Kit (Chicago Blaze 8)

I shrug. “He definitely wasn’t a super runner.”

“I looked him up on Facebook.”

Kit looked Zach up on Facebook? That catches me by surprise. “You looked him up?”

“Yep. That woman he’s with now isn’t half as pretty as you are.”

I scoop some tortilla chips out of the basket and put them on my plate, saying, “Okay, if we’re going to talk about Kelsey, I’m going to need some of these.”

“Kelsey? That’s her name?”

“Yeah. She’s a secretary at the ad agency he works at. And on the day our divorce was finalized, I walked out of the courtroom, crying, and there was Kelsey on a bench outside the courtroom in a wedding dress. They got married then and there, at the courthouse.”

Kit recoils. “Are you fucking serious?”

I nod. “I had to walk past his family and some of our friends who were there for the wedding. It was awful. Once of the worst moments of my life.”

“I’m sorry, Molly.”

“I shouldn’t have been surprised. Kelsey was all Zach talked about from the moment he started banging her in the copy room after hours.”

“While you were still married?”

“I didn’t know then that they were sleeping together, just that he talked non-stop about her.” I shove a chip in my mouth.

“Jesus, no wonder you’re so cynical,” he says, his brow furrowed.

“I got home from work one day and he told me she was the woman of his dreams and he wanted to divorce me as quickly as possible.”

Kit sits back in his seat. “He just hit you with that out of nowhere?”

“Yeah. I knew he wasn’t happy in the marriage, but I thought we were working on it.”

“What wasn’t he happy about?”

I can’t even look at Kit as I tell him. I know Zach was a sorry excuse for a husband, but I still feel self-conscious about it.

“Me. I didn’t like going out as much as he did. His friends didn’t like me. He said I was no fun and he felt like he was settling with me.”

“Hey,” he says softly.

I look up, meeting his gaze.

“I don’t like how upset you looked when you said that,” he says. “He’s an asshole. It’s not any more complicated than that.”

“Yeah, he is, but…remember how I was uncomfortable at the bar the other night, when my interviews were done?”

“I remember.”

“That’s who I am. I’m not like Mia Petrov, who can approach anyone and strike up a conversation for half an hour.”

Kit looks skeptical. “You’re so smart, though. I think you could hold your own with anyone, talking about anything.”

“It’s not about intelligence. I have social anxiety.”

There. I said it. Tears well in my eyes as I grab a chip and dunk it in the salsa bowl, wondering how Kit will process that bit of information about me.

“Okay,” he says. “So it’s not that you can’t hold your own, just that you’re not comfortable doing it.”

“I guess so. Zach wanted me to work through it by being more outgoing. He thought going out and meeting new people, and doing things with his friends’ wives would make me more extroverted.”

“And you hated it,” Kit rightly guesses.

“I hated it. It bothered me that he thought I needed to be “fixed” so I was like him. I don’t dislike myself.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Kit says, “I get it. You have no idea how much I get it.”

“You?”

“Not because of social anxiety, but…anyway, you’re comfortable with me, right? Do I give you any of those anxious feelings?”

Quite the opposite, but I don’t tell Kit that.

“No. It’s being in a big group with people I don’t know that stresses me out.”

“Good. I think you and I would be best in a one-on-one setting anyway.”

His tone is warm—loaded with meaning. I like it, but I can’t help remembering that Zach once felt that way, too.

“All the women I saw at the bar with the team the other night seemed really outgoing. It seems like kind of a requirement if you’re going to date someone famous.”

Kit shakes his head. “Not at all. Knox’s wife Reese hates going out. Even before they had kids, it just wasn’t her scene. She’s an early riser and she likes to keep busy.”

“I guess we can talk more about this later. We’ll see where things stand when the story comes out.”

“We can talk about it on our date.”

His tone is confident and boyish at the same time. Kit’s not a player. He’s genuine. And while I like him—a lot—I don’t know if I want to risk having my heart crushed for a second time.

“Maybe you won’t want to after you read my hard-hitting expose about you,” I say lightly.

He feigns being stabbed in the chest. “You found out I don’t sort my recycling, didn’t you?”

“Not only did I find out, I have photos of your bins,” I say, playing along. “The trash collectors are all standing there pointing at the glass, plastic and paper all mixed in together. One of them has a big tear rolling down his cheek.”