But finally, I’m showered and wrapped in a fuzzy robe with my teeth brushed and my face bare and my stomach feeling like it completed a marathon, but instead of running it did sit-ups for twenty-six-point-two miles, and Cooper Rock is still here, sitting on the couch after apparently charming my cat, who’s splayed across his lap.
“You didn’t say you wanted him to go,” Kiva says.
Cooper salutes me with a bottle of Gatorade. “I like to be absolutely sure I’m being thrown out. Gotta be way more dramatic to get through this thick skull. You like home renovation shows? This couple found—never mind. Nope. That’s not for tonight.”
“He is aware of exactly what will happen to him if word of this leaks to the press,” Kiva says.
He nods to me and jerks his head toward Kiva. “She’s officially scarier than Brooks’s sister-in-law.”
“High praise,” Kiva says dryly. She scans my forehead with a thermometer, nods once, then shoves a fresh bottle of Pedialyte at me. “Drink slowly. Mr. Baseball, time to go home.”
“Do you have curfew?” I forgot to ask him that in text.
“Eh. When you’re Cooper Rock, it’s more of a suggestion than a requirement.”
I don’t believe him. His eyes are too twinkly and his dimple too dimply.
I try to give him Kiva’s badass bodyguard glare, but I don’t really have the energy. “I’m not a baseball expert, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure you’re playing well enough this year for that to be true.”
He clutches his heart, sinking dramatically deeper into the sectional couch, his grin getting bigger. “Ouch. If this singing thing doesn’t work out, you could join the team as our pep talk person.”
Kiva clears her throat.
Cooper slides a look her way, then looks back at me. “Right. I need to go so you can get to bed.”
“Stay.”
Kiva gives me theyou have a full calendar tomorrow and you’re going to hurt like hellnostril flare.
Cooper’s way less subtle.
His brows shoot up to his hairline and his lips part.
“Please,” I add.
I wanted to talk to him, and I have no clue when I’ll get another opportunity. Plus I don’t want to be alone.
Not that I’m ever alone when Hashtag is around and my entourage is just a room or two away, but it’s different when there’s a person who has no financial interest sticking around to keep me company.
And tonight, I’m feeling decidedly unsure about who likes me and who likes that I make money for them.
Including my one and only blood relative.
“Sure. I can stay.” He grins, popping out that dimple that was irresistible trouble eight years ago and might still be. “I love giving management heartburn and then playing so good they let me get away with anything.”
“Didn’t we just establish that your game—”
“Zip it, baseball cheater. I’m gonna play my ass off tomorrow. Yours too. You watch.”
If I were a normal woman with a normal job and a normal life, I would be in mortal danger of falling for Cooper Rock again.
But ego is a dime a dozen in my life, and while his is amusing, it’s still ego.
I nod to Kiva.He’s staying.
She nods back. She also gives Cooper the universal sign forI have x-ray vision and I will see if you set one errant arm hair out of order, and then I will bust in here and ruin what’s left of your career.
She doesn’t mess around with signs.
