Page 82 of Feels Like the First Time
“You going to call her? Tell her your stick isn’t as much fun to cuddle with, you miss her, and you’re sorry?” Luke asked.
He did miss her and he was sorry as hell. But he didn’t know how to make it work. Her family needed her right now. And she’d been clear that he wasn’t a member anymore.
Hawk leaned against the bar and rubbed his hand over his chest, trying to ease the raw ache that had been gnawing at him. It didn’t help. Nothing he seemed to do helped. It just got worse, deeper, hollower. “I don’t think she needs one more complication in her life right now.”
“Easy,” Luke said. “Then don’t be a complication. Be a friend, or pain in her ass, or whatever the hell it is that you two consider flirting. Just don’t be one more person who she loves that walks away.”
Hawk froze. “How do you know she loves me?”
Luke laughed. “Because unlike you, I haven’t had my head shoved so far up your ex’s ass over the years, so I’m able to see the way Ali looks at you, man.”
His friend hadn’t seen the way she looked at him the other night. His gut twisted just thinking about it. “I’m over Bridget.”
“I know that, but I don’t think you realized that until a few weeks ago,” Luke said. “Or you would have known that Ali has loved you since college. And I think you loved her back.”
“Yeah, like a kid sister,” Hawk said, then realized that wasn’t true. He’d had feelings for Ali, but she’d been a junior in high school, and he’d been ready to head off to college that next fall. Then he met Bridget, and well...
Here they were.
“Shit.” He didn’t want to be here. Not with Ali. He wanted to be the guy who made her smile. “I crushed her.”
“Maybe,” Luke said quietly. “But this is Ali we’re talking about. She never stays down for long. And you’re a fighter, Hawk. That’s what you do, so why are you ready to call it so early in the game?”
“Because I don’t want to fuck this up any more than I have,” he admitted.
“Or are you afraid of getting fucked over?” Luke asked, and intuitive bastard that he was, he’d nailed it.
This was as much about Ali as it was about him. He’d promised himself after his divorce that he’d never be played like that again. But the only way to take home the trophy was to commit fully to the process.
He’d committed himself to finding love with Ali, but he’d been too gun-shy to commit to making that love work. And at the first body check of the game, he’d called foul and benched himself.
“Fuck.” He sat down on a stool, or maybe it was his legs that gave out. He wasn’t sure, but suddenly the weight of what he’d done was too staggering to remain upright.
“That right there, my friend. That is the look of true love.” Luke clapped him on the back. “Now I suggest a nice bouquet of flowers, maybe some wine, and lots of groveling.”
He was going to do more than grovel; he was going to lay it all out there and commit to whatever she needed to meet him at center ice. From there he’d take her hands and slowly guide her to the goal. Or maybe, they’d wind up on her side.
He didn’t care. As long as they were together.
“Kennedy’s going to kill me,” Hawk said. “But can you handle the meet with the clients today?”
Luke sighed, like a man who wasn’t going to get his. Not that Hawk minded; Luke had been getting his regularly for the better part of the year.
It was Hawk’s turn.
“I’ll do the wine and dine part here,” Luke said. “Because Kennedy would kill me if I didn’t. But you have to meet them”—he looked at his watch—“in twenty minutes at Bay View. Give them the highlights, that cover ofSports Illustratedgrin, and then send them my way and I’ll close the deal.”
“I owe you,” Hawk said, grabbing a bottle from beneath the bar and heading toward town. He’d meet the clients, then he’d hunt down Ali.
But he wasn’t going to grovel. Ali deserved pampering. Cake pops, whiskey, honest words…and lots of pampering.
***
Twenty minutes later, Hawk pulled into Bay View and was driving around the orchard toward the back of the property when he saw his clients. From the distance he could see four of them, sitting around the picnic table on the back porch.
As he drew closer, it appeared to be a family—eating a picnic on his porch. He was used to people coming up from the beach and wandering around the property, as if this were some kind of tourist attraction. But what the hell? No one had ever ventured near the house, and this family even had a wicker basket and checkered tablecloth.
“Not going to happen,” he mumbled as he parked his bike. “This is private property. You’ll need to take your picnic back down to the beach.”
