“I swear to God, Mollie, if you’re trying to trick me into trying sushi again . . .”

“I’m not going to try to make you try sushi,” she said with an eye roll. “But for the record, you sound like a huge baby.”

Three days after sleeping with Jackson, Mollie was all but dragging the reluctant man down Ninth Avenue for a surprise lunch date. The streets of Manhattan were always crowded, but at lunch hour on a Monday, there was a bit of a stampede thing going on. Five minutes later, she led Jackson into a restaurant and watched his face expectantly.

His look of surprise followed by a flash of happiness gave her more satisfaction than it should have considering it was a random weekday lunch.

He glanced at her with a stunned smile. “Barbecue?”

She shrugged. “Don’t get too excited. I can’t vouch for it being the best in the city or anything, but Yelp says it’s good. Plus it’s the closest I could find to your office, but if you’d rather—”

He touched his fingers to her elbow just briefly. “Thank you.”

She bit her lip. “You’re welcome.”

“What about your lunch schedule, though?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I told them I needed an extra hour. They probably think I need to go to the lady doctor or something. Nobody asks questions about Pap smears.”

He winced. “Thanks for that.”

She patted his cheek before following the hostess to a small table.

When they were seated, Mollie didn’t even open her menu. She just watched Jackson’s face light up as his eyes scanned the offerings with enthusiasm.

Truth be told, despite being born and raised in Texas, Mollie had never gotten quite as excited about barbecue as Jackson and Madison were. Maybe she’d spent too much time away from the Lone Star State or something, but she’d take a nice ahi tuna salad over brisket any day. Still, she could easily suffer through a few ribs if it meant Jackson would keep smiling at her.

“Okay, so I’ve been thinking,” she said once the server had taken their drink orders.

He groaned. “You know, don’t you, that a woman starting a sentence that way always means bad things for a man?”

“I’m going to try very hard not to be insulted by that,” she said, eyes narrowed.

He held up his menu. “Can I order first?”

“If it means you’ll say yes to my fabulous idea, by all means.”

“Am I going to need a beer for this idea?” he asked, attention already back on the menu.

She pursed her lips as she considered. “Probably couldn’t hurt.”

When their server came back with Jackson’s Coke and Mollie’s Diet Coke, Jackson proceeded to order half the menu and a beer before looking expectantly at her.

She blinked. “You’re going to eat all of that? I thought that was for both of us.”

“Woman, you’re hot, but you’re not that hot.”

She shook her head and opened her menu. “Um, the pulled pork sandwich with fries.”

“Anything else?” the bored-looking waitress asked as she scribbled down Mollie’s order.

“Nah, I’ll just pick from the buffet he ordered.”

“She will not be touching my food,” Jackson said.

The waitress gave the tiniest of eye rolls before disappearing.

“Okay, so,” Mollie said, pulling her glass toward her and cupping it with two hands. “You said yes to your boss about the interview, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’re feeling good about it?”

He hesitated. “I’d rather talk to Penelope and Cole than anyone else, so yeah, I guess.”

“And Penelope and Cole are . . . friends?”

Jackson smiled. “Babe, you sound a bit like a mother hen who’s worried her chick isn’t fitting in on the playground.”

“Are you? Fitting in?”

“Things are getting better, sure. I don’t know that I’m next in line to be best man at anyone’s wedding, but things are fine.”

Mollie chewed on her lip. This was exactly what she was afraid of. Jackson had the New York address, he wore the suit, he played the game, and yet . . . he held himself back. He didn’t hang out with his coworkers outside of work. Didn’t have any other New York–based friends that she knew of. He talked on the phone a fair amount with his former teammates, and while she was glad he was keeping in touch with old friends, she was worried that Jackson Burke still very much had one foot firmly in Houston. Because while he’d never specifically alluded to going back there, he seemed to approach New York with an element of temporariness, as though at any moment he was ready to pack up and move home.

And much as it hurt her to think it, she was confident that for Jackson, Texas was home. His job might be here. But his heart . . .

Jackson’s eyes were watching her face carefully, his shoulders tense as though bracing for whatever she was about to throw at him.

So she just threw it.

“I was serious the other night when I said we should have a party.”

He blinked and stared at her as the waitress set a beer in front of him. He took a sip. “Come again?”

“A party. A cocktail party. For your colleagues. Remember?”

“Not really. I was staring at your boobs. Why would we have to have a party?”

“Because two of them hold your future reputation in their hands,” she said simply. “This Penelope and Cole, they’re getting a hell of a story. Jackson Burke breaks his silence . . . it’s going to be huge.”

“Thanks for that. Not like I wasn’t dreading it enough.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” she said eagerly. “You don’t have to dread it. If we can convince them to like you . . .”

Jackson choked on his beer. “You don’t think they even like me?”

“I’m sure they do,” she said soothingly. “But if they’re anything like me, they’re probably thinking you’re going to run back to Texas first chance you get.”

His eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that when you smile, it doesn’t reach your eyes. It means that you can’t go five minutes without complaining about the pollution or the noise of Manhattan. It means that you treat your Oxford job as just that, a job. There’s no passion, no interest. You never talk about it. Half the time I think—”

She broke off, but he held his hands out to the side. “No, no, keep going. You’re on a roll.”

His voice was tense but not angry, so she took a breath and forged ahead. “I just think that you’re never going to be happy here until you let yourself be happy here.”

There was a moment of silence. “I see. And you think that hosting a party is going to fix everything?”

“No, of course not. I was just thinking that you have such a nice place, and it would be good for you to make friends, and, well . . . it can’t hurt for them to think positively about you, you know?”

“I don’t think serving them fine champagne and top-shelf liquor is going to erase the fact that I still have a few skeletons in my closet. It’s not going to stop them from asking about the accident. Or the affairs. Or Madison.”

“How can you sound so calm about all of this?” she muttered. “You’re going to have people digging into your life, and you’re all . . . chill.”

“First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been chill a day in my life. But you’re the one who just told me I need to move on from all the shit of the past year. Maybe this is how I start.”

“And that’s why you’re doing this interview?” she asked. “To move on? To move . . . past everything?”

Their waitress appeared before he could answer—along with two other servers, since Jackson’s massive order was too big for any one human being to carry.

“Holy crap,” Mollie muttered once all the food was on the table. “This actually smells kind of amazing.”

Jackson put a hand over his heart. “I didn’t think it was possible, but congratulations, Mollie Carrington. You just got hotter.”

She smiled. “Does this mean you’re going to share?”

In response, he tore off a juicy rib from a rack and held it out to her. She plucked it from his fingers, noting the way his eyes locked on her mouth as she took a not-so-delicate bite of the deliciously saucy meat.

Jackson slowly licked the sauce from his thumb as he watched her chew, and Mollie felt an odd little thrill as she realized they were accomplishing the impossible: they were making barbecue sexy.

It was only after they were tearing their way through the various dishes, arguing over whether baked beans or coleslaw made the better side dish, that Mollie realized Jackson had never answered her question.

He’d never told her why he was doing the interview.