Is he on the phone?
Why thehellis he calling someone in the middle of our date?
Holy shit.
Is Cooper in gambling trouble?
Am I a pawn?
Or is he seeing someone he can’t claim in public?
A…Big. Guy.
Oh my god.
“C’mon, big guy. Don’t look at me like that. I haveneverneglected you. This is a little something you can do for me, okay?”
Fuck this.
Fuckallof this.
I march into the bathroom, ready to tell himexactlywhat I think of being lied to, but the moment I realize who—orwhat—he’s talking to, a startled shriek flies out of my lips.
He leaps off the closed toilet seat and to his feet, jerking an ivory towel around his bare hips and hiding hiscompanionfrom view while his face goes the color of lava. His dark hair is wet and tousled, his chest and arms still damp from what had to be the world’s fastest shower. I get my first full glance at the tattoo that’s perpetually teasing me on his bicep—oh, it’s Fiery the Dragon, done in black ink—along with a pirate flag tattoo on his left pec and script that I can’t read scrolled down the side of his ribs.
“Did you—” he starts.
I’m momentarily speechless as I start to put together theactualpieces of what’s going on here, and I don’t mean how fast he cleaned the bird excrement from his hair, and how often that must happen for him to have gotten it all done this efficiently.
I stare at his face.
Then at his towel, which is only hiding so much of what hiscompanionis up to.
And I do meanup.
“I wasn’t—” He drops the hand not gripping his towel closed. “Okay, I was, but it’s not what it sounded—okay, yeah, it’s exactly what it sounded like, but I’m not a perv. Wait. I am a perv. But I’m also a good guy.”
“You were talking to your penis.”
“I’m on a sex hiatus.”
I gape and fumble for words.
Apparently tonight isn’t what I thought it was. “Hey, so sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“I don’t—I mean—I’m not—fuck. Having sex is my baseball superstition. I have to—you know—to play good.”
“Oh my god.”
“But I like you. A lot. And I—”
“Your message says,having sex is my baseball superstition. Ready to send?” Cooper’s phone asks from the sink.
“No!” he shrieks.
“All right, message sent.”
He mutters morefucksthan you probably hear in the entirety of the Fireballs’ locker room after a brutal loss, lunges for his phone, showing off yet another tattoo—oh my god, he has Baby Ash on his shoulder blade—slips, and hasn’t quite regained his balance—which he does with all the speed and grace you’d expect of a professional athlete, for the record—before the dinging starts.
