I pulled my attention back from my body. It was incredibly hard and for a bit, all I managed was to walk where he directed, through a door to the outside. Past benches and…oh! Wake up and smell the dugout! I was in the surprisingly large area where the players hung out while waiting for their turn at bat. And yeah, it had the distinctive odor of tobacco and sweaty men. Then, a few steps up the stairs, we walked out onto the Bobcats baseball field and looked up at nearly fifty thousand seats.
“Wow. That’s big,” I said as I slowly turned around.
“Yeah. I think that every time I step out here.”
I glanced back to him. The sun was hanging low in the sky, but it had enough juice to paint his blond hair with red and orange. His blue eyes were crystal clear as they looked at me, and for a fanciful moment, I saw him as a mythical creature. Puck, a goblin of mischief. Loki also filtered through my thoughts as did Coyote. But it didn’t matter which name I picked, they were all him. Mischievous, tempting, and sexy as hell. I wanted to jump into whatever rabbit hole he offered, just because he was smiling at me.
“This isn’t a good idea,” I said. Then flushed when I realized I’d spoken aloud.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about that night,” he said. “Our night.”
Neither had I, but I wasn’t about to wander down that path. In fact, it was time I gave us both a verbal cold shower. “I’m here to get an interview, Rob. I need it to pay my rent.”
He blinked, then frowned. “What?”
I huffed out a breath, all the while wondering exactly what had possessed me to open that can of worms. “I got laid off from the paying job. Now my only hope is as a stringer. And the only story they want is yours.”
He shook his head. “I can’t, Heidi. I’d get fired. No joke, they’re really serious about that.”
I nodded. I knew it was true. In fact, everyone had said exactly that, but apparently I figured I could find a work-around. Instead, I sighed. “Tell me what it’s like playing here. Are you terrified?” I looked around at the acres of seats. “I would be.”
He hesitated to answer, and I held up my hand.
“This is just for me. I swear. No article.” I gave him a half-hearted shrug. “I’ve always wanted to work in the fast-food industry anyway.”
“No, you wanted to be a journalist, but your parents wanted you in law.”
I laughed. Trust him to remember all the details. “They may be right. Lawyers aren’t getting laid off.”
So we started to talk like we had years ago. Mostly he pushed me to share what I’d been doing for the last three years. I already knew what he’d been doing, and he didn’t elaborate, except to say he absolutely loved baseball despite the pressures of being the boy wonder. I listened and nodded, except I could see that he was lying. There was a tight cast to his shoulders as he spoke and a note of tension in his voice. It could have been because he was treading close to giving me something for an article, but I didn’t think so. The pressure was getting to him, and I hated to see the stress in his face and body.
We walked all around the park, just talking. I tingled at every casual touch, damning myself for reverting to that naive girl I’d been on spring break. I was a mature woman now with real bills. And I couldn’t afford to go through months of heartbreak again from a one-night stand with a hot Nebraska boy. Even if he did make my toes curl with every smile.
We started talking like we had three years ago. I told him about how nervous I’d been applying for the internship. He talked about rolling his ankle in his first game for the Bobcats. Good medicine and rest had helped him recover fast, but it was a constant worry. I talked about my boss, Hank, and he spoke about spending time with the daughter of the team’s owner. Her name was Brittany and she was known to enjoy the attention of all the new Bobcats recruits. He asked about Sam, and I told him my best friend and I still talked often. He said he missed Nebraska. Or more specifically, he missed his former best friend who had apparently turned on him the minute Rob had gone pro. Jealously was the most obvious culprit, but Rob seemed to think there was more to it than that. And that Tommy might have a reason to hate him.
I hated that the journalist in me scented a juicy story there—one that I could exploit without needing to interview Rob directly. Unless, of course, everything he said was off the record—as I’d promised—in which case I had nothing for my article but my ethics.
“God, I’ve missed you.”
His words jolted me out of my thoughts and straight back into lust. He missed me, and the ache of that thought had me imagining what we could have been to each other for the last three years. My only defense against the surge of longing was to go on the offense. So I squared my shoulders and faced him with the hardest expression I could muster.
“That can’t be true.”
He jerked to a stop, his eyes wide with surprise. “What?”
“Quit the bullshit, Rob. You could have contacted me anytime in the last three years.”
“I didn’t have your phone number.”
I arched a brow. In this digital age, there were a hundred different ways to contact me. If he’d wanted to, he could have found me. And the flush on his cheeks told me he knew it was true.
“Exactly,” I said, though inside, my gut knotted into a fist. He’d just confirmed that he hadn’t given me a second thought, whereas I’d been stalking him—
“Soon after spring break, I got in trouble,” he said, his voice low.
I jerked my head up. I hadn’t heard of any trouble, and I’d been watching him. But the way he said the words made my heart break without even knowing why.
“Remember your question to me?” he continued. “Why was I so good? It really threw me.”
