She wore tight jeans that highlighted all my favorite curves and a snug red T-shirt with her sister’s team logo on it, and my fingers tingled to touch her, my dick twitching in agreement. But there was no room for twitching from dirty memories in myuniform pants, so I had to get my head on straight somehow for the next few minutes.
“Silas, this is my sister, Taylor.” Rachel’s lips curled into a smirk as she pulled Taylor forward. “Taylor, this is?—”
“Hi, Mr. Jones,” she said, breathing out the words in a rush. “It’s so great to meet you.” She blinked, a blush staining her cheeks as she leaned in closer to her sister.
“It’s very nice to meet you too,” I said, extending a hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
She took my hand, shaking it as her brows pulled together. “A lot?”
“At the interview, I mentioned you played softball and were a fan of his Instagram reels,” Rachel said, popping her brows when her eyes found mine.
Right. The interview. Not the taco dinner or the morning after when she’d draped a sheet over her naked body and confessed how hard she worked to be the parent to her sister she’d never had growing up.
“You told him that?” Taylor asked her in a loud whisper, a horrified glare in her eyes.
“He knows about the reels and his unofficial title.” Rachel held my gaze and elbowed her sister’s side. “All good PR.”
A laugh escaped me as the tension drained out of Taylor’s features.
“I brought my Becker jersey. Would he sign it?”
“They’ll sign anything you ask. Well, anything you brought with you.” I snuck a smile to Rachel. I’d been asked to sign a few odd things in my career. Jerseys were easy, but breasts and inner thighs weren’t. I’d always said no, even when I wasn’t married anymore, because it felt too intimate.
If Rachel had asked me to brand her with my name, anywhere, I’d be happy to do it.
“Go ahead,” Rachel told her, pointing to a few of the girls surrounding Nate. He was good at these events from what I’d seen. Professional in a way he wasn’t with me or the other coaches and trainers. His issues were our problem, although I’d had to watch him with umpires and other teams the last few games after he’d make a big show of rage at a call he hadn’t agreed with or an opposing player he’d felt got in his way.
For today, I was grateful to see him making a good public impression and not giving me a headache.
“The girls are loving this,” Rachel said as she took a careful half step closer to me. “I feel so awful about coming across as ungrateful.”
She peered up at me, those chocolate eyes and the twist of her red lips rendering me silent for a split second.
I shook my head, managing to recover the minute before it became obvious and weird.
“You didn’t. I’m sure it was a little bit of a shock. I would have reached out to you earlier about it, but I wasn’t sure if it was official.”
“I do love that they sponsored a girls’ team. I know all this publicity exhausts you?—”
“Not this. I was a kid once, wishing I could meet some of my favorite players, and if it makes the season better and more enjoyable for them, I’m all for it. I’ll sign and smile as much as they want.”
A slow grin spread across her mouth. I stood by everything I’d just said, but that beautiful smile was everything. I’d make the Bats sponsor her sister’s team every season for her to look at me like that.
“That’s…wonderful. You’re a good guy, Silas,” Rachel said on a long exhale, as if what she’d said was hard to admit.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I joked.
Her shoulders shook with a chuckle.
“Because it is. Makes it…harder.”
I didn’t ask her to clarify because I knew exactly what she meant. Time with her was a sweet kind of torture, even the few minutes now and the interview that had taken longer than it had to because neither of us had wanted it to end.
“Now, ask me about the gala and silent auction we have to go to next week, and my answer may be a little different.”
“My agency bought a table. So I’ll be suffering along with you.”
Rachel, in a gown or dress or whatever she’d wear to this black-tie thing, all those gorgeous curves that I recalled enough to torment me on the regular would be on display. And I’d have to pretend not to notice—or, at least, not notice long enough for someone to see.
