At least, until she recognized the logo on the blanket.
She wrinkled her nose as my heart stopped and kicked back to life. “The San Francisco 49ers,” she read, heaving a sigh. “God, you’re a sports nut, aren’t you?”
Relief found me in my next breath.
She really didn’t have a clue.
I lifted a hand. “Guilty. Not to mirror your question yesterday but… is that a deal breaker?”
“No,” she said on another sigh, but this time it was with a smile. “Just seems to be the kind of people I surround myself with. Although… is this a football team?”
I chuckled. “It is.”
“Well, we’re going to have to convert you to a Bears fan. I say this only because my best friend — you met her, my assistant, Gemma? — well, let’s just say she might be the biggest Bears fan, and she’d have a fit if I was hooking up with a guy rooting for an enemy team.”
Shit.
I poured the salad into two bowls, lightly mixing in the dressing. “Well, lucky for us, they’re not in the same division,” I said with a smile. “And we haven’t hooked up yet.”
There was something in her smile at the word yet.
Still, my attention was still on the fact that her best friend followed the Chicago Bears. That could potentially be an issue in my little plan. I tried not to sound too interested when I asked, “So, Gemma’s a big fan, huh? Does she keep up with all the players?”
“Oh, I’m sure she does — not that I ever ask. But the girl has at least half a closet of jerseys with different names on the back,” she said with a laugh, draping the blanket around her shoulders before she picked up her glass of wine again. “Although, she’s been a little pre-occupied planning her wedding that’s in a few months. Haven’t heard her talk much about football this season.”
“Ah. Tying the knot,” I said, telling myself to be cool. The chances of her friend knowing a trade from a different division who barely had any playing time on the field was slim.
At least, until training camp.
Deciding I’d cross that bridge when I got to it, I set our salads down on the tablecloth-covered boxes, gesturing for Belle to sit with me. “Are you the Maid of Honor?”
“I am, indeed,” she said, taking a seat and covering her lap with the blanket.
And damn if she didn’t look good wrapped up in my old team’s colors.
“Excited?”
She smirked, but something in her eyes told me that wasn’t the word she’d use. “I guess. I mean, I’m happy for her, I really like her fiancé, and I know she’s happy — which she deserves to be after all the shit she’s been through. But… it’s just hard. Everything is changing. I can’t just show up at her place and demand she go out with me, or surprise her with a bottle of wine and some popcorn for a girls’ night in.” She shook her head, like she’d already said too much. “I’m sure that sounds selfish.”
“No,” I said quickly. “It sounds honest.”
She smiled, shrugging as she picked up her fork and stacked her first bite of salad on it. “Honesty isn’t as shiny as everyone makes it out to be.”
I swallowed, but before I had the chance to feel guilty about my own dishonesty, Belle took her first bite of salad.
And then her face puckered like she’d bit into a lemon.
“Mmm,” she said, smiling, but it didn’t take a genius to see how it was forced.
I took my own bite, grimacing along with her. “Shit,” I said. “I think I put too much vinegar in the dressing.”
“No, it’s good,” Belle said, taking another bite.
I laughed when her face wrinkled so hard it made her shiver.
“Here, give me that,” I said, reaching for her bowl. “I have crab cakes for an appetizer. Let’s skip the salad.”
“I really like it!”
She tried defending her bowl, but I stole it from her grasp, already up and halfway to the kitchen when I said, “It’s okay. I guess I should have warned you… I’m not the best cook.” I dumped our bowls into the sink to tend to later. “But these crab cakes? They’re going to blow you away.”
Spoiler alert: the crab cakes did not blow her away.
I’d added too much flour to the mixture, which made them tough and dry. Then, I’d nearly burnt the ribs, cooking them past the fall-off-the-bone point I’d been aiming for, and landing us somewhere in the zone of just barely edible.
I knew cooking dinner was a risk, and that risk had not paid off.
To her credit, Belle laughed through it all — including when I realized I hadn’t bought any steak knives to help with the ribs situation. So, instead, we tore them off the bone with our teeth, getting sauce all over our faces, which somehow made Belle even more enticing than she already was.
Not only was she gorgeous, and funny, and driven, but she was also chill and down-to-earth. She rolled with the punches and made light of it all.
I drank up every word she said like it was the most expensive bottle of wine I’d ever tasted. She told me about her travels all over the world, how that was how she found inspiration — seeing new places, talking to strangers, visiting restaurants and open houses in other states and countries. That shifted us to talking about my place, and we walked around with wine in hand, me completely enamored as she spilled out the vision she had for each room.
She was brilliant.
And I was a smitten fool already.
What I loved most was when the conversation shifted to me, football didn’t come up once. We talked about Broadway, about movies, about music, about what it was like growing up in Hawai’i. We even talked a little about how I liked to dabble in woodworking — which
