“It feels good. Weird, as I’m the adult in the room, I suppose.”
“Isn’t it the worst?” She scrunched her adorable nose. I had to laugh until my eyes found Nate’s number on the back of her shirt again, that rancid feeling churning for a different reason. I’d overheard his comment to Adrian in the locker room of how it was too bad he “wasn’t allowed to finish.”
I wasn’t afraid to go back at Nate, and I had to nip things in the bud if he was talking shit about my choices on the first day. The energy was good, so I’d let it slide the one time and pretended I didn’t hear it.
“I think you did great. And I’m sure there’s a good video of you taken from the back circulating its way through socialmedia as we speak,” she teased as we ambled past the stores and concession stands. “A win all around.”
“I suppose so. How’s your sister? Still on the sports circuit?”
“Yes, but I took your advice and asked her to choose. You were right. She picked softball and went back to scrolling her phone.”
“Ah, see?” I told her. “Good for you. And I bet you’re relieved.”
“No,” she breathed out. “I mean, time-wise, I guess so. But the softball team has all these new fees and team-building trips they never had before. I’m just as broke, but now, I at least get two extra nights at home per week.”
Would the urge to grab her face, pull her mouth to mine, and kiss her breathless ever fade? I doubted it, and if we weren’t in a crowd of people, it would have been even harder to resist.
“One second,” I said to Rachel before turning to the vendor behind us. “Do you have any Jones jerseys back there?”
The vendor’s brows ran up to her hairline when she recognized me.
“Um, yeah, only a couple. What size?”
Usually, the stands sold only player jerseys unless the manager was a veteran player from the team. Kent had pushed to get jerseys made for me, and although I thought it was weird, he’d told me Nate and I were tied in jersey sales online.
“What size is that?” I nodded at Rachel.
“It’s a large,” she replied slowly, eyeing me as if I’d lost my mind.
I reached into my pocket and dropped a couple of bills on the counter, double what she was charging.
“Keep the change.”
“You’re buying me a?—”
“Take it off,” I growled before I could help it.
Her brows popped as heat pooled in her wide chocolate eyes.
“Um, excuse me…? Take it?—”
“Off, yes.” I held out a hand.
She scanned the area behind her before she slipped the jersey off her shoulders and dropped it into my hand.
“Should I go return it?”
“No, you can give it to your sister.” I draped the jersey with my name and number on it over her shoulders, holding her eyes as I let my hands glide down her arms for a quick second.
This was dangerous. Her boss was here, my boss was here, plus fans who could recognize me and record us. Yet, I wasn’t moving, and neither was she.
“So, I can only wearyourjersey here? This is that alpha thing you have again, isn’t it?”
I smiled, holding her gaze as I lifted a shoulder.
“Whatever we…” I trailed off, lost in the curve of her lips, the lips I wanted to cover with mine and forget about all the reasons why that one day in Williamsburg was as far as we could go. Reasons that I couldn’t think of right now because all I cared about was when I’d get to see her again.
“Whatever we were, if you’re here, it’smyname that goes on your back.”
