“That was one of your more vulgar ones.” Cressida dunks another ball of dough in cinnamon and sugar.

“Thank you,” Emma replies pertly.

I finally intercede. “Okay. I get you guys are curious. I would be too. But…” I pause, glancing down to watch the cubes of ice bob along. “I don’t—I think…” My three best friends all lean forward expectantly, and I can’t do it. I can’t share details. I can’t admit to them I like Adler Beck beyond his bedroom skills. More than like him if the amount of real estate he occupies in my brain is any indication. “There’s nothing to say. It was just sex.” I stand and grab my glass of water. “I’m headed to bed. My flight leaves early tomorrow.”

No one says anything as I head for the stairs.

So much for being fearless.

But Adler Beck and I would be a cacophony of calamity and catastrophe.

We’re too alike.

Too different.

He elicits a flight-or-fuck response in me, and now I need to choose flight.

I get ready for bed and have just climbed between the sheets when my phone dings. I grab it from the charging station. It’s a text from Emma. I open it, and there’s just a link to an article. I click on it, and a photo fills the screen.

It’s one of me and Beck.

There was press at CFOC for our scrimmages, but obviously at least one photographer stuck around for the clinics, because the photo is one of Beck and me on the field after everyone else had left. When he dropped the I-want-to-be-with-you bomb on me. We’re looking at each other, but only my expression is fully visible. It’s an unsettling mixture of adoration and anger.

The caption reads: International icon Adler Beck and Lancaster University superstar Saylor Scott. The article itself is about the camp more generally. I’m mentioned a couple more times, as is Beck, but we’re only linked in the photo.

The picture doesn’t fully fit with the article, but I get why they chose it. There’s tangible emotion frozen there. Not just in me, but in the set of Beck’s jaw. The flex of his forearm.

I stare at until I fall asleep.

Chapter Eighteen

The plane aisle finally clears. I hop up, eager to stretch my legs and breathe something other than recycled air for the first time in two hours.

I may not be thrilled about the reason for this trip, but there’s a rush of nostalgia when I emerge into the Georgia sunshine. Hallie told me to look for a white SUV, and there’s one already loitering along the curb. I stick my suitcase in the trunk and hop in the passenger seat to give her a hug.

“Happy wedding weekend!” she cheers.