I just recently learned of your interest in me as an athlete and wanted to thank you. However, my dream to play in the major league is over. I’ve been advised to let old dreams go. To accept that life has changed forever.

-Ryan Camden

I try to make sense of everything as I walk from one side of the room to the other.

There is nothing worse than being lied to and finding out that you were.

It shouldn’t matter—he shouldn’t matter, because like we talked about last night, I have goals and achievements and everything else to do. I should just let dead dogs lie, pack up my shit, and head home. Walk away from this fling no worse for the wear other than him wondering what the hell happened.

But I can’t.

I just can’t, because even with all that bullshit I said the last night about not having time for a relationship, and having goals to reach etcetera, it rang hollow to my own ears. Words I’ve recited time and again, thoughts I’ve had over and over, now feel canned. Silly. I stood there and spouted the words to him while my heart ached in my chest in a way I’ve never felt it feel before.

And then, of course, he called me. He called me and made that ache I didn’t understand burn brighter—in all the best ways.

How does someone go from not believing that something like this exists to suddenly hoping maybe it does?

This is insane.

Would you listen to yourself?

But the problem is that I am. I am listening and hearing and paying attention to every damn thing my body is telling me, and all it cares about is wanting more time, more moments, more laughter—more everything—when it comes to Gunner.

Leaving here, cutting my time short with him, isn’t something I want to do.

But lying to him is even worse. Right?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Chase

WITH A DEEP BREATH AND my heart in my throat, I walk up the sidewalk to Gunner’s house. Anger owns me.

At how this happened.

At how I didn’t see it.

At how I never asked him if he knew the Ryan Camden I was looking for.

At how this might all be over.

I’m just about to knock on the front door when he pulls it open and startles at the sight of me standing there.

“Hey, what are you doing—Chase?” he asks, immediately framing the sides of my face and bending down so we’re at the same eye level. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

I open my mouth to speak and then close it, because this is Gunner. Sweet, sexy, selfless Gunner who owns the bar, dances in the rain with me, and has my complete adoration.