I looked up at him, hating him seeing me with what I was sure were puffy, red eyes with disaster written in the pupils. Dallas’s expression was a mournful one. There was a softness to his features that didn’t normally exist. And when he blew out a breath that hit the cheek closest to him, I could confirm his guilt.

“I try not to play favorites, and it came back to kick me in the ass. I’m sorry. I should have told her to go sit down when she started going off instead of telling her I didn’t have time to deal with her,” he said, so close to my face. “You’re my friend. I’m sorry for letting you down. I seem to do that a lot.”

“You didn’t let me down,” I muttered to him, feeling embarrassed all over again. “Look, I’m going to go sit in the car until the game starts. I want to be alone for a minute to get my shit together.”

He sighed, the fingers around my wrist retreating for a brief moment before they slid up my bare forearm, the calluses grazing my upper arm and shoulder over the sleeves of my T-shirt as they made the trek upward, and then he was palming my shoulders with both of those rough-worked hands. He breathed, rough and choppy. The tips of his tennis shoes inched closer to me, his hands squeezing my shoulders as he said in a whisper, “I’m gonna hug you as long as you promise not to grab my ass, okay?”

I almost laughed, but it sounded more like a broken croak.

I came from a hugging family. I was descended from a long line of huggers before me. We hugged for good things and we hugged for bad things. We hugged when there was a reason and we definitely hugged for no other reason than because we could. We hugged when we were mad at each other and when we weren’t. And I’d always loved it; it became a part of me. A hug was an easy way of showing someone you cared about them, of offering comfort, of saying, “I’m so happy to see you” without words.

So when Dallas wrapped his arms around the middle of my back, he swallowed me in something that had always been freely given in my life. And he said words that hadn’t always been so easily shared, “I’m sorry, Di.”

I smiled into his chest sadly, letting the nickname go in and out of my ears. “It’s not your fault, Professor.”

His body tightened along mine. “Professor?” he asked, slowly, quietly.

He knew. “Professor X. You know, Professor Xavier.”

My neighbor—my friend—made the same choking sound he’d made back at my house when I’d called him Mr. Clean.

“Dallas?” a voice called from outside the bathroom.

Said man didn’t loosen his hold on me even as his upper body started shaking a little. “Yeah?”

“Game’s about to start,” someone who wasn’t Trip told him.

“All right. I’ll be out in a sec,” the man hugging me answered, his palm making a flat trek up my back to land between my shoulder blades before he slowly pulled back just enough to look down at me. “I need to go.” There was a pause. “And I’m not bald. I’m just used to having short hair.”

I didn’t say anything; I just sniffled.

Dallas reached up and touched my forehead with one of his thumbs briefly before snatching the cap off his head and settling it over my hair. The tips of his fingers brushed high over my cheekbones for tears that had disappeared by that point. “Go watch your boy.”

When I didn’t say anything, he tipped his head to the side and lowered his face until it was inches from mine, his expression so tight I swore he looked furious. “Where’s that person who gave me a stare down and asked me if I wanted to be friends with her or if she should fuck off, hmm?”

The corners of my mouth tilted up just a little, and it made his lips do the same.

He blinked and told me in that bossy, military voice, “Don’t leave.”

I swallowed and couldn’t help but duck my head for a moment.

“Don’t leave,” he repeated. One of those hands I’d admired a time or two came up and gently brushed my neck before dropping away. “I’ll talk to Josh after the game, but if you guys wanna quit, I can’t stop you. I’ll talk to Christy. We don’t treat each other like that here.” His thumb moved up to touch right beneath my chin. “I don’t want you to go anywhere if that means anything, Peach.”

This smooth motherfucker was killing me. How? How was he single? How could his wife be such a dumbass? What could he have done to ruin a marriage? I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t.

The thought came to me as forcefully as the one the last time we’d seen each other had, scary and unwelcome: I liked him. I liked him a lot, and I had no business feeling that way. None.

That was why I trusted him. Because some part of me really liked this man. Shit.

So I told him something I would probably live to regret. Something that I wasn’t supposed to say now or ever. But if I’d learned anything over the last few years, it was that you didn’t always have the right time for anything even if, in a perfect world, you were supposed to. “Look, I don’t know what happened with your wife—where she is, why you guys aren’t together… it’s not my business—but all I know is that she’s an idiot,” I told him.

He blinked those brown-gold-green marble eyes.

But I wasn’t done. “You deserve the best, Dallas. I hope you find someone who appreciates you someday, if that’s what you want. I’m so lucky to have you as my friend. Anyone who has you as more than that is a lucky bitch.” I smiled at him, feeling a rush of heat on my face. “I’m not trying to stick my hand down your pants either, all right?”