Page 107 of Tangled with the Tight End

Linc lets out a whoop. Delaney says, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Then Linc says, “Well, my mama always said …”

“Here we go with your mama,” Delaney says. I can practically see the eye roll.

“Are you disrespecting Mama Walker?” Linc asks, his tone playful, but the underlying threat undeniable.

“Never,” Marcus backs down.

“That’s what I thought, Delaney. Now. As I was saying, my mama always said, the woman you don’t see coming? The woman who catches you off guard? The one you can’t shake no matter how hard you try? That’s the one.”

Winona definitely caught me off guard. And I did not see her coming.

“She pulled a fake punt on you,” Delaney says, his voice full of his smile.

“Yeah,” I grin. “She did. And I don’t think she even knows.”

“What do you mean?” Linc asks. “She’s not all starry-eyed over our tight end?”

I stare toward the archway, where she’ll be popping around the wall in less than an hour.

What does she see when she comes in here?

A man on a couch. Things strewn around. My face unshaven. My hair a mess.

I’m at my low point.

Definitely not getting ready to go out on the town.

“She’s not … interested,” I confess. “Or if she is, she doesn’t show it.”

“Oh man!” Delaney practically does a victory dance from his end of the phone. “A woman who isn’t dropping at your feet. No wonder she caught your eye.”

“What is it with us men? We always want the ones we can’t get,” Linc says.

“Not true. I haven’t wanted anyone,” I remind him. “Not for a while.”

“Not since Barbie two-point-oh.” Marcus chuckles softly.

“Please,” I beg him. “Let’s not go there.”

“Well, I say you just need to turn on the Declan charm,” Linc says. “You know. Smile. Wink. Stare in her eyes. Whatever it is you do.”

I know what he’s talking about, but somehow none of that seems like it would even scratch the surface with Winona.

“Wouldn’t it be the cruelest form of irony that I finally find a woman I’m interested in and she doesn’t want a thing to do with me?”

“The cruelest,” Delaney says, but he’s laughing.

“Go ahead and laugh,” I say.

“Oh, don’t worry, man. I am.”

“Don’t say anything about this to the rest of the team,” I say.

“We’ve got you, O’Connell,” Linc says.

“Just be your charming self,” Delaney says. “Women seem to love that.”