César put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Cam, we should get going to dinner. I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll leave, ok?”
“Sure.” I pulled away from him and waved to the other men. “I’ll be outside.”
“It’s cold out there,” he said, but I needed the air.
While I waited, I heard from Wyatt, the guy I had met at Roy’s Tavern the weekend prior. He had given it a little time to let me stew, I thought. I blocked out everything about my horrible father and focused on this new possibility for a while until César came outside. He started to say something about Warren Wilde but I stopped him. “Never mind that, ok? You follow me in your car and I promise not to go too fast and lose you.” I looked back a few times to make sure that was true as we went to Lindy Nyland’s house for dinner.
Lindy and her husband had a little place, an old summer cottage. It got even smaller when César and I arrived, followed closely by the Woodsmen quarterback, Davis Blake, and his girlfriend. “My bestie since we were five years old,” Lindy introduced me to her, and side-hugged her friend. “This is Katie Bell.”
“Nice to meet you,” she told me, and she smiled. Her boyfriend also said it, but without the smile. He came across as a bit of a douche, really, but Lindy’s husband Logan seemed nice enough. Lindy had piles of food ready to start us off before dinner and everyone plowed into it, including me. I never felt self-conscious about my big appetite, and compared to what César and Davis put away, it made it seem like I was subsisting on air.
“Camdyn, Lindy told me that you work at a winery,” Katie Bell said, and Lindy nodded at me encouragingly.
“I do, helping to arrange the events we hold there. It’s a little dead now, but it will pick up again a lot in the summer. It’s beautiful for weddings.”
Lindy raised her eyebrows at her friend, but Katie just smiled and shook her head. “Not quite yet,” she said.
“You know, I can put your catering company in as one of our preferred vendors, if you’re interested,” I told Lindy. “You might even get some business out of it for this year.”
Her eyes got big. “Really?”
“Well, your food so far has been amazing,” I said, and took another scoop of dip. “Yours is better,” I secretly mouthed to César, who laughed, and put his arm around my shoulders.
We talked about Lindy’s business, and mutual friends and acquaintances, and when we squeezed ourselves around their tiny dinner table, we talked about the Woodsmen and the new head coach, and the changes the team had started to make.
Katie had been one of those changes, apparently. “I worked for the Woodsmen, but I got fired when they decided to revamp their image,” she told me. “It’s fine,” she quickly added, putting her hand on her boyfriend’s arm. “But I’ll miss seeing you guys at the stadium.”
“We’ll miss you, too,” César told her, and her boyfriend Davis shot him a glare. César just laughed.
“Davis, you’re going to have to calm down at one point,” he told the quarterback.
“Davis gets jealous easily, and we all like to laugh at him,” Lindy explained to me. “César is just poking the bear.”
“Jealous?” I asked.
“Because César used to try to get Katie to go out with him,” Lindy explained. “Isn’t that what you said?” she asked her friend.
I turned to Katie. “Oh?” If that was true, then she had to be the stupidest woman in the world. She had turned down Césarfor that silent hunk of stone sitting next to her? I could feel myself glare so I took another bite of dinner as a distraction. Why would César like such a dumb woman? I didn’t like her at all.
“He was kidding, of course,” Katie said quickly. “He never meant it, that’s just how he is with all the women at the stadium, with the cheerleaders, with the…” She looked at me and stopped talking.
“You’re making it worse, Katie,” Lindy’s husband told her. “I’m sure we all played around a little before we settled down,” he announced placatingly.
“Oh, did we?” Lindy challenged him, and laughed as Logan gave her a loud kiss on her cheek. “That’s better.”
“César isn’t going to play around on you,” Davis Blake said suddenly, pinning me with his icy eyes. He hadn’t talked much throughout the evening, and it startled me.
I felt like I needed to correct his misunderstanding of the situation between César and me. “No, we’re not—”
“He’s not the kind of guy to cheat, especially with you pregnant,” Davis continued.
It got very quiet at the table. I felt my breath quicken as I turned to look at Lindy. “I didn’t say anything, not to anyone. I didn’t tell,” she swore. “But wait, César is the dad? You didn’t mention that.”
“You and César are having a baby?” Katie asked. “Oh, wow! Congratulations!” She beamed at the two of us.
I felt my whole body flaming and tears were rapidly filling my eyes. Now I turned to look at César.
“Yes, I told Davis,” he said quietly. “We can talk about it later.”
I nodded, then shook my head. “I asked you not to tell anyone on the Woodsmen,” I said. “Why did you do that?”
“He’s my friend. I needed to talk about this, just like you did with Lindy,” César told me.
I shook my head again. “You don’t understand. The Woodsmen team is like
