“Well, I’m a lawyer and you own a gym. Apparently, you get into the occasional fight, but always with some social mission in your back pocket. As for me, I’m a rule follower. Definitely not a rule-breaker.” This got me a huge laugh, a guffaw that rose all the way from the bottom of Jake’s belly and out his mouth, reverberating around the room.

“What?” I asked just as the waiter arrived with our wine. Jake held up a finger and said, “One sec,” letting me know we were definitely not done with the embarrassing conversation.

“Just pour,” he instructed the waiter when the man tipped a sip’s worth into the glass waiting for Jake to taste it. “I don’t need to swirl and smell it. It’s wine . . . it’ll be good.”

We were now left to our privacy again, each of us with a full glass of the burgundy-hued liquid in front of us.

“Cheers!” Jake lifted his and clinked it into mine still resting on the table.

“Cheers.” My response came out in a muted half whisper, since I was somewhat unsure of what we were toasting.

“I must point out, Aly, you being here is a bit of rule-breaking. The whole fighter and PD thing? You said you wouldn’t have fun with me, and look at you . . . out to dinner with me. I like it!”

The seriousness of what I was doing came crashing down on me like a million-ton elephant, the big gray one sitting in the room. Jake had been in jail, and I’d been sent to release him. If the other guy hadn’t opted not to press charges, I would have been in charge of defending Jake. And now we were out for sushi as if none of that had happened.

“It’s not right. I shouldn’t be here, but you were extra convincing. And pretty demanding, if I remember correctly,” I said, laying it all out there. “But after tonight, you’ll go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine. This really can’t go anywhere.”

“I call bullshit.” Jake leaned forward, the blue of his eyes turning almost metallic, sparkling with silver spokes of anger and determination as he delivered those three quick words.

The moment was broken by a food runner delivering the appetizers, and I breathed out a silent sigh of relief. I picked up my fork and Jake ripped apart his chopsticks, and I thought he was going to let it go, but no such luck.

“Total bullshit, Aly Road. One hundred percent crap. Because no one is going back to their life after this night. Everything, and I mean everything, is going to change.”

He clipped a shrimp with his chopsticks and stuck it into his mouth, chewing it with tenacity. I watched his chapped lips work, the slight dark stubble along his jaw moving as he swallowed the morsel before taking a long sip of wine. All the while, I didn’t dare move. I didn’t eat or drink; I wasn’t even sure if I breathed.

“You can’t threaten something like that, Jake,” I said, finally finding my voice tucked inside my aching belly.

“You bet I can. There’s a lot I can’t tell you, but know this.” His eyes darkened as he pinned them on me with all seriousness. “We were meant to meet in that jail on Christmas Eve. There’s a reason you were on duty and responsible for me. All you need to know is I’ve gone through life with a ton of shit on my back—and it’s bad shit—and meeting you was the first time I breathed easy in decades. And why is that? Because we were meant to meet . . . it’s why we were both at Roman’s and then the Tap Room. It’s why you don’t have a car and I had two. I was meant to take care of you.”

His declaration stunned me. I breathed out his name, my wavering voice begging him to stop, but he went on.

“Yep, I know you hardly know me, and I don’t know you. But I know this . . . I was meant to care for you. I wasn’t good until I met you. I couldn’t focus until I met you. Life meant nothing until I met you. And I know I’m laying this out there over sushi and you’re in shock, but life isn’t going back to normal after this dinner, Aly.”

I took a sip of my wine, allowing it to flow down my throat all the way to my belly, hoping it would take the edge off. Even if I guzzled the entire glass, my nerves would still be humming.

“Jake,” I whispered again, searching for the right words. Painful words, words laced with rejection, but I couldn’t make them form.

In front of me was a burly man full of enough strength to beat the shit out of anyone in his way. He was an extremely virile man, oozing sex and promising a good fucking, but when I looked deep enough into the crisp blue pools of his eyes, I saw a little lost boy.

And I couldn’t hurt him. Either the man or the boy. So I said nothing.

“Eat some shrimp and relax,” he said with an understanding smile. “I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment. And I’m not trying to tie your good name to my shitty one. I know I’m a bad apple, but just give me a little of your goodness. I may never get anything like that again.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat while he waited for me to . . . respond? Eat? I didn’t know. I did know this: I was going to give him some goodness.

And quite possibly break my very own heart in the process.

I lifted my glass—channeling my inner Hilary—and tapped it to his. “I don’t know where this can go, probably nowhere, but I can’t deny our repeated running into each other felt somewhat serendipitous. So, let’s have some fun. No promises of anything more. I don’t have the luxury of thinking of the future. I’m trying to survive the moment.”

He beamed at me with a broad, delighted smile, and the small crinkles around his eyes made a welcome reappearance. I wanted to reach across the table and smooth the hair out of his eyes, but he captured my hand on the table under his and gave it a squeeze.

“Shrimp, come on,” he commanded and I obeyed, spearing a shrimp on my fork. “Next one, you have to try to use the sticks.”

I giggled. “No way. I’ve never used those before.”

“Well, you know what they say. It’s never too late to learn how to eat with chopsticks.”

“Oh, really? I’ve never heard that saying before.”

The music changed and the soft, sweet voice of Taylor Swift wafted from the speakers.

Her words struck me as the lyrics flitted through my head, and I realized that here I was actually living life for the first time. In the worst possible scenario for someone in my position, with red flags raining down all over me, I was living. And there was nothing I wanted to do more at this moment than really live.

Jake wrapped his hand around mine and slipped the chopsticks between my pointer and middle fingers, keeping his hand in place as he lined up the chopsticks just so. Our hands traveled together to the plate and we plucked up a shrimp.

Our fingers and palms remained twined as we brought the bite to my lips. I chewed and swallowed before my traitorous tongue ran a lap over my lips, making certain there was nothing left behind. Jake’s eyes fixed on my mouth, darkening to midnight blue this time. With our hands still joined on the table and my heart beating so loudly in my chest, no amount of Taylor Swift was going to cover up my reaction to him.

Once again we were rescued by an overzealous server, who popped over to our table to ask what else we wanted to order.

Jake turned to me. “How adventurous do you want to be?”

With his eyebrow raised in the air, practically daring me, I couldn’t resist. “I’m along for the ride. I’ll go where you take me,” I confessed.

Problem was, I didn’t think I was only talking about sushi.

Jake ordered all kinds of things I’d never heard of before, and one after the other, a myriad of food made up of bright colors and a variety of shapes and sizes appeared at the table like the circus was coming to town.

We dipped pieces of tuna into soy sauce, and I desperately tried to pick up the tiny rolls of seaweed in my chopsticks. Jake would reach over to my side of the table and take my hand, trying to help, but his touch only made my fingers tremble more. A few times, he snatched a piece of something, popping it in my mouth as he said, “You have to try this!” Our gazes would linger on the chopsticks until they were inevitably drawn to each other, where they would simmer and pop with electricity.