Page 32 of Going for Two

I had paced my penthouse this morning wondering if I should call Lottie before our run. I’d even opened and closed our text conversation at least a dozen times, always closing out of it before I could hit send on anything.

Did she think we crossed a line last night?We crossed a million of them, but I knew I didn’t care.

Did she want to run this morning, or did she need space?I was dying to see her.

Relief coursed through me the minute I spotted Lottie’s car in the parking lot when I pulled into the practice facility. I had run through a million different scenarios on my drive here—what I would do if she wasn’t here, what I would do if she was here, butshe wasn’t happy to see me, what I would do if she was here, and shewashappy to see me.

I was hoping for the third option when I stepped out of my car and walked over to where she was leaning against the hood of her car, bundled up against the late October early morning chill.

“Good morning!”

I kept any hint of a smile off my face at her greeting before I figured out if all my hopes were about to be crushed. “How are you today?” I cautiously asked.

“Hungover as hell, but I’m hoping this run will help clear some of it out.” Lottie bent down to stretch her legs out and my eyes shamelessly raked over them. “How are you feeling?”

I was thrown off by how normal of a conversation we were having and how obviously we were ignoring the elephant in the room. Lottie took off down our usual trail before I could reply.

“I’m fine. I didn’t drink much last night,” I told her. Panic rose within me when my mind began to wonder if she was about to say that she was drunk and that was why she let herself be in a position like she was with me last night—between my legs behind a locked door, moaning into my mouth.

“So how is this going to work?” Lottie asked me after the first few minutes into our run.

I nearly stumbled when I realized what she was asking me.

“Are we going to go back to like it was before like the last time? Are we going to pretend nothing happened last night? Or are you going to take me on a date?”

That familiar look of determination filled Lottie’s eyes. It was like the first day we met when she held my gaze, never backed down and never flinched. Confidence poured off her and I let the smile I’d been fighting to keep off my face—out of fear that I’d be putting myself in a vulnerable position—tug my lips upwards.

“Do you want to go on a date?” I’d be more than happy to follow her lead on this.

“Well, I’m not really a one-night stand kind of gal,” Lottie told me as she kept her head forward, as if she might have been too nervous to see my response.

“What about after practice today?” I asked her, watching her eyebrows shoot up. It was the Saturday before our ninth game of the season and today’s practice would be the lightest one of the week.

“Okay,” Lottie replied, and this time she finally gave me a smile that melted my insides. “You’ll pick me up, though.”

A chuckle rumbled through my chest. I had never been so happy to deal with Lottie ordering me around. I would have agreed to nearly anything if it made her smile at me the way she was right then.

“Six o’clock,” I told her.

She pressed her lips together as if she were thinking if that time would work for her before agreeing. “Fine.”

There was an energy buzzing around us. There wasn’t the normal feeling of a challenge bouncing between us, but rather a shy anticipation for this new territory that we were entering.

And for the first time in years, I was excited to not have dinner alone in an empty apartment tonight.

Chapter 16

Nolan

Lottie’s apartment was on the north side of Chicago in Evanston, which I was thankful for because the drive from my penthouse in downtown Chicago to hers was long enough for me to try to calm my nerves. I had to wipe my palms on my jeans at least a dozen times by the time I pulled up in front of her place.

The apartment was older with much more character than the modern high-rise I lived in. A warm golden light spilled out from the upper right window of the building, and I could make out the shape of a woman standing on the other side of the gauzy curtains. Leaves drifted toward the sidewalk from the trees that lined the front of the building.

I parked in one of the free spots along the sidewalk out front and took the steps slowly as I tried to settle the churning in my stomach as I rang her apartment.

Lottie’s melodic voice crackled over the speaker. “I’ll be right down!”

I quickly checked my reflection in the glass of the main door to the building before I saw Lottie’s figure coming down the stairs. Her blonde hair was down and loose around her shoulders. She had opted for red lipstick tonight and my heart pounded against my chest at the sight. She looked almost sinful. I had told her tonight would be casual, so she had decided on a pair of jeans that hugged her legs and a loose black sweater that drew my attention back to her red lips.