There is a knock on the door to our suite. Caden’s still in the bathroom getting ready for practice, so I throw on a robe to go collect our breakfast.
When I open the door, however, there isn’t a tray of food. There’s a girl leaning against the opposite wall with her blouse practically unbuttoned to her navel. Her boobs are spilling out of her push-up bra so much I can almost see her nipples.
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“Oh.” She barely has the decency to look embarrassed. “Is Caden here?”
“Yes,” I say dryly, without making any indication that I’m going to fetch him.
“Well, do you know when you might be done with him?”
My jaw drops at her audacity. “Yeah.” I look at my wrist as if there’s a watch on it. “In about seventy-five years.”
The girl doesn’t look amused, but Caden does as he walks up next to me and plants a kiss on my forehead.
His smile turns into a scowl when he addresses the girl. “How did you get my room number?”
She stands up straighter and squeezes her arms together to give her boobs a lift. “How do you think?”
“Leave now,” Caden says. “Or I’m calling security.”
The girl pulls her blouse together. “Fine. Jeez. I’ll just go find someone else. I hear Brady Taylor is a good lay. But you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Caden eyes her up and down. “From the looks of it, a shot of penicillin.”
She walks off in a huff and Caden slams the door as I laugh at his epic joke. Then he picks me up and carries me over to the couch. Picking me up is becoming a habit of his. One I hope he never breaks.
He sits down with me on his lap. “Seventy-five years, huh?”
I shrug a provocative shoulder.
He leans in to kiss my neck. “Won’t be long enough,” he says against my skin.
I glance up at the clock. “Caden, while I’d love to go for round three, I’m not planning on being the reason you’re late to practice. And you haven’t eaten yet.”
A knock on the door has us laughing at the timing. “I’ll get this one,” he says.
After our breakfast gets delivered, Caden pulls me back onto his lap and feeds me. “Do you know what I find extremely sexy?” he asks.
“Other than the black negligee I wore last night?” I shimmy myself around on his lap.
I feel him harden beneath me. “Stop it or I’ll never leave,” he says, forking a bite of eggs into my mouth. “What I was going to say is that it’s a huge turn on that you don’t get jealous, Murph. Most girls would have seen that tramp in the hallway and immediately assumed their boyfriend would invite her in.”
I don’t think for a minute that he would have invited her in. I trust Caden completely. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see green from time to time. Every beautiful woman who throws herself at him makes me want to gouge her eyes out. Every girl who sends him love notes has me wanting to brand him publicly as mine. Every person who puts me down because they think they are better than me puts a small chink in my self-confidence. But I work hard not to show him any of that. He has enough to deal with because of his celebrity status. He doesn’t need a jealous girlfriend breathing down his neck.
“What good would that do?” I ask. “If you want someone else, nothing I say is going to stop you. And if it comes to the point where I’m not enough for you—”
“That will never happen.” He situates me so I’m straddling him on the dining room chair. “I’m going to marry you one day, Murphy Brown. And you’re going to have all my babies. And we’re going to live happily ever after for every one of those seventy-five years.”
He pulls my face to his and kisses me. He kisses me senseless and then he stands up with me in his arms, depositing me back on the chair before he grabs his bag and walks to the door. “Don’t get too sunburned today,” he says. “I have big plans for that body later.”
Then he walks out of the suite leaving me a hot, speechless mess.
~ ~ ~
Caden winks at me from the practice field. I love watching him play. And the man finally got his wish. I am, in fact, now a bona fide baseball lover. He taught me a lot during the off-season and I can’t wait to go to his games, knowing I’ll be able to fully understand everything that’s happening.
My phone chirps and I look to see Kirsten has sent me a text.
Kirsten: Did you block Tony?
Me: Yes. I don’t have anything to say to him.
Kirsten: But he needs to talk to you.
Me: Every time he’s needed to talk to me in the past six months it was to ask me for money.
Kirsten: You really should talk to him.
Me: You haven’t contacted me since the day I moved out, Kirsten. If Tony is just getting you to do his dirty work, I’m going to block you, too.
Kirsten: I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
I don’t even acknowledge that with a reply. I just block her number. Jamie is the only one of my old roommates who I’ve talked to since I left. She told me that Kirsten hasn’t been able to land much work lately, but that Tony stays with her because he can’t get anyone else. Even Tori and Pauline stopped sleeping with the bastard. Does that mean they developed a conscience, or that he’s just gotten to be that bad?
It makes me feel dirty that he was able to ‘get’ me. How could I have been so gullible?
I pull out my sunscreen and lather it on. I don’t want to get red like I did at the beach yesterday. Caden wasn’t happy that he had to handle me with care last night. But then again, he didn’t mind it when I asked him to rub aloe on me. And boy did he give me a good rub down.
I hear some girls laughing a few rows over. The stands are fairly empty in this minor-league stadium, but there are a few pockets of girls, and even guys, who have come to watch the Nighthawks pre-season workouts.
I shake my head in irritation when I overhear one of the girls bragging about how many of the players she’s slept with. I’m not surprised to hear the names of both Brady Taylor and Sawyer Mills. Those boys better be careful or they will end up getting someone pregnant. I know Caden has told me they claim to be as careful as he was, but still—if you throw enough darts, one of them is bound to stick.
My back stiffens when I hear one of them mention trying to get with Caden. I smile when she calls him an arrogant prick for ignoring her advances.
When Caden gets a break and jogs over in my direction, the girls next to me start squealing, thinking he’s coming over for them. When he walks past them and over to me, they all look at me with pure hatred. I think they finally realize who I am. Our relationship is no secret. Caden and I were interviewed by a popular nightly news show last month. Anyone who follows baseball has heard about the love story of the Hawks player and the girl he hit with his home run ball.
I stand up and walk down the bleachers to meet him, fully aware of a dozen eyes burning into the back of my head. Then one of them yells out, “Caden, you don’t have to hit me with a ball to get me to fuck you.”
He looks at her and laughs. “Yeah, because your incredible charm would win me over.”
The girls scoff at him.
“I told you he was an arrogant prick,” another girl says.
I lean over the bulkhead and wrap my arms around him. “I love you, you arrogant prick,” I say.
He pulls me over the wall and into his arms. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when you leave, Murph. It’s great having you here.”
“You’re going to focus on being the best ball player you can be, that’s what.”
“I predict this will be my best year ever because I’ll have my lucky girl with me.”
I roll my eyes at him. “We’ve gone over this, Caden. There is no way I can go to every game.”
“How about just the home games?”
“That’s still a lot.”
“Okay, four games a week,” he says.
“Are you negotiating with me, Kessler?”
He laughs.
“One,” I say. “I promise to go to one game a week.”
“Three,” he says, leaning down to nibble on my ear.
“You’re incorrigible,” I say, laughing. “Fine. Two. Two games per week and that’s my final offer.”
Someone calls him back over to practice, so he lifts me up over the half-wall and gives me a kiss. “I would have settled for one,” he says, walking away. “I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
I blow him a kiss. “I almost caved at three.”
He shakes his head, laughing as he jogs back to the others. Before he gets there, he turns around and gives me a big smile. A smile that says it all. A smile that says he’s mine.
Yeah – happy is definitely not a strong enough word.