Chapter 25 Lottie

Chapter 25

Lottie

"How was lunch?" Nolan asked with that same smile that was there when he dropped me off. It was the kind of smile that turned women's heads and had them wondering how they'd get his attention so that he noticed them. So I actually felt lucky that his attention was just for me as he pulled his car away from the curb and toward the next part of my day that he'd planned.

Maybe Olivia was right, and I should stop getting in the way of myself.

"It was great. Olivia and Maggie mentioned you planned most of today?" I asked slyly, watching red slowly color the tops of Nolan's ears.

"They helped." Nolan's defense was a shrug of his shoulders, as if planning all of this for me was no big deal.

I decided to give him a break as I watched him turn the color of red wine and fidget under my gaze. "Where to next?"

The nervous set of his shoulders deflated at the change in topic. "The grocery store," he told me.

"What?" I asked, wondering if I heard him right.

"We're going to the grocery store." Nolan looked even more excited about this than the spa.

"Why?" His grin grew even wider at the hesitation in my voice.

"Because you never cook for yourself, and I always see takeout menus on your counter whenever I've been at your place. I want to teach you to cook an easy meal that you can manage after a long day."

Nolan was right. Most of the time, I was too tired to cook anything for myself after practice. This gesture almost meant more to me than the massage did. He clearly had a love for cooking, and he wanted to share that with me.

"I thought we could shop together for the ingredients and then go back to your place and cook it in your own kitchen. The next time you think about ordering takeout again when it's just you, you have another option." Nolan parked the car in a spot near the front of the parking lot. The two of us walked together into the store and I was hit once again with how normal it was to be doing this together.

But what stood out even more was how right it felt.

Nolan pushed the cart and began listing off the ingredients we would need as the two of us worked our way through the aisles of the store.

"Do you have any Cajun seasoning?" Nolan asked me as we turned into the spice aisle.

I opened my mouth to tell him that I only had the basics when the words died on my tongue. I was sure I was seeing a ghost at the other end of the aisle. It had been almost a decade since I'd last seen him, but I recognized him instantly. His beard was now salt and pepper and I remembered that I used to love watching him shave when I was little before I realized how cruel he truly was. The wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes had deepened since the last time I saw him. His hair had turned a silvery-white, no longer the color that mine was. He looked much more put together than the disheveled man I remembered from my childhood.

"Actually, I thought I saw a container of Cajun seasoning on an end cap," I told Nolan as I grabbed his arm and pulled him back out of the aisle before my father noticed us.

I had spent years dreaming about the day I might see him again and what that would be like—running into him in a grocery store in the spice aisle was not a scenario I had ever thought would be possible.

Nolan let out a small noise of protest, clearly confused by my erratic behavior, but still followed me out of the aisle. I grabbed the container of seasoning we needed that I had spotted near the self-checkout section and breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't ready to face the man who had ruined much of my childhood and changed who I was at my very core, especially not while I was with Nolan. The last thing I wanted was for him to see me flounder.

"Is that everything?" I asked him, my eyes darting back toward the spice aisle we'd just left.

"I think so," Nolan replied as he scrolled through his list on his phone.

A moment later, my father exited the spice aisle and began walking our way.

"Okay, great!" I exclaimed. "Let's check out."

Nolan gave me another strange look as I began pushing him toward one of the last open self-checkout registers before my father could reach us.

"Are you okay?"

I pasted a wide smile on my face as we pushed the cart up to the register to start scanning. "I'm great! So excited for this meal, that's all."

My father filed into the first checkout on the other side of the area we were in. I could see him over the shelves separating us. Memories of slammed doors, disappointed nights, and broken promises. I had always thought that the first time I saw him, I'd be brave enough to go up to him and give him a piece of my mind for how he had treated me and Olivia. But here I was, cowering and too afraid to even make eye contact. It had been nearly ten years, but he still had a grasp on my life that I hadn't realized.

"Ready?" Nolan asked once the receipt printed.

I nodded and took over pushing the cart back out to his car, wanting to put as much distance between myself and that man as possible.

Today was supposed to be a day for me, full of things that I loved, and he had no place in it.

"This is my favorite meal," Nolan told me as he stood in my kitchen with my only apron wrapped around his body, "Kiss the Chef" stamped across the front. It was a gift from Olivia last year that she laughed at for hours when I cooked Christmas dinner in it.

Nolan had walked me through the first steps of his buffalo chicken flatbread recipe that he swore by on lazy nights. The two of us worked together, Nolan leading while I completed the tasks that he gave me. He made me prepare most of the meal, so he was confident I knew how to do it.

"Now just sprinkle the cheese on and then drizzle some of the buffalo hot sauce on top of that." Nolan had guided me through the entire recipe with a steady, patient voice that made me feel calm and gave me the space to work without feeling like I was being judged. I could easily see how he would be a fantastic coach in the future.

"You're good at this," I told him.

Nolan opened the oven for me so I could slip the flatbread inside. "Cooking? I think I owe that to my mother. She wanted to make sure that my future wife never felt like that would be solely her job."

I laughed at the thought of a young Nolan working alongside his mother in the kitchen growing up, helping her prepare dinners and sparking his future love for cooking.

"Teaching," I explained.

Nolan lifted a shoulder, as if to say it wasn't a big deal.

"Not many people have that skill, Nolan, and some may be able to do it, but not everyone can do it well."

He grew silent as if he were thinking deeply. I wanted him to realize that he was great at many things besides throwing a football down a field and that he would be successful for many years to come.

"I've never had someone outside of my parents celebrate me in the same way that you do," Nolan told me as he slowly untied the apron he was wearing.

"No one?" I asked, thinking about how none of his past girlfriends had supported him.

Luckily Nolan saw where my train of thought was heading. "My ex-fiancée never actually cared about anything I was interested in if it didn't benefit her in some way."

Nolan's comments from our first run came back to the forefront—his ex was an ex for a reason, and I was sad that he had been with someone who wasn't his biggest supporter.

"Do you remember when I told you that I'd been distracted the week I got hurt two years ago?" I nodded.

"Rachel and I had been fighting that week. She had started to move her stuff out. It took up most of my time that week and I had barely stepped foot in the practice facility outside of practices before that game. The injury was the final straw in our relationship." Nolan had balled the apron up in his hands as he recalled the moments leading up to the day that had weighed the heaviest on his mind this season.

I reached over to squeeze Nolan's arm as I tried to bring his attention away from his own thoughts. I wanted to show him that he was moving forward and clearly in a better place now. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that."

Nolan gave me a sad smile. "Thanks."

"Do you want a glass of wine?" I asked to fill the lingering silence.

"Sure," Nolan agreed.

The silence stretched on as I poured two glasses of wine.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked as I slid his glass over to him.

Nolan traced his finger around the bottom of the glass for a few moments before he finally spoke. "I've had the best day with you."

My wine glass froze just before it reached my lips once I registered his words. The hard brown eyes that I saw the very first time I met him were nowhere to be seen. His eyes shined with a sincerity that had me fighting that voice inside of my head once again trying to sabotage the moment.

"I had the best day and that was all thanks to you." I set my wine glass down on the counter next to me and reached over to squeeze his forearm. Nolan looked down at my hand before raising his gaze back to mine.

"I know you want to wait before we explore whatever is going on between us."

I sucked in a breath and held it as I waited for what he would say next.

"But I would like to talk about what exactly is going on, like put a name to it."

The buzzer of the oven rang through my stunned silence and gave me a few more seconds to get my thoughts together. I grabbed a knife to cut the flatbread into pieces for both of us as Nolan went to sit at my kitchen table. His quiet patience felt like a weighted blanket attempting to calm me, but I was aware of its weight at every moment.

"What kind of name are you looking for?" I asked as I set both plates down on the table. Nolan gave me a soft "thank you" as he took it from me. I wished I could be like my sister in that moment and find some way to throw humor into the situation to make it feel a little bit lighter.

But I wasn't lighthearted and wild like my sister, I was responsible and cautious—and I avoided situations of unnecessary risk, much like the conversation that was unfolding currently.

Nolan let out a long sigh as he prepared himself for what he wanted to say next. "I like you, Lottie. And I don't care how many times I have to say it to you for you to believe me. More than any other person I've ever met. I don't know what that means necessarily because you don't want to get involved …" Nolan trailed off as I watched his steadiness devolve into distress.

My chest ached as I watched him struggle with putting his feelings out in the open and I wanted to ease some of his worries. I took a deep breath and tried to steady the nervous energy zipping through my body, narrowing my focus.

"I like you, too, Nolan." Nolan's gaze snapped up to meet mine, wide with surprise as if he hadn't expected me to feel the same way despite all that had happened between us thus far. "But we can't deny that our situation is complicated."

Nolan sighed and the look on his face was more defeated than after the Bobcats' only loss this season. His shoulders slumped forward, and he dropped his head into his hands.

"What are you wanting to establish from this?" I asked him. I hadn't expected this conversation to happen today, but I would be lying if I hadn't expected it to happen eventually. But I had gotten swept up in simply enjoying my time with Nolan and hadn't thought about labeling what exactly we were doing—which was very unlike me.

"I want to date you, Lottie," Nolan told me, his face serious. "But I want to respect your wishes, no matter how hard that is for me to do. Because if it were up to me, I'd have you on my arm right now as I proudly told the world that I'm yours. All I want is to be able to tell people that you're my girlfriend, but if we must continue as we are for the remainder of the season, I can live with that."

My breathing grew shallow as I tried to get my brain to function enough to craft a response. Nolan was the first person I'd ever dated where everything felt different. It was easy and comforting. He'd quickly become my favorite person to see during the day and the only person I wanted to tell when something good happened. He challenged me to be a better person and gave me a space in his life to make me feel like I belonged there with him.

But the truth was, it wasn't the fear of losing my job that was stopping me. It was the fear of being unlovable, of not being worthy enough for someone as great as Nolan Hill to want to be with me. The fear of losing my job was simply a cover for the more complex feelings I was avoiding.

"I just want to be extremely clear, Lottie," Nolan continued, those beautiful brown eyes boring into mine. "The second this season is over, we are going to be having this conversation again. I understand you want to wait till I'm retired and no longer a player. When that confetti falls from the ceiling of the stadium after we win the Super Bowl, you'll be the person I want to share it with."