Page 47 of Between the Lines
He raises a brow in challenge.
“Neat. Orderly. Very on brand.”
His gaze softens, and I even earn a small smile. His attention returns to the score-keeping equipment, but he says, “Your handwriting is a picture of you, too.”
My cheeks heat.
He hasn’t mentioned the makeup or the note. Never saidthank youor alluded to using it. He didn’t return it, either. I carried around embarrassment for the rest of the week, and had all but forgotten about the stupid gesture until this moment.
He is wholly focused on the scoreboard equipment. The roster. The game. He isn’t paying me a lick of attention. But the skin on the back of his neck turns red, creeping up from beneath his collar, as he says, “Curvy and elegant, with a hard edge.”
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in my lifetime than to see where that blush color starts and ends.
Unfortunately—or maybe luckily—the game begins. I am forced to pay attention to basketball and basketball alone for the foreseeable future, which might just be a blessing in disguise. But like all good things, the time flies by too quickly. I don’t know if I’m more sad to see my time with Nathan, or my extra night of freedom, coming to an end.
With both of those thoughts chasing me like the slow start of a funnel cloud in midwestern August, I take my time. I help Aaron,Lucy, and a few others with takedown. I talk to my friends until they’re clearly tired and walk hand in hand out of the building, toward one vehicle, because they’re going home together.
I think of what lies ahead for me.
A huge house stuffed to the brim. My parents’ judgmental stares when I arrive home from a night of “freedom” while my mother had to actually spend time with her children instead of drinking wine and talking about a book she never read. The guilt sits like a hot rock in the pit of my stomach, and I putz a little more to delay the inevitable. When I finally head toward the front door, I’m startled to realize that Nathan is still here.
In the squeak of the light switch and the dimming of his office light. In the tap of his Oxfords on the tile floor and the scent of cedar and vanilla that intensifies as he meets me in front of the main office desk. His coat is on. His messenger bag is shouldered at a precise forty-five degree angle over a chest I’d suddenly like to feel through less layers of clothing.
“Ready to go?”
I tilt my head, pinching my brows together in question.
“Did you… wait for me?”
The red that electrifies his cheeks at my question is my answer.
“It’s dark outside. You shouldn’t walk to your car alone.”
The rock that weighed heavily in my gut? It presses lower. Beneath my belt. Good thing we’re now walking, because if not, I’d need to squirm.
The only sound between us is the slapping of shoes against gravel, but even that isn’t louder than my racing thoughts.
He waited for me? So that I wouldn’t have to walk to my car alone?
And let’s not forget the thumb kissing.
I can’t keep in what I’m longing to say—the fact that no one has ever looked out formebefore and that my heart is racing like an adrenaline junkie’s—so I fill the silence with, “So, that game wasexciting, right?”
I wince at my own awkwardness.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Wasn’t it literally your job to keep score?”
“It was.” We stop beside my car, and he turns to face me. “I was a little distracted by my companion, who couldn’t seem to remember to stop the clock at the right time.”
My own cheeks flame, and I start to apologize—it was my first game! I thought I did well!—but Nathan’s head falls, and he runs his hand through his hair.
“Sorry. That came out wrong.” He exhales, then mutters something under his breath, not meeting my eyes as he says, “I was trying to…”
My body buzzes with awareness. I’m either going to hit the nail on the head or turn in my resignation immediately.
“Were you trying to razz me, Harding?” He lifts his gaze and looks the most real I’ve ever seen him.