“Night.”
He got out of the car, turning around to watch as she pulled away from the curb. Simply because he couldn’t resist the desire to steal one more look at her.
At McKenna Bailey.
What the hell was going on?
Chapter Four
McKenna laughed at a joke Tank made, the two of them sitting together in a corner of the hotel restaurant. The rest of the team, as well as the coaches and everyone else who traveled with the Stingrays, were scattered around the same place, all of them waiting for dinner to be served. The hotel they were staying in had a decent restaurant, so whenever they traveled to Tampa, they simply ate there. The kitchen had been amenable to preparing a high-carb meal, low on fat. Tonight’s fare was salmon and wild rice, McKenna noticed, as the servers began delivering plates to the other tables.
“Thanks,” Tank said to the server when she dropped off their meals, asking if they needed drink refills.
“I’m good,” McKenna said, pointing to her still-full water glass.
“Me too.”
The two of them started digging in as the server moved on, delivering the rest of the food.
“This is good,” McKenna said, pleasantly surprised by the light lemon flavor of the flaky fish. Dinners on the road tended to be hit or miss.
“It really is.”
Ordinarily, McKenna ate with Benny, Roger, and a couple of the team’s trainers, so she wasn’t surprised by the curious look her boss gave her when she said she was joining Tank tonight.
It was unusual for a social media director to travel with the team, but Benny had discovered early on that she was a wonderful photographer, so he expanded her role to include covering away games in that capacity. Initially, it was supposed to be a short-term thing, lasting only until the team’s photographer returned from maternity leave. Then, because the new mother was breast-feeding, it was decided that McKenna would continue traveling until the baby was older, at which point the photographer would return full time.
McKenna loved the travel, so it worked well, both for her social media posts and for Benny, who was starting to rely on her as much as his right hand, Roger. Her boss had mentioned on their last road trip that he’d like her to continue traveling with them, even after the photographer’s return.
Tank got a few sideways glances as well, when he told Blake and Rook he was eating with her. The guys had offered to make room for her at their table, and McKenna was more than ready to pull up a chair, but Tank said no, claiming he needed to talk to her about an upcoming interview.
“What interview are you worried about?” she asked, after a couple minutes of eating in silence.
Tank gave her a funny look. “What?”
“You told the guys you wanted to talk to me about an interview.”
His expression cleared. “Oh. I lied. Just wanted you all to myself.”
McKenna wasn’t sure what to make of that statement because…what?
Unable to come up with a suitable response, she merely said, “Oh,” and tucked back into her food. Glancing around the restaurant, she caught more than a few people casting looks in their direction. Which was unsurprising. She was sure it must look strange for the quirky social media girl to be sitting alone with the team hottie.
“I like your shirt,” Tank said, grinning at her Mickey Mouse shirt that said, “I’m not arguing. I’m explaining why I’m right.” As always, it was a gift from her mom, and probably an accurate one, as McKenna was headstrong and vocal when it came to things she was knowledgeable about.
There were a couple of hours between dinner and the time she left for the game, so she’d change into her official Stingrays attire after they ate, just in case she spilled food on herself, something she did too frequently. Her mom always joked that even at twenty-four, she was still as messy as a toddler at mealtimes.
Tank’s phone pinged for the tenth time since they’d sat down. He glanced at the screen, then flipped it face down on the table again without replying.
“It won’t bother me if you want to text back.”
He shook his head. “No response necessary.”
“Are all those texts from the same person?”
Tank grimaced. “They’re from Lara. She and Emily are apparently doing happy hour at some country club. They keep texting me pictures of their sexually suggestive cocktails, wishing I was there.”
“What’s a sexually suggestive cocktail?” McKenna asked.
