Page 8 of Fearlessly Us

“Oh on the contrary, Catie. I…”

His words are cut off by the buzz of a phone, and I watch as Drew digs his cell out of his pocket. He glances at the screen, and whatever he sees there has his face shuttering, his jaw flexing, and his eyes going hard as he clicks off the screen and shoves the phone back into his pocket. Without a word, he stands from the table and walks around the kitchen island, his shoulders a tight line as he peers into the oven, ostensibly to check the progress of his bread, but he stands there for long enough that I see it for what it actually is.

Avoidance.

My instincts scream at me to ask him what’s wrong. To fix it. But I shut it down, because Drew Ellicott isn’t my problem to fix.

Not today.

Not ever.

CHAPTER TWO

DREW

“Drew, holy fuck,” Maddy says, her mouth full. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.”

“Hey now!” Tyler scowls at Maddy. “Those are fighting words, Mads. Last week you told me my sourdough was the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”

Maddy shrugs, unbothered, and takes another bite of the bread she’s smothered in butter and strawberry jam, grinning at Cam when he slides her chair closer to his, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and kisses the side of her head. “That was then. This is now. Sorry, Ty Ty. Yours was amazing, but this is another level.”

A quiet huff pulls my attention to the left and I glance over at Caitlin, only to find her looking back at me. She’s been doing that since I went silent on her earlier this morning without explanation when my real life crashed into the stillness between us. Every time she levels me with that quiet stare of hers, words start to push up from my chest, trying to make their way out of my mouth and towards her.

It surprises me because I’m the good time guy. The one who always has a smile to hide what lies beneath. Never in my life have I given another person my dark parts, but when Caitlin turns those stormy gray eyes on me, it’s as close as I’ve ever come to telling someone all my truths.

I don’t know what it is about her that pulls at me, but it’s been tugging me towards her since six months ago at the bar even though she hates my guts, and I deserve it. Standing her up without a word was a dick move. I should have called. I should have told her why that night, and I should have tried to tell her why every day since. But I’m a coward when it comes to real life—a scared little kid in the body of a full-grown man who never learned how to let people all the way in because everyone in my life has left, so no one was around to teach me how to stay. And as a reward for my stupidity, Caitlin blocked my number I put into her phone at the bar, and for the last six months, she’s shut me down every time I’ve tried to talk to her.

Until this morning.

This morning was the closest I’ve come to an actual conversation with her since New Orleans, and everything about talking to her in the quiet kitchen settled me right down to my core. Even when she was swiping at me. Especially when she was swiping at me, I think ruefully. I don’t know what it says about me that the first woman I’ve wanted for more than a night in…well…my entire life, probably, is the one who’s mean to me, but for sure there’s something buried deep in my pathology that would explain it.

Everything about Caitlin and me is a terrible idea. I’m a terrible idea for anyone. There’s a reason my adult life has consisted of a long string of one-night stands, and it’s not because I like being known as professional football’s biggest playboy.

And yet.

I wink at Caitlin and she rolls her eyes, looking away from me. There’s something seriously wrong with me that her attitude makes my dick hard.

“I need you to teach me your ways,” Caitlin’s twin brother Jack says to me, studying his slice of sourdough like it contains the secrets of the universe. “Your crumb is out of control good. I can’t get mine to look like this, even with your starter. How do you do it?”

I shrug, like I haven’t spent hours upon hours researching and practicing and perfecting my technique. Like baking this bread isn’t the thing that has saved me over and over again since I was probably too young to be baking it at all. “Just takes practice.”

“Wait, you’re making sourdough too?” Maddy’s brother Oliver, a professional hockey player for Pittsburgh’s NHL team, asks Jack. “I want in on this.”

Maya Casey, one of Maddy, Sophie, and Caitlin’s best friends, scoffs. “You can’t handle sourdough, little Wright. You can barely keep yourself alive. You definitely can’t keep a sourdough starter alive.”

Oliver shoots Maya a look that, if I’m not mistaken, contains a fair amount of heat. Looks like I’m not the only one at the table who likes it when pretty girls are mean to him. “Want to bet?”

Maya rolls her eyes. “I absolutely do not. Besides, we don’t need more sourdough-baking men in this family when we have Drew and his absolute perfection.”

I feel utterly pathetic that warmth unfurls in my chest at Maya talking about me as a part of this family. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a real family. So long I barely remember it, and I have no clue how to be part of one. But if I was, I would want it to be this one, I think, glancing around the massive wooden table in the warm, cozy kitchen with sunlight streaming through the windows, a harbinger of a beautiful summer day outside.

Without my permission, my gaze lands on Caitlin, only to find her watching me, again. When our eyes meet, she whips her head around, picking up her—by my count—fourth iced latte of the morning and taking a long sip.

I immediately miss her eyes on me.

Giving my attention back to everyone else, I watch as Tyler literally pouts, turning to his fiancée Sophie next to him. “You still like mine best, right Soph?”

Sophie grins and leans over, kissing him on the cheek. “You know I love everything you bake.”