When I Need You (Need You #4)(43)

I shook my head to clear it. Dammit. How had I veered into that territory?

Right. Listing all the things I knew about Jensen that few others did.

Like he didn't have many books in his living room, but the ones he displayed looked well worn. He had three complete sets of Harry Potter books-hardcover, paperback and a leather-bound edition. He also had a wand in a box from Ollivanders and a PROPERTY OF HOGWARTS beer stein on the shelf next to the books, which I found sweet.

He'd hung up his family pictures in his kitchen. There weren't many, and the only people I recognized were Dallas and her brother, Ash, and his sister, Annika-because of her being tight with Dallas-and Axl Hammerquist, who I'd met once. There wasn't a single picture of him in his football uniform anywhere, which I found very telling.

His kitchen sorely lacked the most basic cooking utensils. He'd confessed to Calder that he couldn't cook, so I found it . . . endearing that Chopped was his favorite TV show. But Jensen liked to eat. He ate quickly, as if he'd win a prize for finishing first. But even as he shoveled food in, his manners were impeccable. I'd been tempted to ask if as a kid he'd been required to take etiquette lessons, given the Lunds' social standing.

Surprisingly, it'd been easy to forget that the man was one of the heirs to a billion-dollar corporation. At times I'd even forgotten he was The Rocket, the beloved football star, the man with national endorsement deals, a hundred thousand followers on social media and the good guy-a dude's dude-with the charming smile and the bad-boy reputation for rotating women into his bed like they were auditioning for the play of the week. 

Whenever he'd shared a meal with us and I'd watched him across the table, laughing and talking with my son, I saw none of those things. Granted, Jensen Lund remained the hottest man I'd ever seen up close and personal, but he was funny, honestly engaging and so unbelievably sweet.

But the intense way he studies you indicates there's something deeper there than friendship-for both of you. You're drawn to his cocky self-assurance that when he strips you naked, he'll show you-very thoroughly-how hot and fast The Rocket can make you burn.

When? What had happened to if?

Calder jumped in front of me, startling me, bringing immediate guilt for the lewd direction my thoughts had taken.

"I'm hungry."

"Any requests?"

He leaned forward and placed his hands on my knees, giving himself stability as he bounced. "Sometime can we do Chopped?"

"I don't know what you mean by doing Chopped."

"Like we write down some stuff we have in the kitchen on pieces of paper, and then pick three things and cook something with them?"

As if coming up with healthy meals for a six-year-old wasn't challenging enough. "I suppose we could try it one of these days. But what if we ended up with something like fish sticks, peanut butter and mustard?"

Bounce, bounce, bounce. "Well . . . we could mix the peanut butter and mustard together and use it to dip the fish sticks in."

I laughed and latched onto his skinny arms to stop the bouncing so I could kiss his forehead. "You are such a clever boy. Maybe I should put you in charge of dinner every night."

"Then I want fish sticks!"

"Fish sticks it is. It'll take a little while for them to cook, so grab your backpack and let's go over what you did in school today."

After I had the food under way, I sat next to Calder at the table. I picked up a picture he'd drawn of a stick figure, the legs, torso and arms colored black. "What's this?"

"Me in my dance clothes."

Ah. That explained the color choice. Boys wore black leotards to class. "And what are you doing?" There was a brown half circle beneath his feet, which were the same flesh color as his face, and that amused me, but I kept my poker face.

"Standing in a mud puddle." He pointed above the image. "That's a rain cloud and it's raining all around me."

I didn't see the usual happy additions that he always added to his drawings. Flowers, rainbows and butterflies. "Why does the picture seem sad?"

"Miss Gray asked us to draw how we felt on the weekend. I was sad about no dance camp, so I drew the sky crying."

My stomach twisted. "The sky was crying about it but you weren't?"

Calder leaned into me. "I was in the rain because I was crying too."

Talk about making me teary. I pressed my lips to the top of his head. "I'm sorry you were sad. I'm sad about it too." I hadn't mentioned the possibility of a new dance camp in case it didn't pan out. Even when I had hope LCCO would come through, I wasn't leaving anything to chance. I had the names of three other camps to contact tomorrow.

"Tell me what else you did at school today."