Her breath caught. “What was?”
“The tears,” I answered, my eyes fixated on her mouth. “Me making a fool of myself and bringing a team of kids to tears. It was worth it. Because it made you smile.”
Her expression remained frozen for a second, and then it crumbled down. Her lips parted, her eyes glazed over, and her cheeks turned pink in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. “Cameron,” she said. Just that. My name.
“I warned you,” I told her, because I’d been serious. “I’m a selfish man.”
A loud burst of giggles erupted behind her, making whatever bubble we’d just been in burst. Adalyn snagged her hands from my grasp. We both turned around.
Tony, who had returned with a tray filled with sno-cones, was passing along colorful cups, and the mood of the group was clearly lifting as they went around.
When the teenage boy reached Adalyn and me, I patted his shoulder. “Good man, Tony. That was fast, just like I asked.” His eyes went wide, his whole face flushing a new wave of radioactive red. I lowered my voice. “Thanks for not making a fuss about who I am, as well. I appreciate it more than you know.”
Tony’s lips bobbed but his expression turned solemn. “I understand, sir. Hmm, Cam—Coach Cam? I understand how valuable privacy is. When my mom passed away—” He cut himself off. “Sometimes, people are nosy as hell.” He shot a wide-eyed glance at Adalyn. “As heck. Sometimes people can be nosy as heck, ma’am.”
Adalyn set her palm on his other shoulder, giving him a quick and gentle pat. The kid almost collapsed.
I took the tray with the leftover sno-cones from Tony. “You get something for yourself with the change?”
“I’d rather save it for something else, Coach. I’m supposed to go to college soon and I’ve been saving all I can to help my dad.”
Adalyn’s gaze bounced from me to the kid, and I could tell the gears in her head were working something out. “Tony,” she ventured. “How would you feel about helping out with the team?”
The boy’s face brightened. “I would love that. But the farm—” He frowned. “I don’t know if I have the time. Personnel at the farm is tight and I’d hate to leave my dad hanging.”
Adalyn’s face fell.
“Let us talk to your dad,” I said. “Now go sit down. We’ll leave when the girls are done with the sno-cones.”
The boy left with a nod.
“Are you okay with my idea to hire Tony?” Adalyn asked. “I probably should have run it by you first.”
I snagged the takeaway cup of tea from the box and handed it to her. “No. I think it’s a great idea, boss.”
“He’s a big fan of the game. So I thought…” She looked down at the container as it rested in my hand. “What’s that?”
“Tea. It’s for you. Take it,” I told her, and her jaw clenched. It took her a moment but her hand wrapped around the cup. This time, it wasn’t the touch of her fingers against my skin that caused something to tug against my gut. It was the way she was looking at me, as if I’d done this great thing for her by getting her a tea.
“Don’t look at me like that, darling.”
“It’s just that you…” Remembered she doesn’t drink coffee after noon. “You can be very nice, Cameron.”
After how I treated her, it shouldn’t surprise me that she’d think that way. I wasn’t a complete asshole, but I didn’t go around extending smiles and hugs. I hadn’t lied when I said I was a little mean. I had been.
I threw an arm around her shoulders and ushered her toward her bench. We sat down. “Just keeping the manager warm, is all,” I said, snagging a cone from the tray for myself. I moved closer to her, sheltering her from the wind that had picked up. “I’d hate to look for a new one. I’d probably end up saddled with Josie.”
Adalyn gave me another of those small, beautiful smiles in response, and I could do nothing but watch her as she took a long pull of tea.
“Is the sno-cone good?” Adalyn asked, glancing sideways at me. “I don’t think I’ve had one in ages.”
I was ready to tell her that maybe sticking to the tea was a better idea, but her eyes dipped down at the thing with obvious curiosity. And who I was to tell her whether or not she could have a lick? Like I said, I was a selfish man.
“Have a go at it, darling.”
I lifted the thing in obvious offering and watched her mouth near the small mound of ice, tongue out, gently grazing the top before really digging in.
My pulse sped up. And a voice inside my head said, You horny bastard. But yeah. There was no denying it. I was turned on. By Adalyn, not the ice.
“So, Coach Cornfield,” María’s voice cut through the haze. “How are the curmudgeons on your butt?”
My eyes, which had been on Adalyn’s mouth, widened. And Adalyn, who had a mouthful of ice, snorted.
It was a shockingly loud sound, and it propelled some of the pink and blue mix out of her nose. Adalyn’s hand flew to her face, covering the colorful mess dripping down her nose and chin.
A second of charged silence ensued.
Then, one of the kids said in what was, without mistake, awe, “WHOA. That is the coolest thing I’ve seen in my whole life.”
Adalyn, who still had all my attention, seemed shocked by the kid’s words.
But when Chelsea added, “Yeah, Miss Adalyn. That was supercool. Do you think you can teach us?” The rest of the team agreed, and something else filled the face of this woman who seemed able to continuously catch me off guard like nobody else ever had.
Pride. It was pride.
And as my curmudgeons were quickly and luckily forgotten, the team’s mood picked up, and the cones disappeared, my eyes remained on the woman sitting by my side. This usually exasperating and outwardly prim woman, who had just snorted ice out her nose and looked thoroughly pleased after getting the kids’ approval. The tug in my gut intensified, pulling so tight that I had to catch my breath for a second. Something in my chest shifted. Warmed. Making me…
I froze.
“Fuck.”
Her head turned, and she looked at me with that somewhat sheepish, somewhat happy look on her face. Jesus, she’d never looked more beautiful than right now. “What’s wrong?”
“Huh.” I cleared my throat. “What?”
“You said the f-word,” she answered simply. Had I? “Did the ice get to your head?”
Definitely not the ice. “What do you mean?”
“The ice,” she explained, taking a quick sip of tea from the cup. “It happens to me when I order iced lattes. It gets to my head if I drink too fast. But never mind. I guess manly men’s brains don’t freeze with sno-cones.”
“That’s what you think of me?” came out of my mouth. “That I’m some impressive manly man?”
“I didn’t say impressive.” She rolled her eyes, but fuck, the corners of her lips turned up again.
“What else do you think of me?” I asked, nudging her shoulder with mine. Something came over me. Something caused by the turmoil inside. I lowered my voice. “Anything that keeps you awake at night?”
Adalyn’s mouth parted. Her tongue snuck out. And I thought, Go on, love. Throw me a bone. Because I wanted her to tease me. And I knew she wanted to, too. I could already taste the words coming out of her mouth, I could already feel them on my tongue.
But then, her gaze moved behind me. Her expression changed.
And just like that, all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Adalyn
For a second, I’d thought I was wrong.
That I had to be wrong.
Because how unlucky did I have to be? How very unlucky was I that on the day I was somehow having a breakthrough, on the day I wasn’t feeling like the failure I was—the embarrassment, the total and complete castaway—a reminder had to be flung back at my face?