“Tell me about Shawna.”

He takes me in with those dark eyes, his lips pursed and his eyebrows pinched together, making him look like an angry caveman.

“BB said she was your high school sweetheart.”

He looks back out at the road and shakes his head. “Fuckin’ Becs.”

“So? Was she?”

He nods.

“What happened?”

“She left.” His voice is hard. His grip on the steering wheel tightens.

“Why didn’t you go with her?”

“Couldn’t.”

This is excruciating, but I’m going to drag the truth out of him, one one-word-answer at a time.

“Why not?” I scooch closer to him on the bench seat.

“Becs,” he answers. That’s not the whole answer, but I get it. Family is family.

“But you wanted to go?”

He doesn’t answer. He slows as we pull into a parking lot and I know I don’t have much time left before he makes an escape.

“Would you have left, with Shawna, if you could?”

He turns off the engine, gets out and slams the door. I let out a disappointed sigh and follow behind him. He waits at the front of the car for me and takes my hand again when I stand next to him.

He looks down at our interlocked fingers. “Maybe.”

I nod. He raises his gaze up to me and there’s so much hurt there. He’s massive, strong and intimidating. But standing here, he’s bare and vulnerable. I lean forward on tiptoes and kiss him. My darling.

Bowling. We’re bowling. I have a feeling Devin is trying to keep things as casual as possible with these dates. He thinks he can chase me away with dive bars and bowling alleys. Ha. I have three brothers. Jake can burp the alphabet and Jamie thinks pull my finger is the height of comedy. I’ve got this. If he wants to chase me away, he needs to stop kissing me.

“These are sexy as hell,” I deadpan, staring down at my ancient multicolor bowling shoes. “I don’t know how you’re going to be able to keep your hands off me.”

He’s sitting in one of the orange plastic chairs, tying his own sexy bowling shoes. I do a little spin in front of him and end it with a sexy model pose and a wink. He wraps his long fingers around my waist and pulls me to him while he stands. He’s graceful for someone so big. Every motion of that powerful body seems thought out, planned. Choreographed.

“Maybe I don’t,” he mumbles, staring down at me.

“Balls,” I say flatly. His eyes narrow in confusion. “We need balls.” I skip off to find the perfect bowling ball. I settle on a neon lime-green eight-pounder. Devin has a monstrous black thing that weighs as much as I do. He lifts it like it’s a box of Kleenex, the cords in his tattooed forearm flexing. Damn. Bowling isn’t supposed to be a turn on, but when Devin struts down that alley and bends over to toss his ball, the muscles in his back rippling, I get hot and bothered. I squeeze my legs together and think of clipping my toenails and scrubbing my toilet.