Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

“I know.”

Mike looked shaken. I squeezed his hand. It wasn’t easy, finding out something you believed so strongly in hadn’t really existed. “He should have told you earlier.”

Kate exhaled. “It’s all in the past.”

To her, maybe. But looking at Mike’s face, I could tell it wasn’t in the past for him.

We barely spoke until we’d closed the door to his room. He sat down on his side of the bed and fell backward. I lay down from my side, so

that our heads touched each other. “It’s weird. Learning something about someone, when you thought you already knew everything.”

“Maybe it’s impossible to ever really know anyone.”

“But he was dead. He wasn’t supposed to change.” He reached his hand up, and I met it with my own. Our fingers tangled, his warm and strong. “I can’t imagine him loving anyone other than my mom. It feels wrong.”

I turned my head and smiled. “Because he had a life before her?”

He turned with a slight smile. He was upside down, his eyes turned the wrong way. “Okay, I’m being unfair. But I wish my mother had told me.”

“I guess she didn’t think it was any of your business. The nerve.”

He growled and then kissed me. Our lips met, upside down, almost unfamiliar, and then we were laughing and spinning and climbing on top of each other, seeking comfort and warmth and happiness.

* * *

On Friday it rained so hard there was no point going into the field. Drizzles were fine; deluges were not. Outside, the wind roared, like the inside of a seashell. I curled up against Mike’s chest and glared out our window. “Great. Now what?”

“I vote we stay in bed all day.”

“Vetoed. Too many people will know we’re having sex, and that’s embarrassing. Like my advisor. And your mother.”

He started to grin when I mentioned Jeremy, and then the smile flatlined. “Okay. Maybe not ideal.”

“I guess we can play more board games.”

“No. You cheat.”

Valid point. Two nights ago we’d been playing Stratego, and when it became obvious I was going to lose, I started moving the immobile bomb pieces.

Well, it made the game more interesting.

Someone pounded on the door. “Mike! Mike!” The knob rattled. “Open up!”

He groaned and rolled out of bed. “Go away, Anna.”

“Open! Now!”

He pulled the door open. “What?”

Anna threw herself on the loveseat, caught sight of me, and barely managed to restrain her eyes from rolling. “You have to drive me over to pub. The adults have been interrogating me for two hours about my college plans.”

Mike crossed his arms. “The pub where you’ve been underage drinking.”

She turned her eyes on me. “Natalie!”

I jumped up and headed for the shower. “Oh, hey. I am not part of this conversation.”

“Tell him it’s legal here!”