But I wasn’t giving up. He’d done so much for me: practically raised me, helped pay for college. Now he needed my help. “JD, I think you need to talk about—”

He fixed me with a look and shook his head again. That’s when I saw the pain in his eyes. The pleading not to push it.

It was much worse than I’d thought. The loss was an open wound inside him, still leaking poison. He did need help. But it wasn’t just that he didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t talk about it. What he needed was to meet someone, someone who’d help him open up and heal and build a new life. It was so unfair: JD was the kindest, most loyal guy I’d ever known and he had a heart the size of Texas. Plus, he was drop-dead gorgeous, with those big blue eyes. There were a million women out there who’d love to meet him. But as long as he was hurting like this, he’d just keep pushing them all away.

JD looked away, scowling, and I knew he was beating himself up for being weak—as in, actually having feelings. I loved my pop but sometimes I hated him for raising JD this way.

I put my hand on JD’s arm. “Okay,” I said gently. “Let’s go get a pizza.”

He met my eyes and I nodded reassuringly. Okay. We won’t talk about it. I saw his shoulders slump in relief.

If I couldn’t help him, I could at least distract him.

So we set off on foot, crunching through the snow towards Main Street, talking about my mom’s pecan pie and how my car wasn’t going to last too much longer and how the Cowboys did last season. Anything except Jillian and Max.

We were halfway to the pizza place when I tentatively said, “So…Danny seems nice.”

JD grimaced, like he’d been expecting this. Then he sighed and nodded. “He is. He’s a great guy.” I could hear the warmth and respect in his voice. He loved the guy. So why….?

He saw my expression and sighed again. Then he pointed at the window of a bar we were passing. I followed his finger.

Danny was sitting at the bar, mouthwateringly gorgeous in his suit. His head was thrown back in laughter, his chest pushing his snow-white shirt out in two broad, curving slabs. A woman with long dark hair and perfect legs was cuddled up to one side of him and another, with brown hair, was pressed up tight to the other. Both of them were touching his arms and flicking their hair: they were doing everything except unzipping their dresses and saying take me.

"Danny doesn't do relationships," JD said gently. "He's more into...." He indicated the scene.

I nodded quickly and looked away. I was the dumbest person in the world. This was why Danny was so good with women. And now I understood why JD had never mentioned him, when they were in Delta together, or when Danny got him to lead the team. JD had been keeping me away from him. He was still protecting me, just like in high school.