Dallas smiled at me a little as he leaned toward me—and for one stupid second, I don’t know why, I thought he was going to kiss me—but all I felt was a tug at the back of my hair and I knew he’d pulled my loose hair out of the collar. He narrowed his eyes and I narrowed mine right back, and the next thing I knew, he reached behind me again and tucked the rope of hair he was holding back inside his jacket.

And he still smiled at me, just a little, little, little thing, as he said, “Better.” His hand went to the red baseball cap on my head, and he pulled the brim down a half-inch on my forehead. “Nice hat.”

It was that, that had me smirking at him as I soaked in the heat his body had left in the soft material of the inside of the jacket. “It came broken in to the shape of my head.” I huddled into the jacket. “I don’t ever give things back. You’ve just learned that the hard way.”

He smiled, slowly coming to his feet from the crouch he’d been in.

“I like your cap,” I told him honestly. The emerald green made his hazel eyes pop like crazy. Plus, it was just fucking cute. “Did Miss Pearl make it for you?”

“I made it,” he said with a twist to his mouth. “She taught me how.”

The stupid smile that came over my face had me staring at him in awe. I even slapped my hand right over the left side of my chest. “Are you real?”

Dallas tapped my chin. “I’ll knit you one, Peach.”

“I could have given you my jacket,” the poor, poor dad beside me piped in, breaking my trance of love.

Dallas’s attention instantly moved toward the man, and as the words “She’s fine” came out of his mouth, he turned that tall, muscular body and parked himself in the tight space between both of us. He didn’t fit. Not at all. His elbow pretty much landed on my lap and most of his thigh and calf were pressed and aligned to my matching body parts.

I shifted to my left an inch and the length of his leg followed me, his elbow staying exactly where it was.

What the hell was happening?

“How’s it going, Kev?” Dallas asked the dad, still smothering me but somehow his attention elsewhere.

Hmm. Shoving my hands into the pockets of his jacket, the back of my left hand hit something crumpled. Paper. Making sure he wasn’t looking at me, I pulled what I figured were balled-up receipts out, being nosey and wondering what the hell he’d bought.

But it wasn’t recycled white paper I pulled out.

They looked like Post-it notes. Plain, yellow Post-it notes like I’d seen in his truck. That just made me more curious.

Both men were talking as I started opening the notes as quietly as possible, really not caring if he caught me in the act by that point. But he didn’t turn to look at me. He was too busy talking about who he thought the Texas Rebels were going to try and recruit next season.

The ball of paper was really two square-shaped notes stacked together.

I read one and then I read the other.

Then I went back and read the top one and followed it up by reading the bottom one.

I did it a third time. And then I balled them back up and stuffed them where I’d found them.

I didn’t need to look at them again to remember what was on each.

The first one, in small, neat handwriting that was crossed out with hard dashes across the letters, like he’d changed his mind, had said: YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE.

The second one… I sucked in a breath through my nose and made sure not to glance at Dallas even out of the corner of my eye.

It was the second one that had me feeling like a twitchy crackhead. The words hadn’t been crossed out like the first one, and there was a smudge on the corner of the Post-it that went straight to my heart. It was a smudge like the ones I always spotted on his neck and arms.

I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU.

I can’t live without you.

The first time I read it, I wondered who the hell he couldn’t live without. But I wasn’t that stupid and naïve, even though my insides felt like they were on the verge of exploding.

He wasn’t… there was no way….

What exactly was it that I had told him and Trip in my kitchen during Josh’s sleepover what felt like forever ago?

“Tia!”

I sat up and looked around, recognizing Louie’s voice instantly. Dallas must have too, because he shot to his feet and scanned the area. But I found the blond head instantly; beside him was Josh. It was the woman in front of them that had me zeroing in like an eagle on the hunt for an innocent mouse for breakfast. Of all the women it could have been, it was Christy.

Fucking Christy.

The notes forgotten for now, I swiped my bag off the bleacher and left the rest of my shit where it was, that second of hesitation giving Dallas a head start on the route toward the boys. He made it before I did, and that was when I noticed that Josh had his arm around his brother’s shoulder. The last time he’d made that kind of protective gesture had been at Rodrigo’s funeral.

Which meant someone was about to die because Josh and Louie should never feel threatened by anything.

“What happened?” Dallas asked immediately, his hand reaching out toward Louie. I didn’t miss how Lou took his hand instantly.

“She called me a brat,” Louie blurted out, his other little hand coming up to meet with the one already clutching our neighbor’s.

I blinked and told myself I was not going to look at Christy until I had the full story.

“Why?” Dallas was the one who asked.