Page 54 of The Rival (Looking to Score 2)
“Hate when that happens.” He heaves a sigh as he sits across from me in one of the deck chairs. “I’m gonna go into town today to grab some supplies to fix the shed. Is there anything you want me to pick up for you?”
I shrug, a proud grin spreading across my face. “Nope, because I finished the last of my to-do list yesterday.”
“Well, lucky you . . . Little Miss Overachiever.” Alex scowls playfully, nudging my knee with the bottom of his foot. “The shed is the last job on my list. I don’t know much about replacing shingles, but I did some reading up on it last night, and it doesn’t look too complicated.”
As he recaps his findings, I decide to memorize this moment.
I take him in fully, from the dusting of dark hair along his muscular legs, to his flat stomach, all the way up his sculpted chest, then to his large, calloused hands casually holding his coffee mug. I commit to memory the angle of his Adam’s apple, the curve of his upper lip, his dark eyelashes surrounding his strikingly blue eyes.
But it’s only when I’m gazing into his eyes that a realization I should have seen coming from a mile away hits me with the force of a runaway train.
I’m in love with him.
Somewhere along the way, between the long days and even longer nights, I developed feelings for Alex. Despite my better judgment, I love him. I love his unfaltering kindness, his sense of humor, his talents in the kitchen and the bedroom. Not to mention those eyes and that smile.
I swallow a lump in my throat. This is not the kind of realization you want to have when faced with a deadline of returning to the real world. If I plan on telling him how I feel, I have to do it . . . like, now. But there’s no way I’m ready for that. Am I?
While I debate that, my cheeks heating with my uncertainty, I realize that the new me—the post-breakup, freshly empowered Aspen—is a lot braver than I’ve ever been before.
I chew on my lip, running through the pros and cons in my head.
Pros? He might feel the same way, and we could start officially dating back in the city. We’d work out the complicated things (cough, cough, Eden), and start a life together.
Cons? My throat tightens. There are so many. Like, maybe he doesn’t feel the same way. My confession ruins our friendship, and we never recover. I live with the shame of developing feelings for my boss’s ex-boyfriend. I live with the disappointment of yet another rejection. My barely healed heart breaks into a thousand more pieces. The list goes on and on.
“. . . and I’ll probably swing by the brewery and pick up a six-pack of that grapefruit IPA we like.”
When I resurface from my whirlpool of self-doubt, Alex is smiling at me, endearingly clueless to the earth-shattering revelation I’ve just had. He takes a sip of his coffee, now at a drinkable temperature. I gulp down my own, trying to swallow all the confessions threatening to escape my throat and ruin everything.
“Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you today.” My voice feels tight but sounds relatively normal, given how close I am to imploding.
“How about you?”
“I’ve got a report to finish for Eden, so I may get a head start on that. I may also wait until I’m back in the office and just try to enjoy these last few days before everything goes back to normal.”
Alex nods in agreement. “I vote for the latter. You deserve to take some time to relax.”
“You do too,” I say with a soft smile. “You’ve got a whole season waiting for you just around the corner.”
“True.” He smirks into his coffee.
Ever since he got back from his trip to New York, Alex has seemed a little more excited to return to the life of a professional athlete. My own complicated feelings aside, I’m happy for him.
The question falls from my lips before I can decide what I’m really asking. “Have you given the season any thought?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, uh, like, how are you feeling about it all? Going back?”
Alex frowns, turning the question over in his head. “Kind of like what you said. Everything’s just gonna go back to normal, right? Business as usual.”
My heart clenches painfully. “And that’s a good thing?”
“Yeah. I’m actually looking forward to it.”
Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? There’s no way this man shares the same feelings for me as I do for him. He doesn’t want to rock the boat and pursue things at home with me. Business as usual. The last thing I want is for everything to go back to the way it was, whereas, going “back to normal” seems to be a top priority for him.
