Page 51 of The Score We Never Settled

My lips part to explain, but I need an hour, not two seconds, to fully encompass the full extent of what Briggs and I are.

Actually, I need more time than that.

“Focus, friend,” Briggs grinds out, receiving Hunter’s full attention now. “My girl. Meaning,no oneis going to be touchin’, kissin’, orfuckin’what’s mine.”

My skin turns crimson as I deliver another push to Briggs’s body.

This dinner date is over, and truthfully, I don’t want to explain anything anymore. Especially on a first date with a guy who barely knows me except for my name, what I do for a living, and, now, that I have a crazy ex.

What he needs to do is stayfaraway from me.

Obviously.

“I’m really sorry, Hunter,” I try to apologize, but it comes out as a croak, if anything, then grab my purse to fish out some cash for dinner. “I’ll pay for?—”

Briggs’s palm slaps the table and snaps my head to what he’s just done.

Underneath it is a wad of cash.

“Take the rest and buy yourself some baseball tickets, Hunter.” Briggs slides out of the bench seat and waits for me tofollow. And I do because I need to get out of here like a pansy. “And lose her number.”

Mortification.

That’s all I feel as I leave the restaurant with tears burning in my eyes.

I also feel bad for Hunter because he didn’t ask for this.

And I thought maybe, just maybe, I could just move on with my life.

Fat chance.

There’s a spy in Magnolia Ridge that just reached out to Briggs, of all people, to let him know I was going on a date.

It couldn’t have been Fallon or Zoe.

There’s no way.

They wouldn’t do this to me.

They encouraged it.

Fallon.

Zoe.

Who else?

I pass the hostess station, hearing one of the girls telling me to have a good rest of my night, but I push the glass door open and immediately welcome the night air.

Not Uncle Ben.

Biting down on my lower lip, no one else knows I’m here.

I didn’t grab a microphone and announce it in town that my loser, single, and pathetic self was going on a date tonight.

Who?

Who?