Double Play

“What? You’ll lose? In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what you’ve been doing anyway.”

“It’s not for me. It’s everyone else. They’re unbelievably superstitious, and now we’re facing Pace’s injury and possible surgery—”

“Surgery?”

“—and all that bad press, it’s just blown out of proportion.”

“Surgery?” she repeated so that Gage finally shut up and just looked at her.

“He didn’t tell you. Fuck.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, listen, this is between you and him. Just . . . just don’t go try to talk to him tonight—”

“Oh, I’m going.” She pointed a finger at him. “But I can promise you this: there will be no sleeping involved.”

“Uh . . .” Gage was clearly trying to evaluate her intention. “If you could not kill him, that would be really great, too.”

“Now there’s a promise I can’t make.” She headed to the elevators and pounded the button for Pace’s floor. Possible surgery. Which meant he’d probably torn that rotator cuff. How ironic that the press had been claiming that very thing for weeks.

Of course he hadn’t mentioned how bad it was earlier, which left her to wonder if that was because he didn’t trust her not to put it out to the public, or because he didn’t want her sympathy.

Or maybe it was far simpler than that. Maybe he just didn’t care enough about her to bring it up.

No. No, she refused to believe that, and got onto the elevator. The man who’d kissed her tonight hadn’t been a man who didn’t care. Which left her to believe something else. He’d picked a fight so she’d go away and leave him to his own misery. Yeah. It was entirely likely that he’d do exactly that rather than talk to her about his fears and pain. “Damn idiot.”

The man with her in the elevator shot her a startled look.

“Not you,” she said quickly. “I—”

He hit the button for the next floor and got off as quickly as possible, without a backward look.

With a sigh, she leaned back against the wall. Yeah, she certainly had a way with men tonight.

When the elevator opened on Pace’s floor, she went straight to his room and knocked. But either she was wrong and he’d gone off for his own fun for the night, or she was right and he was ignoring her, because he didn’t answer.

And she slept alone, granting Gage his wish.

The Heat flew home, and Holly’s next article came out. This time she’d written about the pitfalls of the sport, the number one thing being injuries—the ugly side of an industry that required so much from a person’s body. She’d blamed the owners, trainers, and managers for pushing the players. She’d blamed the players for caving to the pressure and not knowing their own limits well enough to back off when necessary.

Up until now, the articles had been extremely popular with her readers and the industry. But today, the industry wasn’t sending the love; they were sending hate mail.

Tommy was in heaven, loving the increase of traffic to the site, negative or otherwise. “That’s what you’re there for, doll. To air the laundry and stir things up.”

And to raise his ad rates.

“But I still need a secret,” he reminded her. “The readers keep asking for the big one.”

“Maybe there isn’t one this time.”

“There’s always a secret. Now go find it.”

Sure. She’d just go find it.

The next day, she still hadn’t heard any news from Pace, or about Pace, and she wondered what the final outcome on his shoulder injury was. She wondered how he was.

If he was doing okay . . .

Going stir-crazy, she grabbed her camera and headed to the Heat’s facilities. She told herself that she needed some pictures of the team, but if she ran into Pace, so much the better. They had a few things to discuss.

Okay, maybe it was just her. She had a few things to discuss.

And she wanted her underwear back.

His fancy car was in the lot. There were plenty of other cars, too, including a few police units, who were probably watching practice on their lunch break again. That was good; she and Pace wouldn’t be alone. If they weren’t, she had a fighting chance of not losing today’s underwear as well.

Not that having people around had stopped her before . . .

That she was even thinking that way had her rolling her eyes at herself. She was not letting him anywhere near her underwear! She’d just reached for the door of the facility when someone behind her yelled, “Hey!”

Turning, she came face to face with Tia, who wore Pace’s jersey again—or still—and a tight smile. “You,” Tia said stiffly.

“Hello.”

Tia didn’t crack a smile. “I told you he was mine.”

Oh boy. “Are you supposed to be here?”

Tia ignored that and gestured to Holly’s camera. “Pace doesn’t like pictures taken of him when he’s not aware of it. He’ll be upset, and he doesn’t need that right now.” She held out her hand. “You’ll have to give that to me.”

Holly slipped her Canon into her big bag. “I don’t think so.”

“If you don’t, I’ll be forced to confiscate it personally and turn both it and you over to the authorities.”

“Tia, I’m not giving you my camera.”

“Hey, I’m an official here, and—”