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She takes off just before lunchtime, and I miss her the moment she walks out the door.

Harper stands in the driveway waving goodbye to her like she won’t see her in less than forty-eight hours, and the thought that I don’t know when I’ll see her next claws at me.

Do I want alone time with her so I can finish that kiss that Harper interrupted last night? Fuck yes I do.

Do I want to fuck her long and slow? Yes on that, too.

But do I also want her to just hang out with the two of us this weekend? Yep.

Yeah…I’m fucked.

Harper dashes back into the house and trips over her own shoes as she runs past me toward the couch. She grabs her iPad, but before she clicks it on, she studies me.

“What?” I ask.

She tilts her head a little. “Are you sad she left?”

I shrug. “A little, I guess.”

She sighs. “Me too. I miss her already.”

“Me too,” I admit.

“You like her,” she sings.

“I do.”

“What’s going on between you? Is she your girlfriend?”

I can’t help but sputter a little at the frank question. I don’t think we’re at a place where I can label her as my girlfriend. But the thought of her potentially seeing other guys makes me want to hurl another coffee cup onto the floor in a fit of rage.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I say.

“But you were kissing her,” she points out.

“Yeah, adults do weird things sometimes.” I keep my tone dry.

“But you want her to be your girlfriend?” she guesses.

“Maybe.” I’d also love to change the direction of this conversation but I’m not quite sure how to.

“I think you should make her your girlfriend.”

“How does someone make a girl his girlfriend?” I ask, truly curious as to how she’s going to answer this one.

“Duh. You just ask her. Say Ms. Hartley, do you want to be my girlfriend? And then she says yes, and there you go. Boyfriend and girlfriend.”

I chuckle. “That sounds easy enough.”

If only it were that easy.

We spend the weekend relaxing, and when I pick Harper up on Monday, Victoria walks her out and waves to me.

It’s later that night after I get Harper down to bed that I have this urge to talk to Hartley.

I grab a beer and head out to the patio to enjoy the cool evening air before it gets suffocatingly hot here in Vegas.

I’m more of a calling guy than a texting guy, but I feel awkward calling her, like she’ll think something’s wrong.

So instead, I voice a text to send.

Me: How did things go with Harper today? I’m sorry if she asked you anything personal.

Hartley: [laugh emoji] she asked if I wanted you to be my boyfriend.

Me: [face palm emoji]

She doesn’t respond right away, and then my curiosity gets the better of me.

Me: Well? What did you tell her?

I wish I could take it back the second I put it out there.

I’m making myself vulnerable when I’ve never done that before. I steel myself for her answer just like I’ve spent so much time steeling my heart against the type of warm feelings that rocket through my chest whenever I’m around her.

I see the little bubbles indicating she’s typing an answer, and I feel like I could jump out of my skin as I wait for her reply.

And then the bubbles disappear, but no text comes through.

The bubbles pop back up and disappear again…as if she’s struggling to come up with what to say to that.

And then my phone starts to ring.

Hartley Calling .

I draw in a fortifying breath before I pick up.

“Hey, Hartley.”

“Hey, Woods.” Her tone mimics mine.

We’re both awkwardly silent for a beat, and I hold out for her to go first since she called me even though I’m the one who initiated this conversation.

Eventually, she answers. “I told her it was complicated.”

“It is kind of complicated, isn’t it?”

She chuckles. “I mean, how do you sum up to a ten-year-old that you hit on me, I rejected you, you showed up with a kid a week later, you hated me for rejecting you then telling you your child had reading difficulties, you hate kissed me in a bathroom hallway and in my office, and then we banged it out to get it out of our systems but it backfired because you called me on Friday and I spent the night holding your hand, terrified something bad was going to happen to her, and then we bonded on the couch and you gave me the kind of kiss I dreamed about for the rest of the weekend followed by the best morning I’ve had in a long, long time?”

She’s rambling, and I hang on to every single word.

She goes quiet, and an awkward beat passes between us.

“You dreamed about that kiss for the rest of the weekend?” I ask rather than answering the question she just asked.

“It’s all I can think about.” Her voice is low and sexy, and it makes me want to drive over to her place and give her another one.

“Thursday,” I choke out.

“Huh?” she grunts.

I clear my throat. “I want to take you to dinner Thursday night. A real, proper date, somewhere other than the Gridiron. And you can plan on spending the night here afterward.”

“Oh, uh…okay, sure. You need me to take Harper to school Friday morning?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “She’s spending the night at Bella’s on Thursday nights because that’s the night I usually do dinner with the wide receivers then go out with my buddies.”

“Won’t you be missing your meeting if you take me out?” she asks.

My voice goes all deep and husky as I say my next words. “I guess I will. You’re more important.”

She gasps a little, and to be honest, I’m sort of shocked those words fell from my lips, too.

The only time a woman has come before football was when I had sex on a Sunday morning before the game.

And while I just invited her to spend the night and sex is definitely a part of the plan, that’s not what this is. This is a chance to get to know her better. A chance to see if I want to ask her to be my girlfriend, as Harper put it.

It’s time to figure out whether these feelings are just related to the challenge of changing her mind about me or if I’m genuinely falling for her.

I’ve never bought tickets to a concert three months down the road for a woman before. It would only mean I’d have to want to see her again in three months, but the thought didn’t even cross my mind when I purchased them.

Of course I’ll want to see her in three months.

I want her to be a part of my future, and Thursday might just be the start of it.