Relapse

I know why the question comes out slightly awkward but I try to ease his nerves, by answering quickly and keeping my voice. “Just my sister, Kylie, who passed.”

He nods before changing the topic. “Chase tells me he saw a cookbook at your house-”

I groan before he can even get the full sentence out. “Some of us aren’t chefs.”

He laughs. “But one of us is, and I’m way better than a cookbook, so if you ever need some pointers, you know where to find me.”

I don’t ask why Chase brought up the cookbook or ask if he told him about the breakdown but I do wonder how I came up between them.

We continue to chat and I barely notice when we pull up outside of Jamille’s house. “I’ll be right back,” I tell him before moving up to the house and ringing the doorbell. It doesn’t take Jamille long to answer the door.

She shakes her head. “I’m disappointed you’re already done with the date, I guess you didn’t get any after all, unless it was a quickie?” She smirks and raises a brow.

“There was no sex, Jamille.” I grin when her face falls.

“Boring. How about a kiss?” She leans in, waiting on juicy details.

“Technically the date isn’t over yet,” I tell her, discreetly gesturing to the running car.

Her lips part slightly and her brown eyes widen. “Then you better be a naughty girl and get some tongue action.” She starts making obscene tongue motions and I laugh.

“Stop it, and give me my kids, woman.”

She only laughs as she moves into the house to gather the kids. When she comes back, she’s holding a sleeping Lilly and a disappointed Tanner walks beside her. “They were angels,” she tells me as she passes Lilly over. “I’ll grab the car seat.”

“Is that Coach Nathan?” Tanner perks up slightly at the sight of Nathan’s car.

“Yes.”

“Awesome.”

I only shake my head as we make our way back out to the car. When Nathan sees Jamille with the car seat, he gets out of the car and takes it from her, “I got it.”

I walk him through how to get the seatbelt through the back of the car seat and it doesn’t take long for him to figure it out. Once it’s secure, he takes Lilly from me and buckles the seat up which doesn’t take him nearly as long as it took me the first time. Tanner slides in the back and we bid Jamille a goodnight.

The whole drive home, Tanner chats with Nathan about baseball and I take it as the end of the date, but I don’t mind as I listen to them. Tanner’s enthusiastic and Nathan listens to him closely. When we get home, Nathan helps me get Lilly inside and Tanner retreats to his room with a goodbye to Nathan.

“Thank you,” I tell Nathan as he places Lilly in her bed and I reach over him to pull the covers over her little body.

“It’s no problem.” He smiles at me.

“Let me walk you out.” It’s silent with only the noise of Tanner’s TV in the distance as I walk him to the door.

When we get to the porch, Nathan turns and gives me one of those full smiles that reveals crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes. “I enjoyed this and I look forward to the next one.”

“Me too.” And it’s true, because while I was slightly apprehensive before the date started, I truly enjoyed myself.

Just like lunch with Emmet.

I quickly push the thought away.

There’s a small hesitance but after a moment, Nathan takes a step forward. He places a gentle hand on my cheek as he leans down to press his lips to mine.

It doesn’t include tongue like Jamille demanded, but it still brings butterflies to my stomach, a fluttering to my chest, and makes my head spin. It’s short and sweet and when he pulls back I almost reach up and pull him back to me. Instead, I decide I’ll save it for next time.

His hand moves to brush a flyaway piece of hair behind my ear and he offers me a small smile. “Goodnight, Ivy.”

“Goodnight.”

My heart is still fluttering in my chest when I close the door.