Double Play

As everyone laughed, Pace thought about killing Wade, but that was all he needed, a suspension for fighting, as satisfying as that might be. So with the whole team watching, he opened his phone. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, sounding sweet and open and warm. “Sorry I missed you last night. I was in the shower.”

Ah, man. And now he had that image in his head, her in the wet, hot shower.

Naked.

And it was a damn good image, too.

“I saw the papers,” she said softly. “I’m sorry it’s so serious.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s . . . not?”

He turned away from Gage’s questioning expression. “No.”

She paused as if waiting for him to say something else, which he couldn’t. Not with his fascinated audience.

“Are you busy?” she finally asked.

He felt twenty pairs of eyes staring at him. “I’m in a team meeting.”

“Oh! I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you another time.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Smooth. Jesus, wasn’t he smooth. He hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket, feeling like a clueless teenager.

As soon as the meeting ended, Wade hightailed it out of there, probably to save his own ass, and Pace stood up to go after him. Red caught him by the back of the shirt. “You need to wait until the end of the season to kill him.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Gage said in a voice of steel. “And as a bonus, I promise that if you wait, I’ll even hold him down for you.”

Good enough.

After two hours of only eking out half a page, Holly gave up on her article, shut her laptop, and called Allie. “I’m in over my head.”

“I’ve seen the papers. The Heat’s taking it up the ass.”

“I know. The reports are brutal, and even worse, it’s stuff no one’s supposed to know. They can’t figure out who’s leaking the info.”

“Does anyone think it’s you?”

“I don’t know.” Holly leaned back in her chair, holding the phone in the crook of her shoulder as she flipped through the papers. “I think Sam believes I wouldn’t do such a thing. But the guys? Who knows.”

“What about the guy, the one who matters?”

“I haven’t seen him,” she admitted. “The clubhouse’s closed to everyone except the team. If he’s not locked in a private training session or being evaluated by management’s medical team, or holed up with Wade and the others where the press can’t get to them, then he’s nowhere to be found.”

“When is his surgery?”

“That’s the thing. His injury was blown up in the rumors.”

“Good. I think you should find him, kiss him so they win again, and then, after the game, sleep with him.”

Holly choked out a laugh. “And how will that help?”

“Well, you’ll feel much more relaxed, for starters. Especially if he’s any good. But more importantly, the Heat will win because they’re talented, not because you didn’t have sex, and then all those stupid superstitions are poof, gone.”

“You’re as crazy as they are, you know that? How’s the screenplay going?”

“Steamy. I’m in the middle of a sex scene right now. The hero’s nailing his heroine against the wall of his shower and they’re—”

“Okay,” Holly said with another laugh. “I’ll just watch it when it comes out on the big screen.”

“If it ever gets there.”

“It will,” Holly said firmly. “Believe in it.”

“I will if you will,” Allie said with irony and clicked off.

Knowing Allie was right, Holly made brownies and drove to Pace’s house, which was huge and new and on the bluffs overlooking the beach. It was gorgeous.

And empty. Through the window next to his front door, she could see his entire foyer. There was a large pile of duffel bags and three bats leaning in one corner, and along a wide bench sat his glove and a batting helmet, beneath which was a dizzying array of athletic shoes—Adidas, Nike, spikes, cleats, running shoes . . .

No sign of movement, though.

She left the brownies on his porch with a note.

He didn’t call. She didn’t get anything but a silent message, loud and clear. Either he believed she was the media leak or . . .

She was the only one yearning and aching.

She had no idea which was worse.

The next day, Ty’s and Henry’s mandated drug tests came back inconclusive. With the lack of evidence, the two were cleared to play.

Holly was fascinated and horrified by the whole thing. Fascinated by the baseball drug culture in general. Over the history of the sport, much of it had been knowingly swept under the rug by the very people who governed it. But in the past few years, fan pressure and bad press had forced a change. A change not everyone had been happy to make.

Her articles were supposed to be about the guys and their popularity, what made them so beloved, but she found herself shifting gears, wondering if maybe the secret she’d been looking for had been right under her nose the whole time.

At the next game, she went early to take pictures of the pregame practice.

There was no sign of Pace.

Not that it mattered. She had a job to do. Period.

She sat in the stands with Sam and her brother, Jeremy, who was as tall and elegant and well dressed as his sister, with a smooth smile that could sell flint to the devil. The three of them made small talk until, with thirty minutes before the start, Holly got a call.