After a few breaths, he drops my leg and steps away from me, adjusting himself in his pants before reaching for my hand. “Let’s get to the suite before I can’t hold back anymore.”
I giggle at his words as I take his hand and follow him to the suite.
When we arrive, a few of his teammates are already there.
“Hey. What’s going on?” Evan says to a guy I recognize as a pitcher on the team with a girl standing next to him. “Carter, this is my girlfriend, Christy.”
He holds his hand out to me. “Nice to meet you.” He points at the girl who has brown hair with caramel highlights. “This is my … Grace. Uh, this is Grace.” He clears his throat. “My girlfriend.”
When he wraps his arm around her, I watch the way she’s slightly irritated by his actions. If I were her, I might be, too, with the awkward way he just introduced her. I try to act like I didn’t notice so I don’t make it even weirder than it was.
“It’s nice to meet you both.” I smile as I shake their hands.
“Be careful with this guy,” Evan says, obviously teasing. “He’s the first to mess with any one of us.”
Carter laughs out loud. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just bent because I painted his locker.”
“You did that?” I ask, not able to hold back my laugh.
“See, even she thinks it was funny.”
I grab Evan’s arm. “He just told me he’s going to leave it; it’s kind of like his good-luck charm.”
Carter smacks his shoulder. “Hey, if you keep playing the way you are, I’d leave that shit too.”
“Yeah, I told her I’m leaving the locker and that she’s stuck with me since they both happened around the same time,” Evan says, kissing my forehead.
“I like the way he thinks with his superstitions,” Grace chimes in.
I smile up at Evan. “Yeah, me too.”
Diesel and Delilah enter, and when Carter goes to say hello, Grace grabs my arm.
“Is that who I think it is?”
I chuckle under my breath. “Okay, good. I’m not the only one who’s having a little starstruck moment as I meet everyone tonight.”
She eyes me. “Girl … you aren’t kidding. It’s kind of weird, right? Like, seeing everyone together like this?”
“Absolutely!” I agree and watch the way her body language relaxes a little bit when she realizes I’m in the same boat as her and not used to all of this.
A bald guy with sleeve tattoos walks in and heads straight to Evan with his hand out to give him a bro hug. “What’s up, Evan.”
“Hey, Tripp.” They both give each other a slap on the back, then Evan turns to me. “This is my girlfriend, Christy. Christy, this guy here is our stud catcher.”
“Stud, handsome, charming … I’ll take any adjective in that instance,” he replies with a crooked grin as he holds his hand out to me.
As we shake, Cheyenne, who I’ve seen as the team’s live content creator on social media, walks in instantly catching Tripp’s eye. She moves off to the corner as Tripp turns his attention back to us and drops my hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, Christy. Not sure why you’re with this dipshit”—he swats Evan’s stomach playfully with the back of his hand—“but I know the dating pool can be slim pickings sometimes.”
“Ha. Ha, asshole,” Evan jives back.
Tripp nods his head toward Cheyenne. “What, no camera today?”
She instantly responds, “No, but I heard you guys had the good snacks.”
Tripp looks back to me. “Nice meeting you, Christy.” Then turns back to Cheyenne. “You have to move away from the wall to discover the snacks. Let me show you.”
