WINTER

Soon after Adam left, Tucker asked me to join him in the backroom. I agreed, but my stomach turned as he made the request, and I only felt more ill at ease when I sat.

"Bagel?" He pointed to the breakfast goodies he’d brought.

I shook my head. "Am I in trouble?"

"I don't know. Are you? How much money are you making on your freelance work?" He split open a bagel and slathered half a tub of cream cheese on top.

Designing tattoos wasn't my only job. I wouldn't be able to feed myself if it were. I did a whole host of freelance work, including logos, newsletter designs, and brochures. I even did T-shirt designs for a local indie shop. Mostly the T-shirts consisted of snappy sayings such as I'm not sure how many problems I have because math is one of them. The clientele was mostly teenagers.

"Enough," I answered truthfully. I could pay my bills. Admittedly, I wasn't getting ahead. I wouldn't be buying any new cars or going on vacation soon, but I could feed myself, cloth myself, and afford to put a roof over my head.

"You sure? Because I don't really see you as a Riskie's girl."

"I was filling in for my sister, and—wait, why am I not Riskie's material?" I felt offended even though I knew my body wasn’t worth paying to see. I was slender with not much upstairs and definitely a small ass.

"You're gorgeous, Winter, but not really stripper material. Besides," he paused to snicker, "you dance worse than Elaine on Seinfeld."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot."

As much as I would've liked to have proven him wrong, the fact was I did suck at dancing. I had about as much grace as a new toddler just figuring out how to walk. When we all went out clubbing, I manned the table to make sure no one horned in on our territory.

"You know you'd be earning twice as much if you inked your own designs."

I winced. This wasn't the first time Tucker had brought up the issue of apprenticeship. I always felt bad about turning him down because it was really an honor to be offered this. Apprenticeship always took a lot of time for the one who did the teaching.

"I think you could really take your designs to the next level if you had a tattoo gun in your hand and you began looking at the body as the starting point of your designs instead of the paper in a sketchbook."

His backhanded compliment kind of pissed me off. "I know you're trying to be complimentary, but it's coming off pretty insulting. If you don't like my artwork—which you've won awards with at tattoo conventions—why do you have me here?"

He took a big bite of his bagel and chewed slowly before responding. "Because I'm smarter than I sound." He gave me an apologetic grin. "Sorry. Your work is awesome. Now I'm not going to say anything more because I want to keep you here. You’ve helped put Atra on the map. I’m just offering an alternative. If you need anything from me, let me know."

"I love working here. I would never leave."

"Good to know. Now eat a bagel and then go make me more money."

"Yes, sir." I gave him a mock salute that earned me a puppy pat on my head, something Tucker knew very well I hated.

"Are you two done making out? I want a bagel," Gig whined at the door. Tucker threw it open and walked out, muttering something about lawsuits and sexual harassment.

"So which one of them are you going to go out with?" Gig asked, settling into the chair opposite of me. He pulled a bagel out of the bag and proceeded to shove nearly the entire thing into his mouth.

"Neither." Finn's steady pursuit might have been breaking down my walls, but that wasn't something I was admitting to Gig.

"Well, the trooper wanted me to give you this. Said he didn't want to be responsible for you breaking house rules." Gig placed a crumpled up piece of paper on the table. I picked it up and smoothed it out.

Tucker said he didn't care if you went out with me, but he was convinced you'd say no. Why don't we prove him wrong? I'll bring the wine, and you can bring the donuts.

"If it were me, I'd go with the hot cop because then you can break the law with no repercussions."

I folded the note and tucked it into my jeans. "I don't think it works that way."

"He could at least get you out of a speeding ticket or two. You never know until you try."

"My mom used to say that to get me to eat broccoli. I never liked it."

"Broccoli tastes like ass." Gig laughed. "And hot cop looks like he tastes like sweaty goodness."

"Sweaty?" That didn't sound much better than broccoli.

"Once you have sweaty cop in your bed, you'll know what I'm talking about." He waggled his eyebrows at me.

"Voice of experience?" I laughed.

"You know it."

The rest of the day sped by quickly. When I arrived home, Ivy was gone. I didn't call sweaty Hot Cop after he left, but I didn't throw the number away either. The guilt I felt about having slept with Finn made me reluctant to see him again. I had no defenses, and I knew if we were alone I would more than likely be stripping his clothes off. Even though Ivy had given me her blessing, I hadn't been forthcoming. I hadn't told her I’d slept with him and that I wanted to again. Maybe hot cop was exactly the remedy I needed to help me put my Finn crush away forever.

Until I had seen Finn two months ago, I actually thought my crush was a distant childhood memory. I was completely unprepared for the wave of emotion and the hot pulse of desire that pounded in my ears when he turned that heated blue stare toward me. Even worse was the way I felt after. For days after we'd had sex, I could still feel the imprint of his fingers digging into my hips, the rough scratch of his late night beard growth against my sensitive skin, and the wet drag of his tongue across what seemed like every inch of my body. I was sore in places I didn't realize had muscles and ached in places that had never ached before.

I could see myself becoming addicted to him and how he made me felt, and that…terrified me. Enough so, even though Hot Cop wasn't really my thing, I wondered if I should make him my thing. He certainly wasn't hard to look at.

I had my phone in my hand when the doorbell rang. I set my phone down and went to the door. "Who is it?" I asked and looked through the peephole.

Finn O'Malley waved his hand at me.

I wrenched open the door, looked down the hallway and then yanked him inside. "What are you doing here?"

"Picking you up for our date."

"I never agreed to this," I exclaimed. I had no idea where Ivy was.

"You didn't say no."

"What if Ivy were here?"

"So what if she was?" He shouldered past me and walked farther into the apartment, taking in the shabby surroundings. We had a few nice pieces of furniture I salvaged from our parents’ home, but the apartment complex itself was run down. Paint peeled off the walls, and the kitchen appliances looked like they were installed in the 80s.

A panicked urge to get him out of the apartment before my sister came home had me scurrying to gather my purse, wallet, and phone. I had everything packed and ready to go in less than a minute.

"Let's go. Where are you taking me?" I still had on my jeans and low V-neck Atra work top. Because I had the tiniest boobs known to western womankind, I could wear things split to my belly button and still not be obscene, so I tended to buy T-shirts that had very low necklines. I couldn't worry about that now, though, because I wanted Finn out of the apartment.

I pushed him out the door, and he let me. I thought of it as let because Finn was a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. That worked great when he was lifting you around but not so great when you wanted him to move.

"I should feel bad that you're treating me like a dirty secret, but since it's getting you out of the house with me, I'll let it go this time," he called over his shoulder. His words were a joke, but his meaning was not. He didn't like the idea I wanted him out of the apartment before Ivy came home, but I was barely prepared to see him, let alone see the both of them together.

He shut the door behind me and waited while I locked it. And then surprisingly, he took my hand and led me downstairs to his truck.

"Where are you taking me?" I repeated.

"Thought we'd go hit some baseballs."

"Baseball?" Finn had played wide receiver and first base in high school. I'd gone to many a game with Ivy.

"You once said you wished you could learn how to hit a fastball. I'm going to teach you tonight."

The last sentence was not meant to be sexual, but it came off that way, and I squirmed in my seat. He tilted his head to look at me and then smiled knowingly. Maybe the last sentence was supposed to be an innuendo. Or maybe I was just gooey mush inside because he'd remembered some comment I'd made years ago.

Sports West was a complex on the northwest side of town that housed an indoor soccer arena as well as indoor and outdoor batting and pitching cages. After Finn parked and opened the door for me, he pulled two wooden bats out of the bed of his truck.

I raised my eyebrows. “You bring your own bats?"

He hefted a bat in his hand and then flicked it into the air, catching it easily by the handle after a full rotation. "You want to learn how to hit with a real bat or a shitty one that's been abused by hundreds of people?"

"Why is it when comparisons are offered, it's never two good choices, but one good choice and one terrible choice?"

He gave a minute shrug. "Maybe because there's only ever one good choice."

"I don't believe that. I think there is more than one good choice anyone can make."

"Are you saying you want me to rent you a bat?"

I grabbed the extra bat from his hands. "No. I don't want a shitty bat hundreds of people have abused."

His laughter followed me into the cage. I took a few practice swings while Finn studied the helmets behind us. After knocking a few on the head and squeezing the plastic between his hands, he settled on one that he brought into the cage.

“This is really ugly.” I turned it over in my hands. The inside had a plastic adjustable frame.

“You could wear a bag, and you’d still be beautiful,” he replied and took the hat out of my hands. Caught off guard by his compliment, I didn’t resist as he dropped the helmet onto my head and then dialed the adjuster knob so the brim didn’t fall over my eyes.

Then he set his bat against the net and walked down the alley to the pitching unit. He did something and then returned. "I dialed it down to sixty miles per hour."

"Sixty?" I reared back. "I'm supposed to hit something hurtling toward me at highway speed?"

"Any slower and it won't get to the plate." He moved behind me, and I thought he'd do the classic arms around the girl, hips snug against her move, but he didn't—to my surprise… and regret.

He placed his hands on my hips and kicked my feet apart. "Line up your hips with the pitcher's mound and balance on the balls of your feet, resting slightly on the back leg. In fact, lift your left leg and kind of shake it, and then put it back down."

I did as he told me but felt foolish. "Are we doing the hokey pokey?"

"We can do any kind of dancing that you want…later."

His breath was hot on my neck, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from moaning. I steeled myself against the full body hug, but he surprised me again by stepping back and rearranging my arms so my right elbow was bent and my left arm was almost fully extended. "This feels weird."

"Because you've never hit before," he replied patiently.

I gave a few practice swings and then nodded that I was ready. I vowed not to duck, but when he pressed a button and the ball came flying out of the machine, it took a lot for me to stand there and swing the bat. And even at sixty miles per hour (which was not slow), I struck out. I struck out for the next ten balls until I finally hit the top of the ball with the bottom of my bat. Sadly the ball did not fly way out to the end of the alley, nor did I hear that satisfying smack. Instead, it dribbled about two feet away from me.

I pulled off the helmet and handed it to him. "I think hitting a baseball is overrated. I'll just sit on the table and have a drink."

He reached to his back pocket for his wallet, and I stopped him. "I'm paying for my own drink tonight."

He looked like he wanted to argue but wisely did not. As I went to the concession stand, he walked down the alley toward the machine. Probably to turn it up to five hundred miles per hour or something.

I sat with my soda and bag of candy and proceeded to watch him crush the ball ten times out of ten.

"Were you disappointed you didn't get a baseball scholarship?"

"No way. Do you know how hard they work?" He stopped, and the ball flew by him into the net. I quirked an eyebrow at him. He twisted the bat in his hands and then tapped it against his feet like he had done when he was in high school, when he’d been in the on deck circle. "Our frat had several guys on the baseball team, and they were busy nonstop, even during the off season. Lifting weights, in the batting cages, running drills. I didn't want to put the time and effort into it."

I heard a tiny bit of disappointment in his voice, and I wasn't sure what to assign it to: the fact he hadn't played baseball, or that he thought it was a mountain not worth climbing.

After another round of his bat meeting balls, he finally got tired and exited the cage to join me at the table. He sat and grabbed my bottle of Dr. Pepper and drank half. "Here's the deal, Winter. I want you to give us a try. One week, no thinking about other people, the past, anything. Just you and me. After the week is up and you never want to see me again, fine. But you need to give me the week."

A week with Finn, pretending like we had no complicated backstory? It sounded too good to be true. When I opened my mouth to say no, my heart talked for me. "Okay. One week."

"Great." A huge grin stretched across his face. "How about the concert in the park on Saturday?"

I started to object, because what would I tell Ivy, but he knew exactly what my protest would be.

"You agreed. One week. No other people."

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

One week. Just the two of us.