He knew. “Professor X. You know, Professor Xavier.”

My neighbor—my friend—made the same choking sound he’d made back at my house when I’d called him Mr. Clean.

“Dallas?” a voice called from outside the bathroom.

Said man didn’t loosen his hold on me even as his upper body started shaking a little. “Yeah?”

“Game’s about to start,” someone who wasn’t Trip told him.

“All right. I’ll be out in a sec,” the man hugging me answered, his palm making a flat trek up my back to land between my shoulder blades before he slowly pulled back just enough to look down at me. “I need to go.” There was a pause. “And I’m not bald. I’m just used to having short hair.”

I didn’t say anything; I just sniffled.

Dallas reached up and touched my forehead with one of his thumbs briefly before snatching the cap off his head and settling it over my hair. The tips of his fingers brushed high over my cheekbones for tears that had disappeared by that point. “Go watch your boy.”

When I didn’t say anything, he tipped his head to the side and lowered his face until it was inches from mine, his expression so tight I swore he looked furious. “Where’s that person who gave me a stare down and asked me if I wanted to be friends with her or if she should fuck off, hmm?”

The corners of my mouth tilted up just a little, and it made his lips do the same.

He blinked and told me in that bossy, military voice, “Don’t leave.”

I swallowed and couldn’t help but duck my head for a moment.

“Don’t leave,” he repeated. One of those hands I’d admired a time or two came up and gently brushed my neck before dropping away. “I’ll talk to Josh after the game, but if you guys wanna quit, I can’t stop you. I’ll talk to Christy. We don’t treat each other like that here.” His thumb moved up to touch right beneath my chin. “I don’t want you to go anywhere if that means anything, Peach.”

This smooth motherfucker was killing me. How? How was he single? How could his wife be such a dumbass? What could he have done to ruin a marriage? I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t.

The thought came to me as forcefully as the one the last time we’d seen each other had, scary and unwelcome: I liked him. I liked him a lot, and I had no business feeling that way. None.

That was why I trusted him. Because some part of me really liked this man. Shit.

So I told him something I would probably live to regret. Something that I wasn’t supposed to say now or ever. But if I’d learned anything over the last few years, it was that you didn’t always have the right time for anything even if, in a perfect world, you were supposed to. “Look, I don’t know what happened with your wife—where she is, why you guys aren’t together… it’s not my business—but all I know is that she’s an idiot,” I told him.

He blinked those brown-gold-green marble eyes.

But I wasn’t done. “You deserve the best, Dallas. I hope you find someone who appreciates you someday, if that’s what you want. I’m so lucky to have you as my friend. Anyone who has you as more than that is a lucky bitch.” I smiled at him, feeling a rush of heat on my face. “I’m not trying to stick my hand down your pants either, all right?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he took a step back, eyeing me with that jutted jaw of his. “Don’t leave, okay?”

I’d barely nodded by the time he had disappeared.

The sound of cheering from outside a moment later brought me back to reality. Josh was out there. My pride wasn’t worth missing out on Josh playing, that was for sure. Reaching up to touch the brim of the cap that had just been placed on my head, I shoved it down a little further on my head and told myself it didn’t matter what these people I barely knew thought about me.

But I still walked with my head down to the bleachers, and I’m sure my face was pink as I did it. Luckily, the spot by where I’d left the cooler was still open and I took it, my hands going to my knees. The boys’ team was starting on the field and Josh was right behind home base, in position.

I felt overly self-conscious throughout the game, and I cheered a little more quietly than I normally did when someone on the team did well, and I was definitely a lot more restrained than usual when Josh nailed a ball that hit the back fence. He was more subdued too because he didn’t run as fast as he usually did. All in all, the game went well and the Tornado won their pool game—a game that didn’t matter in terms of progressing in the tournament. At the end of it, the team huddled together away from the parents while Dallas talked to the boys about whatever it was they talked about, and soon afterward, most of the players went back to the dugout to collect their things and move out of the way so that the next two teams could come on to the field.

At no point did I look around for Christy.

But Dallas and Josh stayed off to the side, talking. From the looks on both of their faces—so, so serious—it was some deep shit. Some deep shit that involved me.

I could tell from Josh’s initial body language that he was angry, but I could also tell from Dallas’s that the man had the patience of a saint. As the minutes went by with me standing there staring, Josh relaxed a little; his hands dropped from his sides and he seemed more easy, less cagey. At one point, the older man put his hand over his heart and nodded at whatever he was telling his player. And what could have been ten minutes or twenty minutes later, the man held his fist out and Josh bumped it.

I guess that meant we weren’t going anywhere, and that was okay. Who was I to make someone change their dream just because I wasn’t exactly happy? I couldn’t and wouldn’t be that person. This was about Josh, not me.

And at that point, I wasn’t ruling out tripping Christy if the opportunity ever presented itself.

So as they walked toward me from where they’d been far out in the field, I let out a deep breath and purposely ignored the looks I could feel burning through my skin. My nephew came to me first grabbing the water bottle I’d taken out of the cooler while he’d made his way over. And he smiled this tight, one-sided grin.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “You okay?”

The fact this eleven-year-old was asking me that made my heart feel funny. “Yeah.”

Josh twisted his mouth. “Can I keep playing here if I promise never to be friends with Jonathan?”

I steeled myself and smiled. “Whatever you want, J. You can be friends with him if you want. His mom just can’t drop him off at our house, is all. Water might end up in her gas tank and she’ll never leave.”

“You can do that?”

Shit. I waved him off, realizing maybe I shouldn’t teach him things like that. Yet. Maybe if a girl ever broke his heart, I’d help him do that before I ripped all of her hair out. “I don’t know. I’m just making stuff up. But really, you can be friends with Jonathan if you want. I don’t care.”

“I don’t really like him anyway,” he whispered.

I was not going to smirk, and I managed not to. “It’s up to you, but I’d be okay with it.”

“You sure?” he asked.