Page 40

EPILOGUE

TRENT

“Another beer?” Derek slowly rose from the sofa, gripping the armrest and gritting his teeth.

I shook my head and checked my watch. “Nope. I’ve got a hot date tonight.”

He bit back a smile. “I can’t believe you’re dating my best friend.”

“Hey now,” I goaded. “I’m your best friend, too.”

I raked a hand through my hair, watching the door. Seconds later, she walked through the door, all tousled brown hair and pink cheeks.

I bounded up off the couch and pulled her into a hug. “Hey. I’ve been waiting to see you all day.”

She slipped her hands around my waist. “Same. Let me go get dressed so we can take off.”

Standing on her toes, she swiped a kiss over my cheek and flitted away.

“Any idea what she’s cooked up for tonight?” I asked Derek as he hobbled back into the room.

“No clue. You’ll find out soon enough.”

After almost losing Kit, I wanted to do things right: real dates, real emotions, real commitment. No half measures.

I made a plan to wine and dine her across Norwalk. A plan that was immediately jettisoned by her proposal: she wanted to pick the first date.

I couldn’t say no.

She emerged from her room wearing a black pair of leggings that hugged her body and a midriff-baring pink crop top that I immediately visualized on the floor of my bedroom.

“You can run in that, right?” she asked, eyes roving over my outfit.

I nodded.

The athletic gear dress code wasn’t exactly standard first-date attire, but what the hell was I going to say? I pulled on a plain white t-shirt, a pair of peacock blue shorts with the Breakers logo on the leg and running shoes.

“Let me grab the cooler, then.”

I followed Kit into the kitchen, standing back as she threw an ice pack into a cooler she had staged in the fridge. I carried it out of the kitchen, and we said good night to Derek on our way out the door.

“Where are we off to?” I asked as we rode down the elevator.

“Guess,” Kit said with a mischievous smile.

“Midnight hike?”

She shook her head.

“Escape room? Only with more running.” I shifted closer.

“Nope.”

“Paintball?” I asked through a grimace.

She tipped her head back with a raucous laugh. “Yep. You nailed it. I’m going to get revenge for you breaking Derek’s leg.”

“I knew the day would come,” I chuckled. “I just didn’t think it’d be on our first date.”

“Well, you lucked out.” She tilted her face up toward me, and I couldn’t resist leaning down for a kiss. “It’s not paintball…this time.”

“But sometime soon?”

“Depends how nice you are to me.”

I intended to be incredibly nice to Kit.

Even past ten at night, humidity smacked us in the face as we exited her apartment building, the heat of the day still lingering. Kit walked away from the parking lot and down the street towards the hospital. I held her hand, fingers intertwined on our walk, happy to follow along on any adventure she had planned.

“So, how does it feel to be a real certified lab scientist?”

“A lot like being a technician,” she said, her face breaking into a grin. “Ask me again when I get paid. What did you get up to today?”

I shrugged. “I hung out with some rookies. They’re preseason training starts before the veterans, but I’ve been hanging around the stadium, anyway. I helped run some drills with the newest wide receivers.”

“Sounds like fun.” She clicked her teeth. “Too bad none of them will get their chance on the field anytime soon.”

While I’d been on the straight and narrow all off-season, I’d also been dodging the coaches and trainers for anything but training plans. But I loved her confidence, and I’d do anything in my power to be the man she saw in me.

“We’re here!” Kit took the cooler from my hand and set it on the ground next to a set of monkey bars.

“What’s this, exactly?”

We had walked behind the hospital to an area illuminated by overhead street lights. In the distance, a group of women in scrubs walked along the paved path. In the distance, a man in a janitorial uniform performed chest flies on a raised metal bar.

“It’s a track!” She fished a stopwatch out of the cooler with a wildly infectious smile that, even as my stomach dropped.

“What are we doing on a track?” I asked, my heart already knowing the answer.

“I’ve never seen anyone run a sub-four-point-three second forty-meter before, and I happen to know someone who’s very fast and can’t say no when I ask him to show me.”

“I can say no to you.” Running my hand across her waist, I ducked my face close enough to smell cherry lip balm. “I say no to you all the time.”

I kissed her neck, smiling when her eyes closed and her hands instinctively wrapped around my shoulders.

“But,” I said, pulling away. “It’s our first date, so I’ll say yes.”

Her honey brown eyes fluttered open, a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks. “Thank you for being so amenable. It’s very unlike you.”

I grinned. “You know, if you’d let me pick out the date, I would have taken us to a nice restaurant, maybe a show. Not a workout.”

“Well, I look forward to a nice restaurant on our second date.” She gave me a playful slap on the ass. “But for tonight, warm up. I want to see how fast you are.”

I relented. I’d learned long ago that changing Kit’s mind wasn’t my strength, and besides, she was right most of the time, anyway.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, dropping into a hamstring stretch.

“Oh!” Kit grinned and her entire body shook. “I like the sound of that.”

She fiddled with the stopwatch while I warmed up. A man in a thin tracksuit slowly jogged by us, waving as he passed.

“You know this isn’t accurate, right?” I asked, sinking into my heels.

Kit set her first on her hip. “Are you doubting my ability to use a stopwatch, Texas? Of course it’s accurate. There’s even a start and a finish line.”

I eyed the hastily spray-painted lines, toeing them with my shoe. “Did you vandalize your work track for me?”

“Of course not.” She pursed her lips, holding back a grin. “But there is a guy on the maintenance staff who owed me a favor. I had him spray paint it for me.”

“I’m sure it’s incredibly accurate, then.”

“He had the measuring wheel and everything. Even pointed out that it should be on the flat part of the track.”

I nodded. “That is important.”

“Now, let’s see some NFL Hall of Fame caliber running.” She held up the stopwatch. “Tick, tock, Texas!”

I dug the toe of my sneakers into the rubber track, hunching down, fingers tented on the ground. “Count me down!”

“Three, two, one, firing pistol!” Kit shouted.

And the laugh she got out of me definitely didn’t help. I burst forward anyway. My legs ate up the pavement in long strides, my heart pumping in my chest as I surged over the finish line.

“Holy shit!” Kit squealed, jogging toward me. “You said you were fast, but that’s unreal. Lightning fast. And you did it in four-point-two seconds!”

She dropped the stopwatch as she jumped into my arms. Her legs wrapped around my waist, and her lips found mine, tongue slipping into my mouth in the best post-run celebration I’d ever experienced.

I let the kiss linger before dropping the bad news. “There’s no way that was 40-meters, Kitten. Your maintenance man lied.”

“Oh, really?” Her neck muscles tightened as she lowered her eyes.

“How many meters is it, actually?” I asked, holding her tight to me as she tried to squirm away.

“Forty. Totally forty,” she lied.

“You’re not supposed to tell lies on your first date.”

“I actually disagree.” With no place to run, she leveled her gaze at me. “We’re supposed to be impressing each other on the first date, and what’s more impressive than breaking your forty-meter sprint record on a…thirty-meter track?”

“Not cool.”

“Very cool. Romantic, even. Possibly the most romantic thing I’ve ever done for anybody.” She cinched her face. “Actually, definitely the most romantic thing I’ve ever done. So far.”

“Does that mean I can expect more romance?” I raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you like me, Kitten?”

“I like you, Texas.” Her cheeks burned red, and she dropped her head onto my chest. “I might even love you.”

My chest squeezed tight. “What did you just say?”

“That I like you?” she said, her breath hot and words muffled.

“No, that wasn’t it.” My heartbeat picked back up again, and I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. I chucked her under the chin.

“I might love you.” She picked her head up with a wince. “Too soon?”

I shook my head. “Not even a little.”

“You don’t say that on a first date,” she whined, dropping her head back down. “I just got caught up in the excitement of a very fast man in the moonlight.”

“Happens to the best of us.” I nipped the shell of her ear before I shifted my grip under her ass and pulled her up to eye level. “I love you, too. No ‘might’ necessary.”