I lean forward and take Gray’s hands. I pull on her until she sits up. I pull harder until she goes to her knees, and then I tug some more until she’s crawling up to straddle me.

When she’s sitting on me, pressed warmly against me, I place my hands on her thighs and give a slight squeeze. “I’ve been thinking about us, and while the way we have to keep this secret is less than optimal, I don’t think it’s going to be forever. I think this is just something we wait out. We don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of the season, or even the year after that. Hell, I could get injured badly next week and have to retire, and then we’d be free to see each other publicly.”

“Don’t even say that,” Gray mutters.

“The point being, we’ve got time. Let’s let it ride and know that our situation right now is nothing more than a temporary hurdle.”

She tilts her head to the side and drops her gaze to my hands, where she laces her fingers with mine. “I know…and you’re right…it’s just, this is all new to me and I’m finding it’s exciting and wondrous and I want to experience everything. The unfairness of it…that I can’t have a normal relationship experience gets to me. It makes me crazy.”

“If we could be normal, what would be one of the things you’d want to do?” I ask her curiously.

Her eyes raise up to meet mine. “A date. I’d like to go out on a simple date. Dinner, movies, a walk in the park. I would want to go out in public, and have you hold my hand and kiss me, and the only concern I’d have of what others think is if other women were insanely jealous of me, and I would love that so much.”

I chuckle and my heart swells for this woman who wants something so simple. Something most women her age have already experienced in spades. Gray Brannon may have all kinds of experience in the sack, but when it comes to something as elementary as a date, she’s like a high school girl going to her first prom.

“You know what I’d want to do if we didn’t have to hide what we have?” I ask her.

She nods enthusiastically with an impatient twinkle in her eyes.

“I’d have you over for dinner to spend time with me and the girls. I’d want you to get to know Ruby and Violet and I want them to get to know you.”

Her eyes immediately cloud over as she says bitterly, “I’m not good with kids.”

“Are you kidding me?” I chastise her with a rough squeeze to her hands so she understands me. “You were great with them when you came over a few weeks ago to see Ruby after her surgery. You’re a natural at talking to them.”

She doesn’t want to believe me but I see a flicker of hope within. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I assure her. “They’re just people. Little people, but all you have to do is just talk to them. It’s not rocket science.”

“It would be cool if we could take them to an amusement park or maybe the zoo. The North Carolina Zoo has an amazing arachnid exhibit that Ruby would love,” Gray says with a leer. She knows my irrational fear of spiders and thankfully still thinks I’m sexy despite it. “That would be low pressure for all of us.”

“Or to the beach,” I offer, while trying to repress a shudder over the thought of being in a room filled with hundreds of spiders. “In just a few hours and we could have the girls playing in the sand and surf.”

“Or we could take them over to my dad’s house. His pool is amazing,” she says with excitement, thankfully letting the idea of the arachnid house go.

“We’d have to have the proverbial ‘take me to meet your dad dinner’ first,” I add.

“You’ve already met my dad.”

“As a player, not as your boyfriend,” I correct.

She giggles then and leans back, letting my hands secure her from falling. “We have a lot of stuff to do once we come out of the closet.”

“You know,” I say hesitantly. “Maybe we can do some of those things now.”

Gray gives me a shrewd, skeptical look. “How?”

“We could do a double date with Zack and Kate,” I suggest. “I mean…maybe just go over to their house for dinner. Eat, drink some beers, hang out.”

“A double date,” she murmurs, as if it’s the most miraculous thing in the world.

“Or,” I drawl suggestively. “You could come over for dinner here one night with me and the girls. They know you as my boss, and I could have you over in that capacity. Let them start to get to know you.”

Again, her eyes swirl with turbulence. “What if they don’t like me?”

“Not possible.”

“It is too possible. Anything’s possible,” she says gently. “Statistically, that is.”

“For once, screw your statistics,” I tell her firmly. “I know my daughters. I know you. They will like you. Come to adore you like I do, I would bet money.”

“It’s too soon,” she throws out, trying to seek every excuse in the book to assuage her fear of rejection by them. “You and Hensley aren’t even divorced.”

“Just waiting on the signed paper,” I tell her, which it seems I’m saying that a lot. I’d called my attorney to find out what the fuck is taking so long for the judge to sign the decree, and I’m hoping that moves things along. “But you have to remember, Hensley and I have been separated for over a year, so I don’t think it’s too soon to introduce them to someone I’m interested in. For Christ’s sake, Hensley had Patric around them all the time, so they understand the concept of their parents moving on.”