Imaginary Lines (New York Leopards 3)

It kind of delighted me, too, actually. I snuggled up to Abe when he sat down on my other side. “I like Rachael.”

He looked alarmed. “Rachael’s not altogether sane, you know.”

“Well, neither am I. So I suppose we’ll be good friends.”

He groaned. “Just what I need.”

I kissed him.

I liked being able to kiss him whenever I wanted to.

The ceremony was beautiful. I doubted Briana Harris had ever looked anything less than beautiful her entire life, but she positively dazzled today. She wore a strapless gown with a sweeping train. The bridesmaids all wore plum purple. For all that it was clearly an expensive wedding, it was relaxed and fluid. Ryan stood as best man. The five-year-old ring bearer decided he’d rather nap halfway down the aisle.

But even so, in the grand scheme of things, everything went off without a hitch. The bride glowed, the groom looked like he’d won the lottery and wasn’t sure how.

At the reception, we sat at the same table as Mike and Natalie, Dylan and Keith and their dates. When the music started, I pulled Abe out onto the dance floor. I almost giggled at all these huge men, so graceful and powerful on the field, and some of them without a clue how to dance.

Briana was a good dancer. Natalie was graceful. Rachael was the same level of bad as me, which meant we bobbed around with Bri’s teenage sisters and sang the words to songs loud and off-key. Rachael smiled at me approvingly. “Oh, you’re not bad. You can come to karaoke night.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t hold a tune!”

She threw back her head and laughed. “But you’re singing anyways, and that’s the whole point of karaoke.”

At the first slow dance, Abe whirled me away from the others. I leaned my head against his chest. “I like your friends.”

“You mean the crazy girls?”

“Yeah. They’re fun. I like the guys, too, but they’re usually a little aware I’m a reporter.” I pulled my head up, remembering something. “A few weeks ago, I was asking some of the guys about pregame rituals.”

He spun me out under his arm, and then back into his embrace. “Were you?”

“Yes. And they had something very funny to say about yours.” I tilted my head up. “That before each game, you get fined for wearing a bracelet.”

A warm, teasing smile lit his face. “That’s right.”

Bubbles started filling my chest. “And why do you do it?”

His hands were warm on the small of my back, and they swayed me back and forth in small circles as we flowed across the dance floor. “Well, you see, this girl made me a bracelet once.”

“A bracelet that girl may have once seen abandoned on your mother’s desk. What suddenly made it important?”

He outright grinned. “That may be right. But, you know, this girl had guts. And belief. She believed in me more than anyone else ever did, and she put herself out there. Bravest person I ever met, especially at a time when I needed to be brave.”

I stopped dancing, but we remained in the middle of all the other couples. I tilted my face up, almost close enough to kiss. “What does that mean?”

He was serious but not without humor. “It means I was moving across the country to a miserably cold city where I had no friends and everyone seemed together, and I was a clueless rookie on a team with legends. I needed to remember that someone believed in me. That someone had the courage to go after what she wanted, and that I needed to do the same.”

I dropped the pronoun. “I didn’t know that’s how you viewed it.”

“Tamar.” He brushed his lips against mine. “You’ve always been the most amazing person I know.”

I leaned my head back against his chest. I wasn’t sure if that was true.

But he’d kept my bracelet. That had to count for something.

Chapter Eighteen

That Thursday, before I’d really registered it, it was Thanksgiving.