Page 26 of Going for Two
I turned around to face him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I asked him.
Nolan looked at me like the answer to my question was obvious. “He’s using you.”
I clenched my fists to try and reel in the irritation building inside of me. First, he showed up with Hawthorn and Derek to my date at Formento’s. Then he had the audacity to tell me that this date was using me and wasn’t worth my time. I took a couple of breaths to try and control what came out of my mouth next.
“No, he’s not,” I argued with him. “I think he was really interested in me. I wouldn’t mind going on another date with him. He might need one more to really warm up.”
“That man had more of a hard-on for Jamil Edman than he ever will for you.”
My mouth dropped open. “He kissed me, Nolan! And he leaned toward me practically the entire date. He was interested in me.” I was beginning to wonder if I was losing my sanity when it came to Nolan Hill, because why did I feel the need to justifymydate with him?
“That was not leaning, Lottie.”
I watched a complicated mix of emotions cross Nolan’s face as his eyes looked off into the distance. His eyebrows pulled together as if he were debating what he wanted to say next. The moment seemed to stretch on forever until his eyes drifted down to meet mine. His nostrils flared and I swore I could see his brown eyes turn nearly black.
Nolan closed the distance between the two of us until his large body took up every square inch of my vision. He was close enough that I could smell hints of cashmere and vanilla, close enough that I could see gold flecks in his brown eyes, and the wrinkles around them that he’d gotten from the way they crinkled when he smiled.
“This is leaning.” His breath came out on a whisper as his head bowed down toward mine. His lips were a breath’s width away from mine and I could feel the weight of his words as he spoke.
The air whooshed out of my lungs and my body froze in place as I was stuck in the center of Nolan’s gaze. My heart beat so wildly I was afraid I was about to go into cardiac arrest.
Did Nolan know CPR?
“You’re not just entering someone’s space, Lottie.” The only sign that Nolan was anywhere near as affected as I was in this moment was the rise and fall of his chest. His chest barely brushed against mine with each inhale, but every minuscule amount of contact set my chest on fire. “You’re taking the first move and initiating that first display of affection. It’s about the other person accepting that person’s invitation, just like you are now. It’s about being vulnerable.”
My eyes widened when I realized that I had drawn closer to him and that was why there were only centimeters between us. The second Nolan had entered my personal bubble, he’d become my sun and I’d been brought closer into his gravitational pull. Suddenly I was keenly aware of how attractive Nolan Hill was—the sharp jawline, the way he smiled with his entire face, and those long lashes that framed his dark brown eyes.
As quickly as Nolan first stepped toward me, he was gone in a flash, suddenly five steps away from me. I was left flushed and disoriented as I tried to pull myself together. Tried to tell myself that I needed to put even more space between us. Tried to tell myself this wasn’t professional. What if someone saw us? What would they say? I could get be fired.
My brain was spinning out of control, unable to keep my eyes off Nolan’s tongue as it slipped out of his mouth and wet his lips, while every warning bell was going off inside of my head.
This was never supposed to happen. I was better than this—lusting after a player. But that still didn’t stop the thundering of my heart as Nolan clenched his fists together like he was trying to keep himself from reaching out for me one more time.
“He wasn’t giving you that, Lottie.” Nolan’s voice came out gruff and I noticed just how flushed he was as well.
Before I could get a word out, Nolan turned on his heel and left me standing there with the mess of thoughts bouncing around inside my head. I watched him weave between the cars still in the parking lot before disappearing long before I finally felt like I could move.
My fireplace crackled in the background as it tried to take the slight chill out of the air that had crept into Chicago with the beginning days of fall. The leaves outside of my apartment window had even started to show hints of oranges and reds. Olivia and Maggie had covered themselves with blankets as they lounged around my living room.
“So, you’re telling us that Nolan Hill looked like he wanted to devour you?” Olivia asked from where she sat on my couch with a bowl of popcorn.
“I never said that,” I sighed, as I continued to stare at the ceiling of my living room from where I lay in the middle of the floor.
Maggie reminded me of how I had recounted the turn of events after the game. “You said he was staring at you intensely and then basically tried to sweep you off your feet.”
Once I finally snapped myself out of whatever trance Nolan had put me in, I had immediately called Olivia to see if she was still at the stadium. Maggie overheard me telling her what happened and declared that to unpack the events that had unfolded we needed popcorn and wine.
“Hewasstaring at me intensely. I’ve never seen Nolan look at anything like that before. Not even during a game,” I told them.
“Do you think he likes you?” Olivia tossed a piece of popcorn up into the air and caught it in her mouth.
“I thought he hated me when we first started working together. Recently, I thought that we were moving past tolerant to amicable. I never, in a million years, would have told you I thought Nolan Hill found me attractive. I just thought …” I trailed off when I remembered how Nolan had looked at me on the date that they crashed. He’d looked almost territorial as he watched me from across the room. Then again when he saw me still dressed from my previous date before New York—he’d looked like he was seeing me in a new light.
“He did take you to the top of the Empire State Building.” Maggie was taking this all entirely too seriously. “That had to be the most intimate moment ever. I could just imagine the scene playing out in a romance movie.”
“I wouldn’t call it intimate. It felt more like a peace offering for our relationship, like he was acknowledging that I was helping him with his goals, so he wanted to do the same for me.”
“I wish I could have been there to see the unflappable Nolan Hill get flustered by my older sister.” Olivia had a cheeky smile as she tried to picture what I had just lived through.