“Oh, my gosh! I knew it!” Her squeal was so loud, I had to move the phone away from my ear. “Well, not ‘it’ exactly. Just that Nix was being cagey for a reason. I don’t think I ever would’ve guessed this! Not with how you two are always at each other’s throats. I thought your bickering was more like siblings, but it’s been masking the sizzling chemistry between you all this time? And you never said a word?!”
Eyes widening, I came to an abrupt stop. I was lucky not to get knocked over by the flow of foot traffic surrounding me. Darting to the side so I wasn’t in the way of everyone, I hissed, “You didn’t know?”
“Nope, my brother gave me some lame excuse about wanting to check in on you after your blind date.” She snorted. “As if I would buy that story when he knows that Jordan would never do anything to hurt you. He played a whole season with him. He knows how good of a guy Jordan is. And all it would take is one little quiver of my bottom lip to get Prentice to kick his butt if he so much as looked at my best friend wrong. Which Nixon definitely knows, so there was no logical reason for my brother to be worried about you enough that he called me to check on you when he couldn’t reach you himself.”
“You tricked me,” I cried.
“Of course, I did,” she boasted. “What else was I supposed to do with my brother acting so weird and refusing to give me any details about why he was so anxious to get ahold of you? He seemed almost frantic because you weren’t answering his calls or texts.”
I really wished I’d had the chance to read the texts I’d spotted from him in my notifications. Then maybe I’d know why he called his sister this morning when he couldn’t reach me.
“Frantic?” I echoed in disbelief. Even after last night, it was hard to picture Nixon that worked up over me.
She sounded exasperated as she said, “I’m not sure what else to call it. He kept going on and on about how your phone was going straight to voicemail, badgering me until I told him where you were.”
I couldn’t think of a good reason he needed to get ahold of me so badly this morning. I’d left without giving him a heads-up, but I didn’t think there was a morning-after rule where you had to say goodbye before leaving. Not unless you were in a committed relationship, which we weren’t.
“I’m so sorry you got stuck in the middle of this.”
“You don’t need to apologize for that,” she assured me. “Now that I know why he was looking for you, I don’t mind at all. I just wish you would have shared all of this with me when you called this morning. Then I could have given my brother a harder time before I put him out of his misery.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Okay, then I guess I’m just sorry that I didn’t tell you about the feelings I’ve had for your brother ever since we met.”
She gasped at my confession. “I was right? Your bickering really was a cover for how into my brother you were all this time?”
“Yes, but only because he never acted like he returned my interest,” I grumbled. “I never would’ve kept it from you this long otherwise.”
“Dang.” She let out a low whistle. “You did a great job hiding how you felt. I seriously never would have guessed. I thought you could barely stand to be in the same room together.”
“That was kind of the point. Being around him was hard when I thought he didn’t want me,” I admitted softly.
“It was probably a good call on your part if you were trying to stay away from Nixon. Instead of pushing you together, I was careful about how often I invited you to stuff when I knew he was going to be around.”
“Just be prepared to maybe keep doing that depending on why he’s looking for me. Things could be even more awkward between us when I get back,” I warned. “Which will put you right back in the middle, but not in a fun way.”
“Ugh, he better not break your heart,” she growled. “I love my brother, but I’ll have no problem siccing my husband on him if I have to.”
I really hoped it didn’t come to that, or else I just might ask Prentice to knock some sense into Nixon. After how amazing our night together was, I couldn’t imagine going back to how things were between us before.
8
Nixon
The flight was longer than I remembered. Or maybe it was just that I was too worked up to sit in a tin can for a few hours. Once I could afford it, I always splurged on first class when I flew. But that was mainly because I was a big guy, and even the fancy seats could feel a little cramped at times. Especially when I was so anxious to land.