Still, my pulse rachets up to game on the line levels, and I can’t find my breathing rhythm to get it under control.

She takes two steps into the garden, lit only by a weak spotlight in the corner. “Are you okay?”

I thrust my hands through my hair. “Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

No, I’m not sure. She’s temptation in this happy package of curvy hips, perfect breasts, full lips, bright blue eyes, and the confidence that comes with belonging, though it’s not something she takes for granted or hasn’t worked to accept. She’s also completely off-limits because she’s my teammate’s sister, not nearly as annoying since she quit flirting with me, which is annoying all by itself, but not as annoying as wanting to kiss her and knowing I can’t.

Scratch that.

I can.

But I shouldn’t.

And the line between can and shouldn’t is the same line between fitting on the team that’s the closest thing to family I’ve ever had, and being all alone, on my own, with nothing but the cold, hard comfort of victory and money to keep me company.

Eighteen-year-old me thought victory and money would be enough.

I want to go back to that kid, hug him, tell him he was a fucking rock star for getting as far as he had already more or less on his own, and that he should make a few friends instead.

But I also wouldn’t listen if fifty-year-old me suddenly appeared and told me the same thing about myself today.

Just fuck.

One. Two. Three. Four.

One. Two. Three. Four.

“Max.”

“Why do you have to be too damn pretty?”

“I ask myself that every morning, and I still don’t have an answer.”

I jerk my gaze to her.

She smiles, and it’s like staring at Cooper.

All the way from her blue-eyed, cheerful smile right down to her cheeky answer.

Except she’s nothing like Cooper.

She’s Tillie Jean.

And she’s fucking perfect just as she is.

I blow out a hard breath, and it hangs in the air, a white puff of visible irritation in the night.

“We should screw around,” she says.

My dick leaps to attention, but the rest of me breaks out in a sweat. “No.”

“Why not?”

Jesus. “Because.”

“I’m a grown-ass woman who knows better than to think one night of fun means we have to get married, and you seem like you could go for blowing off some steam. Worst case? It’s awful for both of us and we never want to do it again.”

“That would be best case.”

She smiles again, which is not helping the blood flow to the brain. “I mean, best case would be that we didn’t want to do this at all.”

“I don’t want to do this.”

“You kissed me. You threw snowballs at me. You tried to kiss me again. You pranked me back. Max Cole, your problem isn’t that you don’t want to do this. Your problem is that you don’t want to want this, but you can’t help yourself.”

She’s right.

Fuck me with a rusty spoon. She’s right. “You’re off-limits.”

“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“No, it’s not.” She’s north and I’m a compass. The steel to my magnet. And for every step I order myself to take away from her, this invisible connection carries me two steps closer instead. “You’re family and happiness and belonging. You’re where you’re supposed to be. Doing what you’re supposed to do. I’m just passing through. Not here to disrupt anything or break anything. You’re off-limits.”

“I’m not a fragile flower, Max.” She’s not cross. Not yelling. Not sarcastic.

Not Tillie Jean.

She’s swaying her hips back and forth to music I can’t hear over the sound of her soft, hypnotic, Siren’s voice. “You can’t break me.”

“I break everything.”

“What, like three pint glasses? Half the town’s descended from pirates. We get drunk and break glasses all the time. Sometimes we break plates. Once we broke a whole parade float, but that was a freak accident.”

“People. I break people.”

“Who?” She plants her palms on my chest and peers up at me. She’s not short, but I still have at least six inches on her.

And no, that wasn’t a dick joke.

Fuck, I wish it was.

“Who have you broken, Max?”

“Me.”

Her eyes flare wide.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“Na,” I add. “Meena. Some chick I met at—”

Tillie Jean’s finger lands on my lips, and I cut myself off with a sharp breath.

“Let’s play a game,” she whispers. “We’re going to pretend we just bumped into each other in a park in the city, and I’m not related to anyone you know, and you’re not famous in sports circles, and we’re just two people who think the other is attractive.”

My brain short-circuits.

Okay, it doesn’t.

It flashes back to walking into Schwartz’s apartment, which was supposed to be empty, and hearing noises in the bedroom that turned out to be a topless Tillie Jean doing something to herself under those sheets that I very much wanted to be doing for her.

That’s about the same as short-circuiting.

Especially with her fingertips trailing down to stroke my jaw.

I lick my lips and stare down at her. “I don’t do pretend.”

“No? You’ve been doing a pretty good job of pretending you don’t like me.”

“Self-preservation and pretend aren’t the same thing.”

“The Fireballs aren’t going to trade you if you do something Cooper’s being a neanderthal about, and even if they do, you’ll kick ass wherever you go.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You don’t know that I don’t know that.”

I can’t track what that means, but I can track that she smells like French fries and apple pie, that I’m warmer just for being next to her—in the good way—and that I want to kiss her.

I want her happiness. I want her spirit. I want her fun. I want her.

“One night,” she whispers. “One night, Max, and then we see where we go from there. Cooper won’t find out. We’ll get this out of our systems. You’ll go back to being Mr. Growly Bear, I’ll go back to flirting with you, and everything will go back to normal. I’ll even pretend to be your sister if that’s what you need.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Sometimes we tell ourselves the easy lies to convince ourselves not to take the chances worth taking.” There’s that smile again. That smile is so damn addictive.

“I’m not good for you, Tillie Jean.”

“Your objections have been noted.”

Her fingers drift into my hair, her nails teasing my scalp, my nerve endings leaping up and partying like we’re at a rave, and I can’t do it anymore.

I can’t resist.

I can’t remember why I should resist.

She’s here.

She’s willing.

She’s eager.