“And she told you she was fine?” Cole asked, brow arched.

Mitch came clean. “She said ‘we slipped up’ and ‘hey, it happens.’”

“Does that sound like Jenny to you?”

And that was where Mitch’s logic fell off the rails. It didn’t sound remotely like Jenny.

The accusation went out of Cole’s eyes, and Mitch felt his guard slip a notch.

Both men were silent for a few minutes, while the wind picked up, and the golf games continued on the course.

“What were you thinking?” asked Cole.

Mitch eased back down in his seat. “You saw her last night.”

“Yet I didn’t sleep with her.” Then Cole’s gaze grew contemplative, as if he was questioning his own judgment on that front.

Something dark burst to life inside Mitch, and he reflexively jerked forward. “Don’t you dare even think about sleeping with Jenny.”

Cole looked amused now. He obviously saw some kind of twisted humor in Mitch’s predicament. “That sounded a whole lot like jealousy. Why don’t you tell me again how you have no intentions toward her?”

Mitch could tell where Cole was going. But there was absolutely no future for him and Jenny. Jenny was a great girl, and Mitch was only human. “You know what I’m like.”

He and Cole had been friends since elementary school. Cole had played baseball instead of football, his smaller stature making that game a better fit. But he was fully aware of the perks available to elite athletes. And he was under no illusions about Mitch’s lifestyle.

“You’re not the guy I’d pick for my sister, that’s for sure,” Cole agreed.

“You don’t have a sister.”

“If I had one.”

“I’ll be leaving town after the election, or as soon as my shoulder heals,” Mitch added to the discussion. There was absolutely no future for the two of them. And Jenny deserved a guy who could give her a future.

Nipping things in the bud was the only way to keep from hurting her even more.