“Touché.” I swig back half the coffee. “Fans are already here?”
“A few.”
“Molly must be thrilled.” I take the bobblehead couple from her and jiggle it in the air. “Can you tell her to come find me on the field?”
“Of course,” Helen says smoothly.
But an hour later, after warm-ups are completed, I still haven’t seen the pretty public relations staffer. The bobblehead that accompanied me outside is still sitting on the dugout railing. I jiggle it again, making the Captain Citrus grapefruit head bounce.
I can hear her giggle from inside the costume clear as day.
I’ve thought of little else in my down time over the last month. I’ll never touchher. She’s pure and sweet and innocent. But my private fantasies are my own. And it can’t be wrong to indulge when she’ll never know.
It’s probably a giant red flag that I asked Helen to find her for me, to use this promotional item as a pretense to talk to a team staff member who Imustremember is off-limits.
So it’s probably for the best if Helen either ignored me or wasn’t able to find her. Either is fine.
I shouldn’t be irritated with my assistant.
But when she catches up with me, my annoyance spills out anyway. “What happened to Molly?”
Helen gets a funny look on her face.
Alarm grips me by the throat. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Helen.”
“I don’t want to speak out of turn or give you the wrong impression. Opening day jitters, probably.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s busy.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s what she said when I told her to come to find you. She said, and I quote, ‘Oh gosh, I’m too busy.’”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Is she, now?”
I’m about to stalk off in the general direction of wherever it is that she works—and I’m not exactly sure where that is—when Helen taps herclipboard. “You have a team meeting in fifteen minutes. And Hector is waiting in your office.”
Fuck. Right.
“I can try again. More of a direct, command appearance?”
“No, don’t.” I scrub my hand over my face. I shouldn’t have involved Helen in this in the first place. “I was just gruff with her about the promo stuff before we went out to Dunedin. Now that we’re back, I wanted to start the season on a different footing. But it’s not important.”
That part is a lie.
As, I suspect, is the part about Molly being too busy.
Why would she tell Helen that? That’s a question that will be best answered in private. Later.
CHAPTER 8
MOLLY
