Page 29 of Offside

“He did.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been very professional about you.” I knew I had a self-satisfied grin on my face because I was in fact, very satisfied with how professional I had been. None of this needed to be announced, certainly not to him. To his fucking face. What is wrong with me?

He went still. Not uncomfortable. Just completely focused, as if everything else in the room had stopped existing.

“What do you mean, Maren?” he almost whispered, turning his body to face mine as a slow grin appeared.

“I want it noted,” I continued with some dramatic flair, “that I have been extremely, aggressively professional, given that you are—” I gestured at him, a loose motion that covered the general area of him “—you know. All of that.”

“All of what,” he said, very carefully, the corners of his mouth turning up even more.

“Ryan.” I held his gaze. “Don’t make me say it.”

He didn’t look away. He was watching my mouth and then my eyes and I wasn’t imagining it—I knew I wasn’t imagining it—and neither of us moved. We were so close. Again. How did this keep happening? Did he feel it too?

“You should probably drink your water,” he said quietly.

“I am drinking my water.” I picked up the glass and drank some. “See? Responsible.”

“Very responsible.”

“I’m an extremely responsible person.” I set the glass down and he was still watching me, close enough I could see the exact color of his eyes in the kitchen light, blue-gray that changed depending on the room, the light, or maybe what he was wearing? I’d been so careful for weeks, and being this close to him in Cole Westbrook’s kitchen at eleven o’clock at night had used up the last of it.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked me, playing my game right back.

“Of course.” We were whispering now and had to lean in a bit to hear each other. It was probably my imagination, but it seemed like heat was radiating off him, or maybe that was just me blushing.

“I’ve been very professional too.” I’m sorry, what?

I scrunched my eyebrows at him. “About what?”

My heart raced. The game we were playing was getting dangerous, and I sobered up immediately.

He gestured at me, less dramatically, but certainly at all of me. “At all of this.”

“Me?” I asked. I pushed, because, fuck it, why not? We were in this now. “How so?”

He took in a long inhale. “Maren.”

“Yes, Ryan?” I replied sweetly as if it were a question.

“It’s so much worse than it was in college,” he admitted.

So he did think about it. Fuck yeah. I mean, oh nooo.

“College?” I played dumb. I didn’t know what to say and I wanted to see how this played out.

“Don’t do that.”

Before I could say “do what” he continued.

“You know what you do to me, Maren. What you’ve always done to me. From the day we met. And it’s getting harder to remember what the right thing to do is here. Especially now.”

He was right, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted more. “Why now?”