Chapter 2

I look down at my watch, then up at the ten or so people in front of me at Mila's Sweet Kisses food truck. I was running late this morning already, and I should have skipped my usual stop at the food truck, but I can't help myself. Today would be the day that things are moving slow.

I scan the line in front of me again and then the line snaking behind me. There're no more customers than usual, but each order is taking a little bit longer.

I lean around the woman standing in front of me and pushing a stroller. The woman taking orders at the counter is blond, so she might be new. My heart sinks. Is Layla not working today? I consider skipping out and just heading to the facility. I even have one foot out of line, ready to jog back to my Bronco, and I stop. Maybe Mila hired a second employee and Layla is here.

It's pathetic, but I can't take the chance.

Almost as pathetic as thinking that today could be the day I work up the courage to ask her out. I might play for a pro football team, but it's not like my name is on everyone's lips the way they talk about Eli Dash or Mark Travis. It's also not like being a football player automatically makes me confident with women, especially stunning women like Layla Delaford. Add in the fact that Layla is also kind and confident, it's a wonder I can even speak words in front of her.

The words are usually very well thought out, too. Things like "Half a dozen sugar cookies, please," and "Oh, those chocolate cupcakes look amazing. I'll take three."

Come on, Linc. How hard is it to add, "Are you busy tonight?"

Really, incredibly hard.

I look at my watch again. I'm not one to throw my position around for special treatment, but I'm tempted to sneak up to the back door and play the friends card to get out of here quicker. That would mean not getting to talk to Layla, since she's almost always handling customers up front while Mila bakes and preps orders.

The line moves forward by three or four people, and I get close enough to see the chalkboard announcing the specials. Mila's got cinnamon rolls today, and the sugary-cinnamon smell wafts past me. Decision made.

When I get closer to the window, I see that while there is a new girl working today, Layla sits on the opposite end of the window. Her baby isn't strapped to her chest in the wrap she wears sometimes, so she must be in the car seat inside the truck. One thing I know from my almost daily visits to this food truck is that Margot is basically an honorary employee at Sweet Kisses.

Layla finishes with her customer, and since I'm next in line, she waves me over.

She smiles when I step up to her side of the window. "Morning, Lincoln."

"Morning, Layla. How are the cinnamon rolls this morning?" It's lame as far as small talk goes, but it's something that will keep me here a few seconds longer than just ordering.

Layla leans forward. "If you give me three minutes, hot ones will be out of the oven," she says in a low voice.

I don't have three extra minutes, but I agree anyway. "Of course. I'll take half a dozen."

She looks me up and down, and I try not to change anything about my relaxed, hands-in-my-pockets posture. I definitely don't flex my arms a little bit. That's just a natural part of taking them out of my pockets to fold them casually over my chest.

"I need your secret, Lincoln," she says, shaking her head as she taps on the tablet in front of her. "How you can order sweets every day and still look like that is a mystery to me."

Flirty words push into my brain. Something like, Look like what exactly, Layla? with a knowing look or something.

Instead, I force a smile and say, "I gotta keep some secrets." Mentally, I face-palm. Today is not the day that I ask Layla out.

I glance behind her to see that Margot is playing in some kind of toy that allows her to bounce up and down and has different toys attached that make noise and spin on the tray in front of her. She's also got a slight smear of chocolate across her cheeks, and she's grinning widely. I can't help but grin back.

"She's getting so big," I say, almost without thinking. I wish I'd kept my mouth shut. I don't want Layla to get any wrong ideas about how I feel about her being a mother, and I didn't think that comment through enough to know how it came off. Does she think I'm weird for paying attention to her daughter? Did it sound like now that she's getting bigger, I'm more interested in her mom?

Layla nods, still smiling, so that's a good thing. "I can't believe how fast it's going. One second she's been crying so long I'm sure it will never end, and the next she's up on her hands and knees, rocking like she's going to start crawling." She looks back at Margot, a thoughtful smile on her face.

"I bet." I have no idea what to say next. I'm not a father. As an only child, I don't even have nieces or nephews or anything. And none of my close friends have kids either, except for Mark Travis, and when I hang out at his house, I wrestle around with his older boys.

Layla preempts me having to think of something by giving me the total for the cinnamon rolls, and I pull my phone out to tap it against the tap-to-pay box next to her tablet. I tip her generously, like I always do. I did a bunch of research (i.e. had several probably weird conversations with waitresses) about what was too much and what would be just right. I worked it out to a percentage just so I wouldn't have to think about it every single time I come.

"Thanks, Lincoln." She beams at me, and every dollar is worth it for that look. "I'll have those right out to you."

I reluctantly sidestep. I wish I could somehow turn my brain off and go into auto-mode when I'm around her. Like if I could have some sort of program that made me charming and thoughtful and interesting and I didn't have to think. That's kind of how it is with football. I've been doing it so long, I react automatically to most situations now. There are surprises, of course, when I have to think on my feet, but even then, my brain seems to work twice as fast as it does when I'm around Layla.

On the dot, three minutes later, Layla waves me back to the window and hands out a pink Sweet Kisses box. "See you tomorrow," she says.

And, of course, I will.

I don't havetime to drop off the cinnamon rolls to Mrs. Van Buren. She's a die-hard Rays fan I met at a service day, but not by accident. I made sure her assisted living community building was included in the adopt-a-grandparent day that the Rays did. She showed up probably for the same reason I finagled her invitation: a week after my grandpa died last year, we found letters between the two of them in the false bottom of a drawer in his home office. Grandma had already been dead a few years, but the letters dated back over ten years. It floored me and my mom and dad. Dad doesn't talk about it, but I'd spent a lot of time with Grandpa when I moved out to California from the east coast to go to college and then stayed to play with the Rays. I'd always had a close bond with him, but being each other's only family nearby made our relationship even closer.

So finding out he had a mistress, and I was suddenly living in some Hollywood drama, flipped some things upside down. I wanted to get a look at the woman, see if I could get some closure. But somehow I ended up with a strange adoptive grandma, and we dance around how she knew my grandpa. I don't have any closure, and now I can't decide if it's okay that I like her so much. So I just focus on her being a good place to drop off all the sweet treats I don't eat from the bakery and ignore the rest.

Don't ask me why I waited three extra minutes for hot cinnamon rolls that will not be hot by the time I deliver them to Mrs. Van Buren this afternoon. I cross my fingers and hope that none of the guys I know well on the team are there when I show up late for my session with one of the team physical therapists. It's Tuesday, so we have the day off, but I like to get in some time with the PT on Tuesdays to keep my body loose for the hard practices that will come the rest of the week. It's only the beginning of the season, but as it wears on, I'll need these sessions more and more.

Luck isn't with me today. Three of the guys I'm closest with on the team are in the training room when I arrive: Eli Dash, Anthony Hurley, and Mark Travis. Eli is the Rays' starting quarterback, earning that position out from under Tucker Jones after working hard last season and Jones never being the same after a hamstring injury in the pre-season last year. Anthony is an all-star receiver, the basis that Coach built his offense around when the Rays started rebuilding last season. Mark Travis is a veteran tight end and my mentor. I've been with the Rays since I was drafted out of college six years ago, and Mark has spent his entire career with them too. He's loyal, and it makes him the father figure to a lot of young guys even though he's only in his mid-thirties.

"Knight!" they all chorus as I walk in, and I wave, crossing my fingers they won't realize I'm not here at my usual time on Tuesdays. Eli's got his head down on one of the padded tables while a massage therapist works on his lower back, so maybe he doesn't even know what time it is.

"Hey, guys." I drop my bag into a pile with theirs and look around the room.

Presley Tatum, the team physical therapist, walks out of an office in the back of the room. "Hello, Mr. Knight. Thanks for joining us." She arches an eyebrow.

Busted.

She points to another padded table, and I slip out of my shoes, leaving them next to my bag, to join her. "Sorry," I mutter.

"Traffic?" she asks. She's smiling. Presley might be taking out all her pent-up rage on poor pro football players, but she's a big softie in reality.

I grunt a noncommittal answer. I don't want to lie, and to be honest, traffic was good for LA today. One of the reasons I was only thirty minutes late and not, like, an hour or more.

"Things were busy at the bakery truck this morning?" Eli calls from his table.

Heat dumps into my cheeks. I lie down on the table, staring at the ceiling as Presley starts stretching my feet and calves. "A little bit," I mumble.

Anthony, Mark, and Eli all chuckle. Presley looks confused.

"Linc has a daily ritual—" Anthony begins.

"It's not daily!" I protest.

They all laugh louder, and though she's still confused, Presley's grin widens at the teasing.

"His good luck is due to the fact that he's a regular at Eli's sister's bakery truck," Anthony finishes, smirking.

Presley furrows her eyebrows, glancing between me and the other guys. We're all usually here at the same time on Tuesdays, so she knows most of the gossip. "I thought Eli's sister was engaged."

"Happily so," Eli says, his voice muffled. "But her best employee is not."

"Did you ask her out today?" Mark Travis asks. The other PT, Marshall Boyd, is working on his knee, which has been acting up again.

I turn back to the ceiling. "The line was around the block this morning, guys. It wasn't a good time."

They all howl with laughter now, and even Presley is silently chuckling.

"There's no way she's going to turn you down," Presley says, in what I'm sure she thinks is an encouraging voice. "You're a star athlete, you're handsome, you're pretty smart …"

"Oh, there's a way," Eli says. He turns over so the massage therapist can work on his neck and shoulders. He winces as the therapist pinches into the top of one of his shoulders. "Sorry, Linc," he says with a commiserating glance at me. "But Layla is committed to the single life. She got burned big time. It's going to take some work for our boy here to convince her he's more than his good looks, which she fell for before."

Presley winces. "I see. Well, I think she'd be crazy to turn you down, Linc."

I chuckle too, but it's forced. "Thanks." I've had this discussion with Eli before. My crush on Layla Delaford is anything but secret among these guys. I've accepted more invitations than I can count to Eli's house in hopes of winning Layla over—or I guess, more correctly, working up the courage to win her over.

"If there's anyone who knows it's about sticking in there when things seem tough, it's Eli." Mark looks up and grimaces as Marshall works his knee. "And I'm not just talking football."

We all laugh. Eli definitely had to be patient before he ended up with his wife, Court.

"Just stick around, Linc," Eli says. "That's what Layla needs to see you can do."

"Mmm-hmm," I murmur, tensing against one of Presley's more intense stretches. As if I could do anything other than stick around. I'm head over heels for Layla, and I don't see anything changing that in the near future.