The air grows thick with renewed excitement when the door creaks open again. The guest of honor has arrived.
“Welcome back, golden boy!” Trevor shouts. “Glad to see you again.”
“Golden boy?” I murmur. I’m sorely unprepared for the way my heart falls to my stomach when I turn and see the man shaking Trevor’s hand, towering over my colleagues.
Turning my back to the blast from my past, I slow my breathing. I’d like to believe I’m hallucinating, but it’s him. That’shisvoice. Deep yet light enough to make me feel like I’m floating when he speaks. Euphoria wraps itself around every syllable that falls from his lips.
Lips I happen to know are very soft.
No, Shaylene.
Even without looking at him, I know he’s doing what he does best—making people feel special. All his attention is on my colleagues, casting Trevor, Winston, and Andy under his spell, laughing as if they’ve known him for years.
The way I know him.
Knewhim.
“Turner!” Winston bellows, and I whip around at the authority in his voice. “Join us.”
Gorgeous eyes are already on me, and I flinch at the intensity. I almost forgot how warm his hazel gaze is, more green than brown in the early morning light. So familiar that I could create a color palette from memory.
Against my better judgement, I don’t rush toward the door and sprint back to my office. Instead, I walk toward the men and extend my hand. We haven’t shaken hands since the day we met freshman year in that little study room. It’s as awkward as that first time, his callouses sliding against my palm as his hand engulfs mine completely. Warm and welcoming.
So much like the man I quietly fell in love with.
Of course I knew he was traded to the Pilots a few months ago. It’s my job to know what’s going on in the baseball world, but Cade Owens isn’t my business.
Hasn’t been since the day he didn’t come home.
Chapter Five
Being surrounded by thismuch testosterone for a prolonged amount of time must be a hazard.
There hasn’t been a single work-related discussion in the forty-two minutes we’ve been gathered around the table. Winston and Cade bonded over having younger sisters, and Andy and Trevor gave him an in-depth review of every restaurant that opened since he left.
The worst part, however, is the man who keeps trying to catch my eye.
If it weren’t for our best friends’ inability to stay away from each other, Cade and I may have never spoken. Our paths didn’t cross until Mallory asked me to mediate her and Kenneth’s ultra-competitive spelling bee freshman year. I wasn’t keen on becoming friends with her rival, Kenneth, or their friend Cade, the baseball player Mallory had bonded with on the first day of college. But when I walked into the study room, it was impossible to ignore Cade’s magnetic presence.
I surveyed the giant man sitting on the carpeted floor, carefully flipping through pages of a dictionary in a way that seemed almost pornographic. Golden skin glittered under the fluorescent lights, striped with tan lines from countless hours in the sun.
But it was Cade’s smile that drew me in, so raw and real.
Even as Mallory spelledonomatopoeiaand Kenneth yelled random letters to mess her up, his grin never wavered. That’s how Cade and I became gamekeepers for the Brain Bowl.
Our switch from friends to friends-with-benefits during junior year was natural, and not much of a surprise. When he was drafted by the California Hornets at the end of junior year, I assumed things would end. Sure, we got along well, and the benefits were life-altering and toe-curling, but I didn’t expect anything more.
Then we agreed to try.
Sadly, only I tried. He didn’t.
Stop thinking about that.
“Education major?” Trevor asks. “Really?”
Cade straightens in his chair. “I had a great teacher and mentor in high school, and I wanted to be like him. Maybe one day I’ll go back to Clear Lake University and finish my degree.”
Trevor guffaws. “For what? Baseball is your future, golden boy.”
