Page 105 of First Down Promise

“Tracks,” I reply, sitting at the head of the table on Abby’s other side.

“Sucks Pete couldn’t join us tonight,” Dane whispers to me, and I shrug.

“He needs space. I texted him we were doing this, though,” I reply. I notice Abby side-eyeing me, but she immerses herself back in her conversation with Sadie.

“Speak for yourself, Kenzie,” Pete’s hoarse voice says. I glance up and see Pete, who I haven’t spent much time with recently. I was at peace with how we left things after we got back from Boston, even if we’ll never go back to how we were. But he’s not holding a weapon, not that his fucked up ribs would let him swing one, anyway.

“You made it,” Abby says.

She gets up and gives him a swift hug. He winces a little when she puts pressure on his ribs, and the server comes by to set up another place setting for him.

“Of course. This is a big deal for you,” Pete says to her.

“Good to see you, Cap,” Coop says to Pete. They fist-bump, and Pete sits at the opposite end from me with Sadie and Coop on either side of him. Sadie hardly pays him any attention, which is amusing considering most women trip over themselves around Pete, and Coop quickly picks up a conversation with him.

As Abby takes her seat next to me again, my hand instinctively finds her knee under the table. Pete notices my lowered arm and squints at me, but I just laugh and move my hand before the vein in his forehead pops out.

“I’m buying, so go crazy,” I say to everyone.

“What? You shouldn’t,” Abby starts.

“But I’m going to,” I argue back, staring into her eyes.

“All I heard was free steak,” Coop jokes, and Dane and Pete chuckle.

“Some things never change,” Abby says, breaking our eye contact, but it’s her turn to squeeze my knee under the table. I’m trying to behave.

“That’s kind of you, Josh,” Sadie says.

“I’ll drive if you want to get a drink,” I tell Abby, and she grins wide. “I know how much you liked that Chilton I made you last week.”

Her eyes light up. “It was so good! Maybe make me one later?” she says, tuning the world out as we tend to do when we’re together.

“Of course.”

I fight the urge to lean over and kiss her, then look past Abby to check Pete’s expression. His eyes are narrowed at me again.

“You have a death wish, Mack,” Dane teases me under his breath.

“Shush, you,” I say to Dane, then shift to Pete. “You’ve gotta stop doing that with your eyes. You’re going to get wrinkles, princess.”

“Shut the fuck up, Mackenzie, before I throw Abby’s heels at you,” Pete quips.

I just grin at him. “I’ve missed you, man.”

“Next season is gonna be fun,” Dane says over his draft beer.

Epilogue

Abby

One year later

Are relationships supposed to be easy? Or is that the Josh Mackenzie effect? A full trip around the sun and then some. And no, Pete never stopped grimacing whenever Josh kissed me in front of him, and Josh’s love language is physical touch, after all.

I press my elbow into the chair’s arm and prop my chin on the heel of my hand. A light burning sensation dances across my cheeks. We don’t live together yet. I have my own furnished apartment now, but I spend more nights with Josh than there. Some might call it codependent, but I call it doing life alongside my one. And just a year since our viral tunnel kiss, we had another kiss go viral—this time after the Stallions won their final playoff game in Nashville, sending them to the Championship in Los Angeles for the first time in the team’s history.

Her assistant’s voice startles me. “Abby, Diana’s ready for you.”