“Ugh. Fucking hate the Brewers.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Samson subtly positioned himself so he was between her and the guy.
Rhi stood on her tiptoes to look over Samson’s shoulder. “Excuse me, sir, but we are in the middle of something here.” She gasped when Samson gently reached behind himself and placed a hand on her arm, pushing her farther behind him. What the hell?
Was he... protecting her?
“Used to love them, but they all got fucked up after you turned traitor. Haven’t won a Super Bowl since.”
“You’ll want to walk away now, sir.”
The man’s face contorted and he curled his lip at Samson. “Lima Curse.”
Samson went entirely rigid. “Say that again.”
Whoops. What was that? She’d never heardthatrough whisper from her smiling, sweet colleague. Worried now, Rhiannon made eye contact with the huge bouncer by the elevators and jerked her head. The man immediately started jogging over.
“Curse,” the drunk fool hissed, and Samson took a step toward him.
Rhiannon tugged at Samson’s arm. She’d always assumedif she was ever in a bar brawl, she’d be the one starting it, not playing the role of an anxious girlfriend. “Come on,” she said as she scanned the rooftop. Her gaze lit on the egg-shaped cabanas on the other side of the roof.
The bouncer arrived and took a firm hold of the drunk.
When the guy started walking, Samson allowed Rhiannon to lead him away, too, but he balked when she got inside the pod. The hard plastic had openings on either side, and a cutout on top, to look at the stars. It was large and could probably fit like five or six people. It was also weird. “What is that thing?”
“It’s a cabana.” She gestured at the pool not far away from them, the water lit blue and green.
“That is not a cabana.”
“They call them cabanas.”
He tentatively touched the mattress she was sitting on. “Is that a waterbed?”
She settled on to the surface, letting it jostle her. These things usually had a waiting line for them on weekends, but they were empty on this weekday night. “Yup. Come on in.”
Gingerly, he got inside, the mattress waving with the weight of his body. He ran his hand over the cotton surface of the covering of the mattress. “They wash these, right?”
“I’m guessing very much so.” She tried to sit so her back was against the plastic wall, but the mattress made being upright difficult. “Don’t think about it too hard.”
“Got it.” He adjusted himself, but no matter what he did, she was going to be attached to him. The waterbed wouldn’tallow them to sit on opposite ends, and she rolled right next to him.
She hadn’t planned on wrapping herself up in him. Her instincts had only urged her to get them far away from the source of his agitation.
It had been so long since she’d cared after the emotional well-being of a romantic partner like this, and she didn’t quite know how to feel about it, but that was something she could dwell on later. Finally, she gave in to water and gravity and rested her hand on his belly, her head on his chest. He froze for a second, and then his arm went around her shoulders and he pressed her against him. The mattress stopped waving, and they sat there quiet for a few minutes. The lights from the stars and buildings around them bathed them in a blue glow.
It wasn’t silent. The noise from the bar and the pool filtered through, but in this odd egg-cabana, they were alone. It was nice. Peaceful.
He let out a deep exhale, the air coming from his toes. “You want to know what that was all about, don’t you?”
“I mean, I may not understand. Anger over sports isn’t really in my wheelhouse. I reserve my anger for other things. As you’ve seen.”
“People can get real emotional over sports. And me.”
“I’ve heard you called the Lima Charm before. Why did that guy call you a curse?”
His hand rubbed up and down her arm. “When I was a kid, my dad and uncle played for the same team for a while. I would go to some of the games. The games I went to, theywon. My dad started calling me his lucky charm. As I went up through college, the name morphed. I had a way with the media, with the public, with women. It turned into the Lima Charm, among my teammates, and then the media heard, and you know how it goes.” His body tensed, then relaxed. Like he was forcing it to relax. “It became the Curse when I retired. Or rather, how I retired.”
“How did you retire?”
