“Bella’s dating a Rose City Roaster.”
Something shifted in Cat’s face. Nothing dramatic, but her jaw tightened and her gaze went distant for a second.
“Oh, really?” she asked, voice careful, like she was stepping around broken glass.
“Bennett King,” I told her. “He’s . . . my boyfriend.”
I still hadn’t gotten used to saying it aloud yet.Boyfriend.Hell, I still had trouble believing it sometimes.
Cat’s expression didn’t change much, but the air around her seemed to thicken. “Is that the same team thatheplays for?”
I had a fairly good idea of who thehein question was.
Parker snorted and hopped off the counter. “You can say his name, Cat. He’s not Bloody Mary.”
Cat shot her a look that could have curdled milk. “Might as well be,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Cat and Roman have had beef since we were kids. And it’s not some Hatfields and McCoys, feuding families bullshit because she gets along fine with his brothers and sister. It’s just . . .them. Always has been. You’d think they’d have grown out of it by now.”
“Some things don’t change,” Cat offered.
I glanced between them, feeling the undercurrent pull tighter. I didn’t know the history between Cat Duffy and Roman Garcia, but something told me that nobody, not even her own sister, knew the full story.
But judging by the way Cat’s shoulders had gone rigid and how she’d soured at the mere mention of Roman’s name, one thing was for sure. Whatever had or hadn’t happened between Cat and Roman wasn’t finished.
Not even close.
Eventually, Parker checked her phone. “We should head out to the farm if we want daylight. Bella’s dying to see the cows.”
I laughed, a little embarrassed at how excited I was. “Don’t make fun of me. Cows are cool.”
Cat raised an eyebrow, but there was a hint of amusement in it now. “They’re a bunch of smelly, stubborn, old bitches. But yeah, they’re cool.”
“Just like somebody else I know,” Parker shot over her shoulder.
Cat’s hand disappeared beneath the counter.
“Run for it, Bella!” Parker yelped, already pivoting on her heel.
She grabbed my wrist and bolted for the door just as something, probably a towel, maybe another scoop of The Morning After—I didn’t stick around long enough to find out—went sailing past where her head had been a second earlier.
Bennett
Nothing humbled a catcher faster than a double-header in ninety-hundred-degree heat.
Thanks a heap, global warming.
For some guys, spring training was like summer camp—a month-long, hedonistic house party free of responsibility. For me, it was the quickest path to feeling like an arthritic eighty-year-old, an unpleasant side effect from squatting for hours on end.
I tucked a towel beneath my legs before propping myself up against the headboard and reaching for my phone. The ice packs strapped around each knee helped ease the pain. The extra-strength Tylenol would take an hour or so to kick in.
It wasn’t pretty, but it worked for me.
Even better, the rest of the guys sharing the condo would be out drowning their sorrows for the next few hours, leaving me plenty of time to rest and video chat with Bella.
Our calls had become another part of my routine as of late. The best part, in fact. We’d missed yesterday’s thanks to her trip to Awful—a town where apparently, cell service went to die—which made tonight’s feel even more necessary than usual.
By the time her face appeared on my screen, my knees were throbbing.
