Page 3 of Last Fall

She leaned closer, her eyes zeroing in on me in a way that made me feel a lot like a lamb about to be slaughtered. “Let me put this as simply as I can. You love Zoe Burke. There, that was really simple.” She might as well have patted herself on the back for as proud as she looked for callingmeout.

And that was exactly what she was doing. Somewhere in the back of my brain I recognized all of this, but I didn’t have time to focus on any of that because I was quietly freaking thefuckout.

I thought I’d done a damn good job of keeping my infatuation with a certain quiet writer to myself. Wes knew. For as big of a selfish jackass as he could be, he was also freakishly observant. But other than him? No one knew. I made a huge effort to seem cool and calm around her. If anything, I was trying to be her friend. She needed friends a hell of a lot more than she needed some dumb jock pantingafterher.

“I...”have no idea what to say.“I do not...love...Zoe.” There. That was easy. A whole sentence and everything. It was a total lie, but it was asentence.

“Oh my god, you’re a terrible liar,” Marie groaned. “Look, anyone with eyes can see the way you watch her. You’ve got the lovesick thing down to ascience.”

Possibly the most emasculating thing someone had said to me since the last time I was with all my sisters. They were good at keeping my ego in check. Not that I really needed it. I knew who I was: a ballplayer and not much else. I had no misguided belief that I’d get lucky a second time. Playing professional baseball was the top of the mountainforme.

Not like Zoe. No, she had the whole world ahead of her. “I don’t know what you think youseebut—”

“Nope. Not listening to your lies. I don’t have time for it. Just open your ears and listen.” She dropped her voice to just above a whisper. “I bring it up for a reason. I can see that you are as concerned as the rest of us about her...issues.I’m assuming that’s why you’re trying to do the friend thing instead of the boyfriendthing.”

I’d gotten the story from Eve, Zoe’s former employer and one of my good friends on the staff of the Mantas. Zoe picked up and moved to Tampa suddenly. No one knows why because she refuses to talk about it. Eve hired her as a nanny while Zoe worked on launching her writing career. She quickly became a member of the family. Everyone loved her and for good reason. She was one of those genuinely sweet people who loved with her whole heart. I saw it every time she was with Eve’s daughters. You can’t fake that kind ofcaring.

I was immediately drawn to her...and the fact that she was incredibly sexy only made me want her more. I tried my usual “get to know the girl, get her smiling, slip in a casual dinner request” routine, but it hadn’t gone well. No, I’d say it went terribly, actually. I’d never had flirting go sowrong.

I shook the memory away. “She’s notinterested.”

“I saidlisten.” Marie sighed with exasperation. “You’re an idiot if you can’t see how much she’sinterestedinyou.”

“No...” She couldn’t be. After the disastrous flirting two years ago I realized Zoe wasn’t datinganyoneso I put my bruised ego in check and just tried to be herfriend.

She didn’t like that so much either, which led me to believe she didn’t likemeas a human being. I could tell when a girl liked me and Zoe most certainly did notlikeme.

But that didn’t mean I stopped liking her. I definitely didn’t stop finding her attractive. So I occasionally ran scenarios in my head where I asked her out and we wound up hot and naked in my bed at the end of the night. If I’d thought Zoe was even remotely interested I would haveasked.

Maybe.

It was just that for some reason asking Zoe out felt like it had a lot more at stake than with any other girl before. And every time I saw how nervous she got when the girls gave her a hard time about not dating, it ramped upmynerves even more. I had this constant feeling that if I fucked up with Zoe it wouldn’t just bruise my ego, it would hurther,too.

I don’t know. Maybe I wascrazy.

Marie quickly signed the check and tucked the receipt in her wallet. “I’m not saying you have to believe me or that you should do anything about it.” Then she gave me a very sisterly half-smile. “I just thought you should know in case youdidwant to do somethingaboutit.”