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some
restaurants in the area—there had to be somewhere she could quickly
pick something up and bring it back to her desk.
    As she left the Coliseum, she saw Matt
Heller standing near an exit, looking down at his smart phone in
his hand. She paused then started to walk past him, but he looked
up and spotted her.

 
    Chapter
Four
     
     
    Matt looked up from his phone and saw
Honey walking toward him, her steps slowing. She carried her purse
over her shoulder so was obviously leaving. “Honey,” he said
slowly. They stood and looked at each other for a long moment.
Fuck, she made him hot. “Going out for lunch?”
    “Um. Yeah.”
    He eyed her. “Alone?”
    “Yes.” She gave one of those big fake
smiles she’d been throwing around yesterday and today.
    “I’ll come with you.”
    Christ. What was he saying?
    She blinked. “What? Why?”
    He made a face as he shoved his phone
into his back pocket. “Eating alone sucks. And I’m hungry.”
Truth.
    She stood there, clutching her purse.
“That’s not necessary. I was just going to grab something quick and
take it back to my desk to eat… I have a lot of work to
do.”
    “Oh come on. You can take an hour for
lunch.” He cupped her elbow and nudged her toward the door. “We’ll
just go to that Mexican place across the street.”
    “Matt…”
    “C’mon, Honey. You’ve got me
curious.”
    “What do you mean?”
    He lifted one eyebrow. “I mean…here
you are with a social welfare degree working for a non-profit
organization and looking all…” His gaze raked up and down her.
“Professional.”
    She lifted her chin and narrowed her
eyes at him. “You don’t have to sound like that’s so impossible for
me.”
    “Not impossible, no. Just…surprising.
Which makes me curious. Let’s go have lunch and…catch
up.”
    Her lips tightened. “You make it sound
like we’re old friends,” she muttered.
    Things hadn’t ended all that well
between them eight years ago, but still. “We are,” he clipped out.
“Come on.”
    She planted her heels into the carpet
then said, “Fine.”
    Curious. Yeah. Matt was curious about
Honey. He knew the train wreck her life had become after the time
they’d spent together that summer. He’d seen it happening, even
then, and had worried about her. After he’d left, going back to
play NCAA hockey at the University of North Dakota, he’d watched it
all happen from a distance, watched it unfold in the media. He’d
hated that, but the times he’d tried to call her to talk to her and
find out what was going on with her, she’d been pissed off at him
and basically told him to fuck off. In fact, those might have been
her exact words.
    So he’d left her alone, watching her
self-destruct, feeling pissed off, guilty (although why, he wasn’t
sure) and worried. He’d forced himself to let go. Told himself it
wasn’t his business. Made himself not care. He’d had enough
problems of his own, trying to get his career where he wanted it to
go. Where he felt it should go, following along in the
successful footsteps of his three older brothers.
    Now he should be skating a big circle
around Honey Holbrook, but here he was dragging her out for
lunch.
    Life shot some weird pucks at you
sometimes.
    Tamale, the Mexican restaurant across
the street from the Coliseum, was basically fast food, but upscale
fast food. They waited in a line to place their orders. Matt pulled
out his wallet to pay even as Honey reached for her purse, but he
shook his head and pulled out some bills. He carried the tray with
their food and drinks to a small booth near the sunny front window
and they spent a few minutes unwrapping and arranging their
meals.
    “You’ve probably never eaten at a
Tamale restaurant.”
    She gave him a sideways, pursed-lip
look as she pushed a straw into the plastic lid of her diet Coke.
“Of course I have.”
    “I love this grilled steak burrito,”
he said. “It’s huge.”
    “So’s this salad,” she said. “I