“I have a few minutes between clients now.” I don’t know that I can take three more hours of this kind of torture.

“I don’t wanna do this here.”

“None of this is reassuring, Lance. You showing up like this, the call this morning, the secrecy. You get that, right?”

“I do. I get it. I know I’m stressing you out. I just want enough time to explain.”

His anxiety is enough to make me concede. “You can meet me at my house, if you want.”

“Can I take your phone?”

I raise a brow, and he closes his eyes for a moment. “Okay. Sorry. That was a stupid thing to ask. Should I wait outside or—” He bites his lip.

Against my better judgment, I relent. “Let me get my keys for you.”

I grab them from my purse. When I turn back, his hands are jammed into his pockets. I dangle the keys from my finger.

He takes my hand and the keys and brings my knuckle to his lips. “I missed you.”

I stare up at him, trying to decide if I’m an idiot for doing as he asks. I missed him too, but telling him that now doesn’t seem like an option.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Will you still wait for me?”

“Yes. I’ll wait for you.”

When he leans in to kiss me, I give him my cheek. His lips linger there anyway.

I arrive home at 5:09. Lance is sitting on the front steps. He’s showered and changed since I saw him earlier. He’s wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt that makes his pale eyes look even paler, and a bouquet of flowers and bag of Jelly Babies sit on the stoop beside him. He stands, running his hands down his denim-covered thighs. He reaches down and grabs the gifts.

“Did the key not work?”

“It did. I wanted to be out here when you got home.” He holds out the flowers.

“Is this to soften the blow?” I try to make it come out light, but it doesn’t. The waver in my voice is far too telling.

Lance winces as if my words cause him physical pain. I realize maybe they do, because his reality as a child was exactly that.

I take the flowers and start to move past him to open the door, but he gets there first, twisting the knob, then stepping out of the way. He follows me through to the kitchen where I set the flowers on the counter.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Just water, please.” His fingers move to his mouth. He stops himself and jams them back in his pockets.

Neither of us speaks as I fill two glasses with ice and water, pushing one toward Lance. Leaving the flowers on the counter, I dig around in my purse until I find my phone.

“Do you want to have a seat?” I motion to the living room.

My stomach is a churning mess. I haven’t eaten a thing today. My mouth is dry, and I want to get this over with so I can handle whatever is coming at me.

“Do you want to change first or anything? I know you’ve had a long day.”

“I just want to have this conversation.”

“Right. Aye. Okay.” Lance sits in the middle of the couch, forcing me into close proximity.

I angle my shoulders toward him, but keep my knees far away from his. I take a sip of water, but my stomach revolts even against that, so I set it down on the table and grip my phone with both hands.

Lance takes a huge gulp of water before he sets the glass down and turns to me, his expression reflecting my fear. “So you know that woman I was involved with a while back?”

My body feels like it’s going numb and hyper-activating at the same time. “The complicated one.”

“Yeah. It was. It is.”

“Is? As in still?” The conversation I overheard the night before he left, which has been plaguing me the entire time he’s been gone, plays through my head. I hate that I didn’t confront him about it then.

He nods. His palms smooth up and down his thighs again. I want to put my hand over his to stop the action, because it makes me even more nervous.

“She lives in LA.”

A chill runs down my spine. “Where you played last night.”

“Aye.”

“And she was there?”

“I told her I didn’t want to see her, but she’s not so good at listening, and she used to work with the team, so she always comes by when we’re in town.”

“She worked with the team?” I don’t understand how he could’ve been involved with someone he worked with.

“We trained with her.”

“Isn’t that not allowed?”

“Yeah.” His head drops. “That’s part of the reason it was so complicated. Anyway, I went right up to my room after the game. I didn’t stop at the bar, ’cause I worried she’d be there.”

I try not to fidget with my phone. “But you ended up seeing her anyway?”

“She plays head games, Poppy. She pulls this shit all the time. She’s got issues. Worse than me.”

I want to tell him he doesn’t have issues, but that’s not true.

“So what happened?”

“By the time Rookie came up, I was already asleep. I tried to call you before I went to bed, but it was late here.” He reaches out like he wants to touch me, but when I jerk away; he retracts his hand, nodding like he understands my reluctance. “Anyway, he wasn’t alone when he came up.”

“He brought a girl with him?” I don’t ask any of the questions that spring to mind, like what was he planning to do, have sex in the bed next to Lance’s?