Page 79 of Bluffed By the Offense

We dig into the cake, bite by bite. They’re all good.

“I’m of no use,” I tell Declan and Winona. “They’re all excellent.”

“Agreed,” Cass says, surprising me. “But I might be leaning toward the raspberry lemon.”

“You would,” Winona says. “You and your lemonade obsession.”

I liked that one a lot too. It reminded me of Cass. I’m not sharing my observation out loud and I’m certainly not admitting I like how she always smells like a lemon orchard or a freshly baked lemon cookie. I can hear the locker room comments now.

“What did you like, Winona?” I ask.

“The chocolate ones.”

“No surprise,” Cass says. “Give her chocolate in any form and she’s a happy girl.”

I smile without meaning to. I like the way Cass is with Winona. I may not like her, but I can appreciate a strong sibling bond, and they definitely have one. Treyvon notices my smile and smiles at me again as if he’s in on a private joke.

“How did the two of you ever end up together?” Trey asks, pointing between me and Cass. “We all saw you at the gala. And I always knew there was something there. But what’s the story?”

Cass coughs on the bite of cake in her mouth, grabs a napkin and takes a swig of milk.

We haven’t worked this out. I didn’t even think it would come up. We’ve had a natural progression of closeness, even if it’s under pretense and leaves us incapable of expressing what we really feel for each other.

“After the photo shoot, I couldn’t get her off my mind,” I say.

Not completely untrue, though it was more in the way you relive a trauma, not because I wanted to ask her out.

Cass looks at me with this adoring expression. It’s honestly beautiful—or it would be if it were sincere. “I was not a fan of his yet at that point.”

I laugh. Of course she’d say that.

“But you showed up to the Fork and Fiddle,” I say.

“Under duress,” she says. Then she looks at Trey. “Winona tricked me into the blind date.”

“Okayyy. I didn’t know this,” Trey says, leaning back in the small bistro chair that looks like it could buckle under his weight.

“Yes. So, I fought Marcus for the check,” she goes on, still relaying facts.

“And I fought her,” I said.

“As your mama would want you to,” Trey says.

He looks at Cass. “Us Mississippi boys were raised with old-fashioned values. We pay the check. And QB here, he can afford it. Let him pay.”

“Well,” Cass says. “During the scuffle I lost my balance, and your QB caught me.”

“We saw,” Linc says. “Chivalry in motion.”

To her credit, Cass doesn’t wince. “And I was initially frustrated with him.”

Initially? Okay. Let’s go with that.

“But over time, I realized Marcus has a good heart. He was signing autographs and taking selfies during our date.”

I hear what no one else in the room hears—it’s a barb dressed up in a seeming compliment. Well played, Carter.

“No!” Trey says. “That’s a big no for me. If I’m out with a woman, my fans get a head nod and a smile. I tell them I’m on a date.”