16. Emily

EMILY

What didI get myself into?

I wasn't thrilled with the way he'd pushed for a date and had my suspicions of whether he really needed an editor or just an excuse to talk to me. But I'd already agreed, and he was the brother-in-law of a good friend, so I'd make the best of it.

And if nothing else, the good bread with the oil plate Mikayla had mentioned sounded great.

A real date with Alex or anyone else didn't appeal to me, and that was a problem. I still had so many feelings for Jesse—feelings I was fairly sure were mostly, if not all, reciprocated. Whatever had been between us in the past remained in the present, but that didn't mean we had a real chance now.

I'd edited enough romance books with the "right person, wrong time" storyline, and it was always so glorious when it came full circle in the end. Our full circle was much different and not as romantic.

The love was still there and neither of us was going anywhere, yet life still kept us apart. I was happy to have him in my life as a friend, but asking or hoping for more seemed a pointless exercise in futility.

Alex was nice enough and very attractive, at least in a conventional sense. He didn't have the soulful brown eyes, a smile that liquefied my knees, or know enough about me from all that time ago to be one of the few to really know me now.

I parked my car, practicing an easy smile in the mirror behind my visor, and climbed out of the driver's seat. When I turned around to click the key fob, goose bumps pebbled on my neck, as if eyes were on me from somewhere. Six o'clock had become a darker twilight in late October, and although the parking lot was full, no one appeared to be near or in their cars. The eerie dark silence sent a weird shiver up my spine.

I let out a long exhale. I was being ridiculous and needed to get a grip. Maybe working from home had given me a little paranoia, but I slid my key in between my fingers just in case my odd instincts were right and I needed to jab someone in the eye.

"Ready for your date?"

I froze, my head swiveling around to Jesse's voice. He cocked an eyebrow from where he leaned against the front of my car, arms crossed as if he'd just caught me doing something wrong.

Granted, that was another odd feeling I had in meeting Alex tonight, but Jesse had no right to regard me that way.

"What are you doing here?"

Jesse came toward me, his slow footsteps echoing in the empty lot.

"My niece told me the time and place since Alex decided to announce in front of a team of kids where he wanted to take you, and here I am."

"Yeah, I got that. But why?"

"You know why. We both do."

"No, I actually don't," I huffed, crossing my arms over my torso to create some distance between us. "You have made it very clear that we are only friends. And I get it and understand why. But what I still don't get is why you're here. You don't want me, but I can't date anyone either. Does that seem fair to you?"

He flinched. "Is that what you think? After everything last weekend, you still think friends is all I want?"

"I really don't know what you want. We have—" I pointed my finger back and forth between us "—chemistry. Old feelings, history. But you can't get all possessive when you've made it clear for a very long time that we can't be together."

I hadn't realized until I growled out the very that my frustration with Jesse went beyond this pseudo-friendship we had. It was still him deciding what we could or should be together—and being without a say still infuriated me.

"Look, I have plans tonight. We can talk about this later."

He stepped in front of me.

"Chemistry and old feelings." He uttered a humorless laugh. "You want to know why I'm here? Because for what feels like my whole goddamn life, I've given up the only woman I've ever really loved for stupid fucking reasons, and I'm done."

"Because someone asked me on a date, now you're done? Everything is different." I took in air with shaky breaths, like what he'd just said hadn't knocked the wind out of me. "I can't deal with this now. We'll talk about it later."

I tried to go inside but couldn't move past the angry wall of Jesse.

"Please just go," I whispered, darting my eyes from his piercing stare.

He shook his head, skimming his thumb back and forth along my bottom lip. "I'm not asking this time."

Jesse grabbed the back of my head and crushed his lips to mine. I pressed my hands against his shoulders to push him back, but once he flicked the seam of my lips with his tongue, I stopped fighting and melted against him.

"So good," he murmured against my lips, pressing me to him with one hand on the small of my back, while he wove his other into my hair, wrapping his fingers around a fistful. "Nothing ever compared to this."

Nope. Nothing did, and it messed with my head for what seemed like my whole goddamn life.

I poured all the love I didn't want to feel, along with the anger of tonight, twenty years ago, and all the time in between, into that kiss. The kiss on his bed had been full of desperation from two people who'd always wanted to love each other but hadn't known how.

It used to be so easy to love Jesse. The hard part came when I had to figure out how to stop.

But as it turned out, I never had.

Teeth scraped, tongues tangled, Jesse's guttural moan egging me on as I ran my hands all over his body.

Time stopped, and the rest of the world faded away as it always had where Jesse was concerned. The parking lot had seemed empty, but that didn't mean there weren't eyes on us from somewhere. I didn't and couldn't care, and that was what scared me most of all being back in Jesse's arms.

When we finally broke apart, I ran my hand over my swollen lips and the raw scrapes on my chin from his stubble.

"I'll go," he panted, framing my face. "I'm alone for the night. You can come to me, or I'll meet you wherever you want." He pressed his lips to my forehead and rained kisses over my eyelids and cheeks.

I dropped my head into my hands, taking easy breaths through my nostrils to slow the rapid thump of my heart.

I already felt bad for Alex. I was the world's shittiest date, and I hadn't even walked into the restaurant yet.

Heading back to my car on shaky legs, I stepped inside and pulled down the visor. I grabbed some fast-food napkins out of my glove compartment and wiped away my smeared lipstick. My lips were swollen and the skin around my chin was angry and irritated from beard burn, but I tried my best to cover it with powder and some gloss.

"Hey, sorry I'm late," I said, breathless, when I spotted Alex at the table.

"No worries. You're only five minutes late." His easy smile as he pulled out my chair made the guilt twist that much harder in my gut.

"Oh, that's not necessary," I said, waving a hand as I sat down. "Thank you."

"Beautiful women should be treated nicely." He cocked a brow as he sat down.

"Thank you again." My lips burned as I pushed a smile across my mouth. Burning from my ex-boyfriend shoving his tongue down my throat in the parking lot. This was a date that I had been put on the spot to accept from a guy I wasn't that into, but shame washed over me anyway.

"I should be thanking you. I know it was spur-of-the-moment."

"Well, maybe next time don't have those moments in front of kids. Kids who love to talk like my players do. It's not a big deal, but I don't want the parents to get a bad impression, and your sister-in-law wouldn't want that either. She's little but scary."

"We all know that." He chuckled as the waitress brought the bread to the table.

The steam from the flaky crust wafted toward me as she poured the flavored olive oil into a shallow bowl next to the basket. Thank God.

"I had no idea you were in publishing."

"Editing," I corrected around a mouthful of bread. "The article highlighted the more well-known authors I work with, so it made it sound like I was in publishing. I did work for a large publishing company out of college, but I like being on my own. What do you do for a living?"

"Finance. Stocks, that kind of thing. My book is about baseball, but I only have about twenty chapters. I'd love to have someone look at it, but I don't know who I'd give it to."

"Well," I said, clearing my throat after I swallowed. "I'm slammed, and my schedule is booked for the next few months. I don't even get the chance to read for pleasure lately. I can ask some friends if they could fit it in."

"Sure, that sounds fine. The book was just my conversation starter. Asking you out to dinner on the field felt a little odd. Especially since Penny told me not to."

I stopped swirling my second piece of bread in the puddle of olive oil.

"She told you not to?"

He smirked and bobbed his head. "She said you and one of the parents on the team had a history that she wasn't sure was current or not. I think I know which one since he always looks like he wants to take a swing at me when I ref a game."

A chuckle fell from my lips. "Jesse is my high school boyfriend. We recently reconnected when he signed his niece up for the league."

"His niece? I thought he was one of the dads."

"He is. It's complicated."

As was every other damn thing when it came to Jesse.

Small talk wasn't bad. Alex was confident but maybe not as full of himself as I'd assumed. He was funny and even a little charming. I caught myself staring at him between bites of my shrimp scampi. How much easier would my life be if I were into this guy instead of the one who'd been waiting for me in the parking lot earlier tonight?

Jesse seemed sincere, but being sincere and putting the action to the words were two very different things. The best thing for me would be just to move on, with Alex or someone else.

But I knew I wouldn't. Maybe I could've pushed myself to go through the motions with someone else like I'd done for the past couple of hours, but my heart? That wouldn't budge.

I had been stuck on the same person for more years than I'd wanted to acknowledge, and that kind of helplessness pissed me off.

"I'll let you know if I can find someone to take a look at your book." My pulse raced as Alex walked me to my car. Not because I wanted him to kiss me, but I wasn't sure how to react if he did.

Plus, it'd been a lot of years since I'd kissed two guys in one night, at least without copious amounts of alcohol in my system.

"No rush. It's probably a dumb premise anyway."

"The Yankees are never a dumb premise." I smiled as I leaned against my driver's side door. "Thanks for dinner."

Alex leaned in, and I froze, fighting the urge to draw back from what I knew was coming. I expected his lips to land on mine, but they shifted at the last minute as he brushed them against my cheek.

"This was nice." He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I'd be open to doing this again, but…" He trailed off and shrugged.

"But what?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "I hope Jesse knows what a lucky guy he is. Drive safe."

I smiled, not having it in me to voice a denial that would sound hollow even to my own ears. After I opened the car door and locked it, I dropped my head to the steering wheel.

Hadn't I wanted this at one time? Jesse had come back into my life and told me he wanted me again, as I'd always dreamed he would. I'd wished for it even though I'd known it would never happen. So I'd grown up and moved on, making myself the priority in my life so I'd never be in that awful position again.

Yet, somehow, I was here anyway. The only difference was that this time, I had a choice.

But when it came to Jesse, it wasn't so easy to choose me.