None of that means I suddenly want to impress the man.
I’m not sure I believe the lecture I’m giving myself, so I throw the door open just to prove to myself that we can stand in front of Lucca Cruz—cat pjs and all—without reservation.
But the slow, deliberate smile that lights up his face as he looks my plaid cat flannels up, then down, has convinced me that I was wrong all along and we do care.
“What are you doing here, Lucca?”
“I brought you something.” He holds up a Pez dispenser, still in its package. It's a black cat, ready to deliver hard, overly sugary candies through its mouth. “I saw it and thought of you.”
“How…sweet.”
And then, without an invitation, Lucca steps into my room.
“Ah, sure, come on in.”
“Were you busy?” he says.
“No.” I scratch behind my ear. “Was there something?—”
“You never really answered my question from before.”
I don’t remember any question. I remember feeling stressed over Lindy, and stunned that he was there, and then spilling all the tea about my sister. I just needed to talk to one person outside my family for one minute. Someone who doesn’t have overly strong opinions on the topic. I shut the door behind me. “What question was that again?”
“Like I said the other day, I think we should be friends,” he says, and somehow this fully grown man reminds me a little of Wyatt.
I clear my throat and peer at the space between us. “That’s more of a statement than a question.”
“Yes,” he says, running one hand through his hair. “But would you consider it?”
I walk past him and plop down onto the bed. Lucca follows, almost like I’ve requested him to do so, and sits beside me.
“I don’t think wecanbe friends,” I tell him. I’m not trying to be unkind. He seems sincere. I just don’t see how this would work.
“I think you’re wrong.”
“Shocker,” I say with a laugh. When does Lucca ever think my calls are right? “Take away the fact that we have a… history. You know that we do,” I say when he looks skeptical.
“We didn’t know each other then. Now we do.”
“Yeah, well, take that out of the equation. I don’t think the league would be okay with an official and a player being friends.”
“You’re friends with Callum,” he says.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
I exhale, pulling my feet up, sitting cross-legged, and putting an inch more of space between us. The man smells like musk and cedar, and it’s doing things to my sanity. Facing him, I say, “I’m probably friends with Fran and acquaintances with Callum, but even then, it’s not like I can hang out with them. Going to that art show was pushing it. It would be a conflict of interest. You know it would.”
“We are a minor league, no?” he says, his accent causing a twinge in my stomach.
“No—I mean, yes. We are. But it doesn’t matter?” Why does everything this man say sound like it might be coated in butter? No wonder women—who are not me—melt under his gaze.
“In the minors, the rules are more… would you say…suggestions?”
I blink, my mouth dry. “Uh,no. They arerules. Plain and simple. Rules.”
“Yes,” he says, “but they aren’t held to the same standards that the majors would be.”
