“How’d you choose journalism?”
The question snapped her out of the appreciative moment. “I’m the one with questions.”
He raised a brow. “So you get to ask questions, but I don’t.”
“I’m the one doing the interview,” she reminded him. The thought of being interviewed herself made her shiver. No, thank you. She preferred to present the news, not be a part of it.
“We’re conversing, not interviewing. Seems hypocritical you pull the interview card once the tables are turned.” They broke from the trail and walked across the small wooden bridge to the parking lot. Walking to the car, he paused by the driver’s side door. “New rule.”
She sighed and crossed her arms, waiting.
“You get a day for questions, then I get a day.”
She stared at him, not following.
“For questions,” he clarified. “We’ll call it the give-and-take arrangement.”
Aileen’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t do that. You already agreed to a month. You can’t just go back and slap new rules on the deal.”
He lifted one shoulder unapologetically. “I don’t see a legally binding document anywhere, do you? If you get to probe into me and my life, then I should get the chance to do the same.”
She closed her eyes and forced herself to count to ten. A ten-count in which she heard him open his car door and get in. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what?” She cracked one eye to see him putting on the worst who, me? face she’d ever seen.
She narrowed her eyes and slapped one hand on his door before he could close it. “I’m getting my interview. I get a month.”
“Divided by two, so really it’s more like fifteen days.”
“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth, and reveled in the momentary satisfaction of his surprise. “I get fifteen days. You won’t fight me, you won’t argue, you won’t disappear off the face of the planet. I get my fifteen days, without any trouble from you. Got it?”
He watched her a moment, and she had the feeling he was looking for any sort of weakness. Any chip in the armor to gouge at and make a break for it. When he evidently saw none, he sighed. “Fine.”
She let the door go and watched him close it. Then, when he didn’t turn his car on, she held up her hands in question. He pointed toward her own car, several spaces away.
“Go to your car,” he said, though she could only tell from reading his lips. His very delicious, excellent-kissing lips.
She raised one brow. “Why?”
His head dropped back in exasperation, lips moving in what she could only assume was a prayer for serenity. She fought back the twitch of a smile. Annoying him was just too much fun. He started his car, then rolled the window down. “Go to your car.”
“Why?” she repeated.
“Because I can’t leave until you do. And I’ve got stuff to do. Go.”
The reluctant chivalry made her grin. “When should our month start?”
He rolled his eyes at that. “Whenever. Might as well get it over with.”
She bounced on the balls of her feet, then winced when her calves shouted in protest. “Tomorrow.”
He nodded, then pointed at her car in the most autocratic manner she could imagine someone could point. With a wave, she trotted off to get her car started. After a moment’s hesitation, the engine caught and she did a quiet fist pump of gratitude.
She debated sitting there for another several minutes, playing on her phone or doing something else just to mess with him. But she wouldn’t. Her month started tomorrow. There’d be more than enough time to mess with him then.
She was counting on it.
* * *
It was equal parts brilliant and horrifying, this new plan of his.
Killian waited for the little freckled fairy to pull her junk heap of a car out of the parking lot, then followed and turned the opposite direction. He needed a shower before he went in to review practice footage with the special teams coaches.
He was insane. Why the hell had he agreed to an entire month of interviews? No, not a month, he corrected with a grim smile, fifteen days now. That last little bit had been a last-minute add-on stroke of brilliance. Mainly, it would cut down on the number of days she could follow him around, interrogate him, and make his ears bleed with questions.
The second, and more important reason was that he hoped to annoy the hell out of her so that she’d quit. She’d immediately rejected him asking a simple question about her private life. Maybe an entire day of questions would make her take off. And good riddance, if so.
Was that honestly true, though? Clearly, his mind and his body were thinking two very different things. Otherwise, how the hell did he explain his sudden and intense need to push her up against a frigging tree and kiss her like he was ready to rip off their clothes and go all Man of the Jungle on her?
Temporary insanity. That’s all. That’s all it could be. He wouldn’t let it go further than that. She sounded sincere—even hurt—when he’d hinted he worried about her writing anything personal in a column about him. But that didn’t mean he could trust her to keep that attitude all the way through.
His phone beeped with an incoming text, so he waited until he got to the next stoplight and glanced quickly at it. It was a text from Emma, showing Charlie’s spelling test. Nineteen out of twenty. Not bad.
He made a mental note to call after practice to congratulate him. It was too early now; he’d either be wolfing down breakfast or already on the bus. A call from him would disrupt the morning routine, making Emma’s job harder and Charlie’s concentration for school shot to hell.
But oh, God, he wished he could just lean over and give him a hug. Wrap his arms around his son and hold him for a few minutes every morning. Did parents who lived with their kids know the gift they had? Did they fully understand what a treasure it was to wake up with their kids under the same roof every day? Probably not, he thought as he headed for his apartment complex. Why should they?
He needed to head back into his apartment and temporarily stash any signs of Charlie’s existence, in case the nosy reporter wanted to come back and look around. There was no way she’d seen any pictures of him in the entryway. But farther in, he had them everywhere. So he’d erase the signs that he had a son for a month, so she wouldn’t ask questions and keep digging in that area.
His heart clenched at the thought of hiding his child’s existence. But he did it every day, for his own good. So a few weeks fooling a cute pixie of a reporter wouldn’t make a difference.
Chapter Seven
Aileen hated waiting for no good reason. And apparently, that’s what she’d done. Waited for Killian to walk out of practice for no good reason, since he wasn’t even coming out.
“Did he forward his mail to the locker room?” she muttered as she leaned against the rough brick and propped one foot up flat against the wall. Her muscles were sore. Every movement had become a chore, thanks to the unplanned—and unwanted—hike from that morning. She was so out of shape, it was embarrassing. But athletics and working out had never really been her thing. She would rather watch other people do the work and then report on it, instead of going out there and doing it herself.
Which, okay, was a total lie. She’d always wished she could be athletic. Naturally gifted in the art of throwing a ball, swinging a racket, running, whatever. Any sport. But no matter what she tried, she was only good at one thing . . .