Out of My League - Sarah Sutton Page 0,81

normal mussed hair. His eyes, though, were alert, as if he’d been awake for hours. As if he’d never gone to sleep.

And when those eyes met mine, those beautiful, beautiful eyes, his eyebrows came together, like he couldn’t comprehend as to why I’d be here at this time of night.

Breathe, Sophia. Breathe.

“You tripped the motion sensor in the driveway,” he said, stepping out onto the porch. “The thing lets out a sound in the house like a doorbell.”

Ah, awesome. So he knew I was out here. Or, well, not me, but someone. He knew someone was being creepy.

Standing in the middle of his lawn, still propping up my bike, I felt insanely shy. Like, hide-me-under-a-rock shy. Like, is-there-a-way-to-disappear-into-the-ground shy. I wanted to ask him what he was still doing up, but my brain was caught on him and how he said my name. “Hey.”

Walsh started down the steps in his bare feet. “Are you okay? It’s, like, one in the morning.”

Did I say shy? No, I believe the correct term would be embarrassed. Insanely embarrassed.

“I’m great,” I said with way too much enthusiasm, sounding like I was attending cheerleading tryouts. “Seriously. Just out for a little…bike ride.”

He didn’t quite look like he believed me, and I couldn’t quite blame him. “I refer to my previous statement.”

I tried for humor. “I wanted to be the first one there when the library opened.”

“Sounds like you.” He smiled a little bit, but it did nothing to overshadow the concern that was so clear on his face, in his gaze. “What’s really going on, Sophia?”

His soft-spoken question chased away any further chance of humor, carrying across the yard. My throat burned, and I swallowed hard. I hadn’t been able to let out any tears at home, and not even on the long bike ride over here, but in that moment, I wanted to cry. Maybe it was because my emotional threshold reached its limit or because Walsh was looking at me with his eyes so full of concern that it cracked my heart apart.

The wind, thankfully, was on my side. Icy air coming off the ocean kept my watery eyes from overflowing. “Can I come inside?”

Walsh and I stood about four feet apart in a faceoff, him just off the edge of his front porch and me still clutching the handlebars. His hesitation had me bolstering myself for a rejection. It was one in the morning—why would he invite me in?

And yet here I was, asking him to do just that.

And yet there he was, about to say— “We have to be quiet. Janet’s sleeping on the couch. She fell asleep and I didn’t want to wake her.”

Everything inside me lurched again, in a way that wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable. He’s actually inviting me in.

As gingerly as I could, trying to hide my shaking hands, I set my bike down and made my way over to Walsh. Five fingers were outstretched to me, and I took them, his hand warm, calloused in all the places I remembered.

Once we crossed the threshold, Walsh didn’t give me a chance to take my sandals off, so they clack-clacked on the staircase, despite me trying to tip-toe. As we climbed higher, I could see a little bundle on the sofa, graying hair against a dark pillow.

Potent adrenaline shot through my veins, sending my pulse into high gear. He was taking me to his bedroom. For some reason, the idea of it made me want to simultaneously dig my heels in and go with him. Going to his bedroom felt personal, intimate, a real line that this fake relationship shouldn’t cross.

But at the same time, I almost felt eager to jump over it.

Walsh pushed open a door, and my eyes immediately went to a queen-sized bed pushed in the corner, with silky navy sheets that were rumpled, as if he’d just rolled from bed. Looking at it made my cheeks flush.

It was a relatively clean room; no clothes littered the floor except for a pair of wadded up jeans. A desk sat along the far wall with a picture frame sitting on its surface.

For a moment, neither one of us moved. Walsh still stood with his hand on the doorknob, and I was standing just over the doorway into his room, looking around. I could feel his watchful gaze on me, wary, like he wasn’t sure what I was about to do.

Honestly, I didn’t know either.

“So, are you getting excited for the final game?” I asked him, feeling horribly awkward