promise.”

“Your version of a promise scares me too.”

He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

Thirty

Shepard

“Bro,will you please quit pacing? You’re starting to make me nervous.”

“Youshouldbe nervous. You’re getting married tomorrow.”

“Nah, man.” AJ smiles, shaking his head. “All I can think isfinally. I still can’t believe I let you talk me out of doing this in high school. Do you know how many years of being husband and wife we’d have under our belt already?”

“You thanked me back then. You can’t take that back.”

“You’re right—waiting totally made us stronger.”

“Like you and Allie ever needed to be stronger.”

“I’m sorry…was that a compliment on my love life?”

I shoot him a look. “Shut it.”

He laughs. “Uh huh. We both know you’re a closet romantic.”

“I am not.”

“Tell that to Denver. You buy her flowers with special meanings and hand-deliver them to her at work.”

“Once! I did that once!” I argue.

“Once is enough.” He winks. “Seriously, sit the fuck down. You’re freaking me out.”

I’ve been pacing my kitchen and scrubbing the counters that are already way too fucking clean for nearly two hours now.

That’s what I do when I’m nervous: pace and clean. My teammates are constantly poking fun when I’m pacing the dugout and sweeping the floors. The announcers eat that shit up, but they’d never know what a sign of stress it really is.

“What’s rolling around in that big head of yours?”

I toss the rag onto the counter and force myself to take a step back. Folding my arms across my chest, I exhale a steadying breath.

“Come on, man. Talk to me.”

“What if she hates me after she finds out about…”

“You being the biggest fucking tool on the planet and screwing over your brother’s gal?”

I wince. “Yeah, that.”

AJ’s been pushing me to tell Denny about Delia from the start. I told him I would before the wedding.

But the wedding’s tomorrow and I haven’t said a fucking peep about it. I can’t bring myself to. Things are going well—like ridiculously so—for us and I don’t want anything to screw that up, especially not some stupid mistake I made almost two years ago.

I know I need to tell her, though. It would be wrong not to, and I know I’m making such a big deal out of it because of how Denny is going to react to the news—badly.

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