One More Step

by Colleen Hoover

  Her head shot up. “You don’t even know him, Quentin!”

  “And you do?”

  Her brother stared at her in question. Candice stared at her in suspicion. Kenadi swallowed hard. She had never wanted an escape button as badly as she did right then.

  “I’m just saying. I’ve never met a football player who wasn’t a little too cocky when it comes to playing…you included. Give him a chance or you might screw yourself out of a championship season before it even starts.”

  “Cheers to that!” Candice raised her glass.

  Questions still danced in Quentin’s eyes as he met his glass with theirs, but she was grateful to be done talking about Cash and Caleb.

  “By the way, Mom said you’ve been avoiding her calls again.”

  The mention of their mom popped the bubbles of gratitude.

  “Of course I am. I don’t need the reminders of everything I’m doing wrong”

  “So, is this a bad time to mention she and Dad are on their way?”

  It was an ambush.

  “What the heck, Quentin? Now I have to try to lose ten pounds in fifteen minutes in order to avoid a dinner-long inquisition about my carb intake.”

  “You look fantastic, Kenadi.”

  “Mom will disagree. I can already hear her now. ‘How do you expect to find a man if you don’t put in a little effort, Kenadi?’”

  Candice grinned sympathetically. “I’d kill for some of your curves!”

  Some. Not all.

  She managed to smile at them both, but deep down, she was already feeling her stress levels rising. She needed a distraction.

  Kenadi reached for her phone.

  CASH

  Cash: Want to come over later? I scored an advanced screening copy of the new Marvel movie. I remember you saying you’re a fan.

  Kenadi: I really wish I could, but…I have a date tonight.

  Cash: I don’t remember setting up another one.

  Kenadi: I did this one on my own. He messaged me through the app and asked me out to dinner.

  Cash: And you’re going?

  Kenadi: Guppies before sharks, right? ;)

  Cash: Right.

  • • •

  Cash: Hey. How’s the date?

  Cash: Let me know if you need me to call with an excuse to ditch him.

  Cash: Kenadi, are you there?

  He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel, but he knew it wasn’t this. The first time she turned down his invitation was understandable. This second time was a little bothersome. But now, she wasn’t answering his texts, and it was starting to feel personal.

  Caleb dropped the game controller on the couch beside him. “What’s up with you, bro? You called me to hang out, but every five minutes, you’re on your phone.”

  Cash avoided his eyes. “I haven’t—”

  “You have. Where have you been? I’ve barely seen you outside of workouts, and even then, you get there right before we start and you’re out the door the minute the session is over.”

  “I’ve just been helping out a friend.”

  Disbelief was all over his friend’s face. “A friend?”

  “Don’t be jealous, you’re still my number one.”

  Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’ll probably have this ‘friend’ on your arm at the party then?”

  “Not that type of friend.”

  “I know you, Cash. Something’s going on with you.”

  Cash scratched his beard. From the moment he’d met Caleb, he’d been able to talk to him about everything. Until now.

  “You know, if you took a fraction of this misplaced energy, maybe you’d find your own date for the party and stop pestering me.”

  Caleb stretched his arms over his head, yawning loudly in the process. “I don’t need a date.”

  “You’re wasting all your prime years. Nobody wants to see a seventy-year-old asking people to accept his rose.”

  “You do enough dating for the both of us. When the right one comes along, I promise I’ll ask her out.”

  Cash’s phone chimed. Caleb laughed as Cash leapt for it and snatched it from the coffee table.

  “I’m gonna head out so you can talk to your secret girlfriend in private.”

  Kenadi wasn’t his girlfriend…

  Cash opened his mouth to argue, but shut it quickly knowing he couldn’t explain Caleb’s suspicions away. Besides, he was too eager to figure out what was going on with Kenadi.

  Kenadi: All good!

  Kenadi: I think I’m ready for the Caleb portion of date training now.

  To make her point, she’d added a bunch of smiling and thumbs-up emojis.

  Kenadi wasn’t his girlfriend.

  SIX

  Kenadi

  CASH WAS ALWAYS on time, so it didn’t surprise her when the knock on her door came precisely as scheduled.

  “It’s unlocked!”

  He was barely through the door when he took one look and frowned at her in boxers and a sweatshirt that hung off her bare shoulders.

  “You don’t look like you’re ready to go out.”

  She looked over the rim of her glasses at him. “I cancelled the date. You have the night off.”

  “The party is in two days. I don’t want the night off, Kenadi.”

  “Well, I do!”

  The harshness in her voice startled them both.

  Ever since dinner with her parents, her nerves had been on edge. Despite her brother’s best efforts, she’d left Quentin’s house feeling raw and picked apart. Kenadi even found herself avoiding Cash by telling him she was on a date. In truth, she’d spent the night in bed, crying, trying not to eat her emotional weight in Oreos.

  “Ken—”

  “I had to sit through dinner with my mother and be reminded of all the ways I disappoint her. I can’t bear to listen to you point out everything wrong with me too.”

  She did her best not to make any more eye contact as she attempted to stand up. Cash quickly moved to block her way.

  She couldn’t look at him. If she did, his sympathetic hazel eyes would see through the facade of togetherness she was barely holding onto.

  “Look at me, Kenadi.”

  Tenderness woven through every syllable. He wrapped her in his arms, lacing his fingers across the small of her back, securely locking her to him. She rested her forehead against his strong chest.

  “I need you to look at me so when I tell you there’s nothing wrong with you, you believe it at least half as much as I do.”

  She still couldn’t bring herself to lift her chin. Being stuck in the middle of an emotional meltdown with Cash Latham holding her was not how she’d anticipated spending her Friday night. Her skin burned with embarrassment.

  “I don’t know if I can do this anymore. Caleb won’t want me anyway.”

  “Anyone who doesn’t want you, Kenadi Russell, hasn’t seen you. And if they can’t see you and how beautiful, smart, sexy, funny, and completely amazing you are, then they never deserved you to begin with.”

  Cash’s voice was raw and rough, leaving little doubt to his sincerity, giving her just enough confidence to look him in the eye again.

  Cash’s hand moved from her back to push a few braids behind her ear, but his eyes never left her face. His lips were pressed into a thin line as she watched him clench and unclench his jaw. She knew she looked a mess with her red eyes and puffy face, but he didn’t say anything, nor did he let her move away.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  The soft kiss he placed on her forehead made her feel more than she had in a lifetime. She leaned into him fully. Resting the side of her face over his heartbeat, she sniffled and listened to the rhythm. It was strong, steady, and constant—just like him.

  “You’re making me feel better, but I still want to be grumpy.”

  Cash’s chuckle was soft as he released her from his embrace just enough to pull her onto the couch alongside him. She tucked herself into his side.

  “You can
be grumpy all night so long as you let me stay.”

  SEVEN

  Cash

  “WELL, WELL, WELL…the kid cleans up pretty nicely.”

  “Thanks, Max.”

  Cash ran his hand over the lapels of his tux. The all black ensemble, along with his fresh cut and beard trim, should have made him feel amazing. But since the moment he arrived at the party, all he’d felt was nerves as he watched for Kenadi to arrive.

  “How are things? Everleigh doing well?”

  His agent beamed at the mere mention of his wife. “Yeah. She’s amazing. She’s in the house talking, but I wanted to check in and see how the off-season has been treating you. Everything cool?”

  He looked over Max’s shoulder to scan the crowd, but came up short.

  “Oh, yeah. You know me…”

  Cash wished he’d been able to convince her to ride with him to Bryce’s, but it had taken a lot just to convince her to come. She’d been thrown completely off her axis of confidence by her mother. Having issues with people who were supposed to love you unconditionally was a beast he knew too well.

  His twisted feelings had begun to knot up.

  Football was the only thing in life that gave him people who finally stuck.

  Now, it had led to Kenadi…

  And he really wanted Kenadi to stick.

  He thought about the other night. She had curled into his side while they spent hours talking about their childhoods and eventually falling asleep on her small sofa. Caleb had woken up with a crick in his neck, a cramp in his leg, and an arm that had fallen asleep hours before.

  It had been the best sleep he’d had in years.

  Cash vaguely heard Max say something about calling next week about a big deal in the works. Normally, he would’ve been pumped to hear those words coming out of his agent’s mouth, but he barely cared because Kenadi was here.

  In a sea of females wearing all white, she was the only one he saw. Instead of a white dress, she’d changed it up with a white tux of her own. The jacket was unbuttoned to reveal a lace bodysuit. Her body was stunning. He didn’t know how she could look in the mirror and believe otherwise.

  And her face...

  Under the soft lights strung across the yard, her eyes looked even more captivating set against her flawless brown skin. The braids were gone, replaced with her natural curly coils pinned back on one side by gold pins.

  It took him a minute to realize she was smiling at him. Without hesitating, he closed the gap between them. Once she was in reach, he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet for a second and whispering in her ear.

  “You are a knockout, Kenadi Russell.”

  He felt her smile against his cheek. “A huge turnaround from the crying mess I was yesterday, right?”

  “Nah, you’re always a knockout.”

  She drew back to face him. She was so pretty, it hurt.

  He cleared his throat as he returned her sparkly, open-toed shoes to Earth. “But since we’re talking about yesterday…I never told you why I didn’t want you to cancel our hangout.”

  Kenadi shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “It does.” He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “I knew you were going to walk into this party and everything was going to change.”

  She started to shake her head, but he stopped her gently.

  “Kenadi, Caleb is going to take one look at you, and you’re going to get the guy you’ve always wanted…and I…”

  His throat tightened around his admission. He could tell her the truth he’d been bottling up and steal his best friend’s girl before his best friend had a chance, or he could do something he was good at and take one for the team.

  “Cash?”

  The sides of her smile fell in concern.

  “I’m just going to miss hanging out with you.”

  She placed a hand on his chest. “You ditching me or something?”

  Her touch grounded him. He wanted to put his hand over hers and hold it there for as long as he could. “No, but relationships change people. I’m just being realistic.”

  “I’m not in a relationship. Even if someone did ask me out—”

  “Yo, Latham!” Both of them were jolted out of their intimate moment by the booming voice of Marlon Myers, one of the team’s fullbacks. “We’re taking pics!”

  “I’m talking right now!”

  “C’mon!”

  Cash did his best to ignore him, but soon, several other teammates joined in chanting his name.

  Kenadi smiled. “Go. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I’ll keep Kenadi company while you’re gone.”

  They spun around at the sound of Caleb’s voice.

  Cash gave his friend the evil eye, but Caleb was too busy grinning at Kenadi to notice.

  Kenadi stepped closer to Caleb. “You know who I am?”

  “Of course!”

  She smiled at Cash with twinkling eyes.

  She was happy. This was a good thing. He repeated those two things to himself as he walked away knowing Kenadi’s happiness was enough to keep him from tackling his best friend.

  He watched them from afar.

  Cash knew watching Caleb flirt with Kenadi would be awful, but he didn’t anticipate how much worse it would be when it was genuine interest he saw between them. He knew how it felt to be on the other side of her gaze, and once Caleb realized how good it felt to make her smile, to hear her laugh…he’d be addicted to the feeling. Cash knew what it was like to want to be the center of her attention…and he also knew he never would be.

  Kenadi: Hey, where’d you go? Did you fall into another pool or something?

  Kenadi: I’ve got something to tell you.

  He could only imagine what it was. He was going to need either a shot or more time before he had to sit through her gushing about how romantic Caleb was. He was closer to the exit than the bar.

  Cash: I’ve got a killer headache. I’m going to get out of here. Call you tomorrow.

  He was almost to the valet station when it hit him—it being the football that bounced off his shoulder and onto the pavement ahead of him. Someone had purposely hit him. The same someone looked both hurt and angry as she walked over.

  “Where’d you get a football from?”

  She ignored the question. “Why are you leaving?”

  He rubbed his arm. “I guess I’m not in a party mood.”

  Kenadi shook her head. “Bull. You had a conniption yesterday when I didn’t want to come. Now, I’m here, and you’re bailing.”

  “I did what I promised. I helped you get the guy of your dreams.”

  “Yeah.” She stepped closer. “You did.”

  “Why are you out here, Kenadi?”

  “Because the guy of my dreams is out here.”

  He stared at her blankly.

  “For clarity…it’s you.”

  Cash wanted to punch the air and kiss the earth.

  “I thought you wanted Caleb.”

  “I thought I did too. Turns out, I wanted the idea of him.” She took his hand in hers, interlocking their fingers purposely. The missing pieces of his life were slowly being pushed into place.

  “But I want the reality of you more than anything. Even though I’m not your type...”

  His mouth slammed into hers as he kissed her furiously. His hands reached under her jacket, taking hold of her waist and pulling her into him. When it came to Kenadi, his self-restraint had been stretched impossibly thin. He no longer cared about onlookers, agents, or older brothers. She was in his arms, kissing him back, telling him she wanted him for keeps.

  Without breaking their kiss, he reached down and cupped the back of her thighs, lifting her off the ground with ease. Cash relished the moment her legs locked around his waist. He pulled away from her lips.

  “I never said you weren’t my type, and I don’t want you ever saying it or thinking it again. Kenadi, you are everything I want, something I need, and more than I deser
ve. From the first time I saw you, I knew I needed more of you. Knocking you in the pool was the best thing I’ve ever done because I met you. I only endured watching you attempt to date or talk about my best friend because it gave me time with you.”

  She cupped her hands around his face and kissed him again. Softly and tenderly. “And you were about to walk away from me?”

  “Only because I thought you were happy, babe. I would do anything to make you happy.”

  “You make me happiest.”

  He kissed her until she giggled.

  “Your beard is ticklish.”

  “I’ll shave it off.”

  “Don’t you dare! It wasn’t a complaint.” Another kiss. Another knot undone.

  “Do you know what Caleb and I talked about the whole time?”

  “How to give me a brain aneurysm?”

  “Close. He told me some of his thoughts about this suspected secret girlfriend of yours, and I guess he took one look at us at the party and decided he was right. Apparently, I’m totally your type.”

  “See!”

  She laughed one of her big, whole-heart laughs he loved so much. “Let’s go back to the party. I got all dressed up for you, and I need to get my money’s worth.”

  “About that...” He slowly spun her around by the hand. It was the first time he could unabashedly admire everything he could see and let his imagination take over for things he couldn’t.

  She grinned knowingly. “At least buy me a drink first.”

  “It’s an open bar. I’ll buy you two.”

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “By the way, can I take you on a date?”

  Kenadi’s eyes were watery with happiness. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “It’s about time you asked me out, Cash Latham.”

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