Reckless (Irresistible 6)

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. The fact that you played it pretty seriously in high school. The fact that you’re always watching a basketball game when I come over. Plus, I saw an absurdly tall stack of Lakers memoirs and books on the bottom part of your nightstand,” I said, smiling as I recalled the sight, along with the unexpectedly large number of dog-eared pages. “Kind of makes me wonder why you chose to represent baseball players instead of basketball.”

Adam raised his eyebrows, as if commending my observational skills. “I just did, I guess,” he finally said.

“Mm-hm. You realize that’s a total non-answer ever, right?”

“Yes. That was by design.”

I smirked. “Asshole,” I said just as our food came out—delivered by not only Heidi, but her two dogs trailing her, the smaller one much farther behind, but trucking along. It was a chihuahua mix that was half-blind, but it still made its way over to Adam, immediately sitting at his feet.

“Yeah, Rocky can’t see, but he knows he loves Adam,” Heidi laughed when I visibly melted at the sight. She then proceeded to crack me up with stories I never knew, namely about how Adam often walked the dogs before going to work. And as she went on, I realized just how much I didn’t know about this man.

Once upon a time, I thought I had him all figured out. I’d spent nearly every day of the past five years with him. I couldn’t remember a day where we didn’t talk at least once. I knew secrets no one else knew, could anticipate his every need at work, so I clearly knew him inside out. Right?

Wrong.

So incredibly wrong, I thought, because it was more than clear to me now that there was more to Adam Maxwell than I could have ever imagined. And as I watched him talk and smile with the staff at Gizzy’s, his eyes crinkling adorably through his laughter, I found myself wanting to know everything.

Needing to, really.

With a smile on my face, I arched an eyebrow at him once Heidi left.

“So, kids, check. I’m guessing dogs are in your future too?”

“Oh yeah,” he replied, taking a big bite of his food before he looked at me with a curious twinkle in his eye. He finished chewing before he asked, “You too, right?”

“Of course,” I replied.

His lips turned up with satisfaction.

“Good,” he said.

And for the next few seconds, we just nodded in silence, our eyes quietly glimmering on each other as some kind of wordless acknowledgement swirled in the air between us.

But when he broke into a full grin, I had to look away, because I couldn’t let him have a head-on view of me actually blushing.

Easy, I told myself, trying to remind myself not to overanalyze his remark.

But with the way he was looking at me—the way he’d been looking at me all morning—it was pretty hard not to.

And… yep. You are officially fucked, I thought, taking a long pull of my drink from my straw, because I knew what was happening right now.

I was falling for this man. So fast and hard that at this point, nothing could stop me.

I was certain of it.

28

ADAM

Standing in Engelman’s office, I thanked God for the fact that it was a pretty full room.

Because I couldn’t take my eyes off of her this morning.

Not the biggest surprise.

Even if she didn’t look fucking stunning today with her hair gathered in a bun, and her body wrapped in a cream-colored top and hip-hugging pencil skirt, I’d still be having trouble tearing my eyes off of her.