“Talk to me, Thea,” he said against her hair.

“Why does any of this matter?”

“Because you matter.”

Thea shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It seems like the kind of a thing a man should have to earn, not just expect to be able to do.”

Gavin tugged her closer. “He didn’t earn it.”

“No. He definitely did not.”

They danced in silence for several minutes after that. Thea’s body chronicled every way his body brushed and molded against hers. He bent his head and kissed the top of hers.

“Why don’t you want to go to the wedding?” he asked quietly.

For some reason, she answered. “Because I can’t stand to watch another young, naïve woman get scammed into believing that she’s the one who will change him, that she’s the one who will make him stay. He won’t. He’ll leave her, because that’s what he does. He leaves.”

* * *

• • •

The ride home was silent.

Not tense silent. Just . . . weird silent. All night, they’d existed in a sated, peaceful void, avoiding the unpleasant, lumbering elephants between them. So much unresolved unpleasantness had been blissfully forgotten for one night.

Gavin pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. Neither of them moved to get out, though.

“I had fun tonight,” he said.

Thea didn’t want to admit that she had too, so she said nothing. What good would it do to encourage him with false hope? Once they exited the dark haven of the car, the jungle of reality would unleash the trumpeting herds, and no amount of missing and wishing for things to be different would chase them off.

Gavin cleared his throat. “So . . .”

Thea looked over at him. “So?”

“Since this is a date,” he started. “Do I get to kiss you in the car before I walk you inside?”

Air seeped from her lungs. “Is that what people do on dates? I’ve forgotten.”

“I remember doing a lot more than that in a car with you,” he said, his voice husky.

Thea’s cheeks got hot. “You know that’s probably the night I got pregnant, right?”

“I always w-wondered.” The heavy-lidded way he looked at her suggested he had wondered but didn’t particularly care; he just liked the memory and wouldn’t mind making a new one.

Which was why the smart thing to do would be to get out of the car now.

But she wasn’t feeling very smart. She was just feeling. “Yes,” she murmured.

“Yes?” he repeated.

She looked at his lips.

A happy sound rose from Gavin’s chest as he claimed her mouth. This wasn’t like before. This wasn’t like the kiss from the kitchen or the one the night he moved home. This kiss was no explosion of passion, but it was every bit as shattering. Who knew there could be such volatility in such tender pressure? This was a kiss that required a slow breath through her nose and a strong grip on her seat. The kind of kiss that told her she was going to be in trouble if they kept up this charade of dating.

Gavin adjusted the angle of his mouth and brushed her lips once, twice, a third time. Then he pulled back and gazed down at her, a half smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

Gavin rubbed his thumb across her lower lip. “You feel like reading tonight?”

Thea’s head nodded up and down on its own.

An hour later, she fell asleep to the soft cadence of his voice and the confused beating of her heart.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Did you kids have fun last night?”

The next morning, Gavin swung the fridge shut to find that Liv had materialized in the kitchen as if she’d teleported. He jumped and swore.

“Yes.”

“Bummer,” Liv said. “I was hoping to get out of the basement.”

Gavin set down the milk for the girls’ cereal. Thea was upstairs getting the girls dressed. He hadn’t actually seen her yet this morning; he’d only heard her movements. “You know, Liv, this little thing we d-d-do is amusing and all,” Gavin grumbled, “but I don’t have the patience for you this morning.”

“Just watching out for my sister. Didn’t I warn you about hurting her?”

Gavin opened a pantry and withdrew the Cheerios. “Did it ever occur to you that this is none of your business?”

“She’s my sister.”

“And my wife.”

“I live here.”

“Feel free to move out.”

“You first.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait. You already tried that once.”

“And I don’t plan to do it again.”

Thea shuffled into the kitchen, and Gavin fumbled the cereal.

“Hey,” he breathed.

“Morning,” Liv chirped.

Thea stopped short, her eyes darting back and forth between them. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Gavin said.

“Just telling my brother-in-law how much I think of him.”

Thea sighed and reached with both hands to twist her hair atop her head. The girls stumbled into the kitchen in matching pink T-shirts and purple leggings. Gavin scooped them both up and poured their cereal.

Thea’s shoulders were stiff as she filled a cup of coffee. Had she slept any better than him? Because he’d slept like shit. Crawling out of her bed last night to return to the guest room had taken Herculean strength. He didn’t possess it this morning. He had to touch her.

He walked up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, and nuzzled her cheek.

She turned her face up to his with a surprised, wide-eyed glance. He dropped a kiss on her lips. “Good morning,” he murmured.

“Morning,” she whispered.

“I had fun last night.”

Liv made a gagging noise.

Gavin looked over his shoulder and curled his lip. Liv narrowed her eyes. He bared his teeth. She waggled her fingers and hummed P!nk’s “U + UR Hand.”

Thea turned around with another sigh. “You two need to get over this.”

“She started it.”

Thea tilted her head. “I don’t even let the girls get away with that excuse.”

The twins, who’d been silently poking dribbly spoonfuls of Cheerios into their mouths, must have picked up on the weird tension in the room, because they started griping about who got more cereal. Gavin tore his gaze from Thea and intervened. “You each got the same amount, girls.”

“I’m done,” Ava said, pushing her bowl away, pouting for no good reason.

“Wait for your sister, and then we’ll go get you dressed,” Thea said, walking to where the girls sat. She started wiping mouths but paused when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She made an annoyed noise but pulled it out.

She froze.

“What’s wrong?” Gavin asked.

“It’s an email from Vanderbilt.”

Liv set down her coffee. “Shit.”

“Open it,” he said.

With a deep swallow, Thea swiped the screen a couple of times. Gavin held his breath as her eyes skimmed the screen.

A smile broke out on her face as she turned the screen around.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “You got in?”

“I got in.” She raised her arms and let out a victory whoop. Liv did a dance around the island as the girls laughed at the hijinks. Gavin wanted to join in the celebratory melee. He wanted to wrap his arms around Thea and congratulate her with a kiss, but he chose restraint.

“That’s amazing, Thea,” he said from a safe distance. “Congratulations.”

“When do you start classes?” Liv asked.

Thea looked at the email again. “January 18.”

“We are sooo going to celebrate tonight,” Liv said, hugging Thea from behind.

Gavin bristled but fought it down. She and Liv already had plans together tonight to help Liv’s friend with the café. He’d save his celebration for another night, when they could be alone.

She looked up, and her cheeks flushed under his gaze. He must not have been very good at hiding his thoughts. “I have to get dressed,” she said.

Gavin cleaned up the girls’ cereal and helped them down from their chairs. Then he walked to the whiteboard, dug out a dry erase marker, and circled January 18 on the calendar.

“I wouldn’t plan too far out, Gavin,” Liv said, coming up behind him. “Your calendar ends at Christmas.”

Not if he could help it.

Last night had been a turning point for them. He could feel it. She’d revealed some things to him that she’d never told him before. She’d danced with him. Kissed him.

The guys were right. He needed to be patient. But Liv was right too. The calendar was not his friend, and her news about getting into Vanderbilt was a new plot twist he needed to figure out.

It was time to get serious.

Gavin hammered out a text message to the guys. Emergency meeting tonight. My house.

* * *

• • •

 After dropping the girls off at school, Thea ran home to quickly shower and dress. Gavin, thankfully, was gone for his morning training session. She couldn’t handle any private conversations with him. Not after the way he’d looked at her this morning. Not after that sweet little kiss and all it implied.

Liv was right. She was caving. From a couple of tender kisses and one thoughtful date and— Thea shook her head. The email from Vanderbilt had arrived at the perfect time. He’d been spinning cobwebs in her brain, but getting notice from Vandy was like a sweep of the clarity broom.

She had too much to do, like drop off the paperwork that had been requested in her acceptance email, register for classes, and stop at the bookstore. A lot of it could have waited until later, but she’d been waiting almost four years to go back to school. She was tired of waiting.

The Vanderbilt campus was a half-hour drive from Franklin. Thea found a metered spot across from the administration building, poured a handful of quarters into it, and went inside. The admissions office was on the third floor. A secretary with cat-eye glasses gave her a quizzical look when Thea handed her the paperwork.