Double Play

“What?”

“Yeah, you can look, but you can’t touch,” Henry instructed in a perfect imitation of Gage, and when Pace scowled, he quickly added, “You know that was the Skip, right? Not me.”

“You can tell Gage where to put his orders, and that’s right up his—”

Holly came up to the table then, with a sweet, welcoming smile. “Hi, guys.” She set a hand on Pace’s arm and looked into his eyes and made him forget his own name. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

Her hand ran lightly over his bandaged shoulder. “There’s that fine again.”

“Well I’m fine now,” he clarified, knowing by her warm smile that she understood it was because of her presence.

Wade and Henry scooted in and made room, and that was that. A foursome. Terrific. With a sigh, Pace held out a chair for her and gave in, after which his two teammates spent the evening telling her stories, like the time they’d hidden all of Pace’s luggage when he’d been in the shower at Houston.

“He was forced to come through the clubhouse butt naked in front of a pack of reporters,” Henry told her with glee. “Fun times.”

Yeah. Fun times. He looked over at a laughing Holly and found himself smiling. “You think that’s funny?”

“I do.”

After dinner, the guys faithfully stuck around in the parking lot until Holly kissed them each on the cheek and drove off, leaving Pace with the urge to strangle each of them.

And then Gage.

“Think of it this way,” Wade said, putting a hand on his good shoulder as they watched Holly’s taillights vanish into the night. “She’s the first woman you haven’t been able to have at the snap of your fingers when you wanted. She’s also the first woman to stick on your mind for more than a split second. That’s a good thing, right?”

“What are you getting at?”

“That this is new for you, this slow dating-ritual dance. And different. And maybe, it’s also something really great.”

“Which I would know by now if I was allowed to be alone with her for even a second.”

“Maybe she’s worth the wait.”

Yeah. Yeah, maybe she was. He went home alone to channel surf for a while, then gave in to temptation and called Holly to make sure she got home okay.

And to hear her voice.

When she didn’t answer, he left her a voice message, a stupid, stuttering, rambling message that came from acting without thinking, which he was most definitely doing. After hanging up, he promptly fell off the wagon and drank two Dr Peppers.

The next morning, he woke up to find that the sports world was filled with rumors of the real nature of his injury, that it was far more serious than reported, that it wasn’t just a strained rotator cuff but a severe tear that could be the end of his career.

Gage blew an even larger gasket and had Sam working night and day trying to figure out where the hell the rumors were originating from, along with all the other rumors they’d been battling for weeks, needing to know who the hell was always one step ahead of them.

Pace lay in bed that night and knew who it could have been.

Holly.

Except for one thing—he didn’t believe it. Refused to believe it.

The next morning, he drove to the park. Chipper and River were ecstatic and couldn’t wait to tell him how great Holly was. Seemed she’d taken them to lunch, and now they thought the sun rose and set in her eyes.

Pace thought something else, and he didn’t like it. “What did she want to know about me?”

“Nothing,” River said. “We didn’t even talk about you.”

“Uh-huh.” Could he really have been that fooled? “Come on, tell me.”

“Jeez,” Chipper said. “She came for us. Get your own girl.”

He sighed, and spent some time working on their field work. Later he had a meeting with Sam, where he signed boxes of merchandise for the 4 The Kids website.

“Pace,” she said quietly, helping him sort through the stuff. “About these press leaks.” She paused. “Do you think Holly . . . ?”

He met her gaze, his even, and spoke what he wanted to believe with his whole heart. “I don’t.”

“Good.” She let out a breath and shook her head. “I don’t either, I just had to ask.”

“Yeah.” When he finished signing, he headed straight into physical therapy, and from there into the Heat’s weekly team meeting.

In the middle of one of Gage’s rants, Pace’s cell phone rang. Never good, as Gage hated to be interrupted. Even worse, it wasn’t Pace’s usual standard-issued ring tone. Instead, his phone burst out with the theme song to the Courtship of Eddie’s Father. As the chorus of “People, let me tell you ’bout my best friend . . .” started playing, Pace’s eyes cut straight to Wade, who was doing his best to hold back his grin. Paced looked down at the screen and sighed.

Holly. “Are you kidding me?” he asked Wade. “You programmed her a ring tone on my phone?”

“No phones in team meetings!” Gage yelled.

“It’s Holly, Skip,” Henry said urgently. “If he ignores her, maybe she won’t kiss him at the next game.”

Gage ground his back teeth together. “Go ahead,” he said tightly. “Answer the damn thing. Tell her you still can’t sleep with her until October . . . politely.”