THE MAN IN the black leather blazer has Pop up against the wall. A fist at his neck. A flash of light on steel. Knife. A line of dark red seeping from the edge. Don’t, don’t. Threats spilling from the man’s maw like bats. Panic, paralysis. What to do? Phone 911. But the numbers don’t dial, the 1 keeps disappearing. Jabbing at the keys. Help, help.
Too late. The phone is gone. The man is on the ground. Someone is shouting. Screaming. Running. But it isn’t the man. He’s a silent crumpled lump. As if he’ll never speak again.
Trevor woke up clawing for air, his heart jackhammering. He threw the hotel sheets off his body. Heaved deep breaths into his lungs. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he dropped his head into his hands. The familiar feeling of his own hair, his own skull, grounded him. He was in Kilby, Texas. A baseball player. A grown man. Here. Now. Alone.
When he’d gotten a grip on his heart rate, he got up and double-checked the door of the hotel room. Locked, of course, not only with the standard latch, but an extra dead bolt he’d added himself. He’d had to pay the Days Inn management for the privilege of an extra sense of security, but it was well worth it. The dead bolt didn’t keep the nightmares away, but it helped him recover more quickly.
He checked the alarm clock on the bedside table: 5:30 am. Walked to the window and drew aside the drapes. It was just getting light outside, long fingers of pink reaching across the lower horizon. Fuck, he’d never get back to sleep now. He didn’t want to, not if it meant reliving that night again.
In the little kitchenette, he poured himself a tall glass of water and downed it, then started the coffeemaker. Watching the drip, drip, he released the horrible aftereffects of the dream, moment by moment.
Dream . . . no, it wasn’t just a dream. Those memories were burned into his brain forever. They would never leave him. He just had to live with it. And he’d learned how. Empty his mind. Let all emotion seep out of him. Focus his rage somewhere it couldn’t hurt anyone.
Oh, and read. He picked up a novel from the pile on his bedside table. It didn’t matter what kind of book it was. Mysteries, thrillers, romance, science fiction . . . anything to send his mind somewhere else. Song of Ice and Fire . . . that would do the job. A thousand pages of death and destruction—exactly what he needed.
With his coffee and his book, he lay back on his bed and escaped into a fictional world that seemed only a little over the top to him. The Iron Kingdom had nothing on Detroit.
The next morning at nine-fifteen—he didn’t want to seem too curious—Trevor strolled into the promotions department. A tiny woman with aggressively silver hair clapped when he walked in. “This couldn’t be more perfect,” she exclaimed. “Why did I never think of this before?”
Wary, Trevor scanned the rest of the room, spotting Crush Taylor, Shizuko, Dwight, and, nearly dwarfed by all the big ballplayers, Paige. Her hair was in a high ponytail and she wore cowboy boots and a striped dress that ended somewhere above her knees. She looked fresh and sassy and made his mouth water.
“What’s this all about?”
“They wouldn’t tell us anything until you got here, dude.” Dwight’s usual high-voltage smile was missing. “Twenty minutes late, you missed the donuts.”
Paige stepped forward and whipped something out from behind her back. A paper towel wrapped around three Krispy Kremes. “I got your back, Stark.” She winked at him, while a low growl sounded from Crush’s direction.
Trevor propped himself against the wall and, eyes narrowed at Crush, took a slow, deliberate bite of the sugary donut. He knew that Paige was hands off, but he didn’t need Crush reminding him of it.
“Now that everyone’s here, let’s get started.” The silver-haired woman whipped out an iPad and punched a button. Every movement seemed to happen in double-time.
“For those who don’t know me, I’m the head of the marketing team here. To support Crush’s mission to bring fame and fortune to the Kilby Catfish, we came up with a fabulous new campaign that’s going to take Kilby by storm. Not just Kilby, but the entire country.”
The shot that Paige had taken of the three outfielders at the Roadhouse filled the screen. Trevor, looking stone-faced as always, the Viking warrior badass. Dwight, who’d modeled for a sunglass manufacturer in college. And Shizuko, whose genetic mix of Brazilian and Japanese made him almost freakishly good-looking. Objectively, Trevor had to say, they were breathtaking.
“Paige, you posted this on the team Instagram account, right? Can you tell us what kind of response you got?”
Paige cleared her throat and checked her iPhone. “Two thousand and thirty-two likes so far. Eighty-two comments.”
“What do the comments say?”
Amusement flashed into those sparkly blue eyes. “Really? You want me to read them? Okay. Here’s one. ‘Bring that triple-decker man sandwich over here, baby!’ Then there’s ‘Hot, hotter, and hottest.’ And, of course, ‘Too many clothes.’ Should I go on?”
“We get the point,” said Crush dryly. “The ladies are on board.”
“On board with what?” Trevor still didn’t get it, and he wasn’t too crazy about being on Instagram. What if the Detroit guys monitored social media for some reason?
“Viral marketing. It’s also global, thanks to Shizuko here. We have a global viral thing happening, and that’s gold. You can’t buy that. All we’re going to do is jump on board and ride it for all its worth.”
“Ma’am, you better explain what the hell you’re talking about.” Dwight leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I ain’t Jay Z, I’m a baseball player. And though I don’t like to think of it this way, we’re minor league here.”
Marcia marched toward him and poked him in the chest. “Oh no, Dwight Conner. You’re not just a minor league outfielder. You’re part of Baseball’s Hottest Outfield, and you’re going to be famous.”
Dwight’s jaw dropped, and Shizuko yanked his earbuds out of his ears. “Could you repeat, please?” He spoke excellent English but sometimes liked to pretend he didn’t.
“You heard me. Viral marketing. Sex sells. Hot guys sell. You’re going to become a sensation and it’s only going to help your careers. Good for Crush, good for you, good all around.”
Cold fear wrapped a fist around Trevor’s gut. Publicity wasn’t his friend, at least not national publicity. Yeah, he had a different name now. And he’d bulked up by about seventy pounds since the age of fifteen. But he could still be recognized.
“Count me out,” he said, making it casual, like he didn’t care that much. “I’m not a trained monkey. I’m a ballplayer.”
“A ballplayer who’s on a thin line right now,” Crush said sharply. “A ballplayer who said he’d help me.”
Trevor bit back an automatic Fuck off. “I said I’d help win the championship. Not go viral.”
“This isn’t going to work unless you’re all on board,” said Marcia. “Baseball’s Hottest Outfield needs all three positions. It’s an opportunity, fellas. Make a name, get some press. If you think all you have to do is go out and play, you’re living in the olden times, boys. My era, as a matter of fact. You gotta market yourself. Brand. Platform. Buzz.”
As she ticked those items off on her fingers, Shizuko slowly straightened. Marcia was speaking his language right now. During the off-season he toured in a thrash-metal punk band, and all year round he put a lot of time into his social media. “I’ll do it.”
“I’m in,” said Dwight. “I’m the Captain of Hot.”
Everyone looked at Trevor. Oh, hell. Marcia came close enough for him to catch a whiff of her body lotion. She narrowed sharp brown eyes at him through those intimidating black frames. “You need this more than anyone. Conner’s Mr. Popular, Shizuko’s a heartthrob in Japan, but you . . . you’re the bad boy. You could use some love from the people.”
“I don’t need love.” Each word sounded like an ice cube.
Dwight got up and slung an arm around his shoulders. “You know I love you like a brother, Stark. But sometimes you gotta step up and be there for the team.”
Trevor shook off his arm. “I’m not doing it.”
Tense silence fell across the room. He set his jaw and stared back at the array of faces. Then Paige stepped forward. “I know what might make a difference. What if we attached some sort of charitable cause to the campaign, like, say the Boys and—”
“Hang on.” Trevor raised a hand to stop her. No one with the Catfish knew about his time at the Boys and Girls Club. He’d asked the Club to keep it quiet and they had. He couldn’t let the team know; it might mess with his bad boy reputation. “What I meant was that I’m not doing it without Paige.”
Her jaw fell open, her expression of shock repeated in every other face in the room. “What do you mean, without me?”
“You know your social media, obviously.” He gestured to the Instagram photo on Marcia’s iPad. “If we’re going to do this, you should be part of it.”
“No problem at all,” said Marcia promptly. “Right, Paige?”
“I have a problem with it,” Crush said, prowling across the room toward Trevor. Paige stepped between them.
“Please don’t embarrass me, Dad. I’m more than happy to work on this campaign.” She shot Trevor a look that implied something more like, You owe me a new car for doing this. “I think it would be fun. I get to take pictures of baseball players. Think of all the girls who will wish they were me.”
That argument didn’t seem to impress Crush much at all. He glared at his daughter, then at Trevor, then at Dwight, who made a Who, me? gesture. Finally he threw up his hands and stomped out of the office.
Marcia spent the next few minutes setting up a schedule with the four of them, and then the meeting broke up.
As they left Marcia’s office, Trevor lagged behind until Shizuko and Dwight were out of sight. He snagged Paige’s arm and whirled her through a side door, into an empty stairwell. If they were going to work together, they had to get a few things straight. But before he could say a word, she preempted him.
“You don’t want anyone to know about the Boys and Girls Club, do you?”
Automatically he looked behind him to make sure no one was listening. “It’s no one’s business.”
“So you don’t mind everyone knowing about all the girls you sleep with, but you don’t want them to know you work with troubled kids during your down time?”
Yes, that was exactly right. But he didn’t know how to explain the reasons for that. “It’s personal, and if we’re going to work together, you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
She gave him a long, level look, the kind that made him uncomfortable because it meant she was actually looking past the surface. He didn’t want anyone looking there. “Sure, I’ll promise. As long as you give me a good reason.”
“The reason is that I don’t want people to know.”
“That doesn’t count. An actual reason why you would want people to think you’re more of a jerk than you really are.”
The way she was looking at him made him nuts. He felt her gaze like a hand stroking his body. This close to her, he noticed a million little details about her. The scattering of golden freckles across her cheekbones, the purple rim around her true-blue irises, the way her chest rose and fell, the swell of her breasts against her striped dress. The pendant she wore, in the shape of a branching tree. Everything about her was fresh and sparkling as an April morning. He braced one hand on the wall next to her. “Are you so sure I’m not a jerk?”
Instead of being intimidated, she raised her chin. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m pretty intuitive, and I did happen to see you doing a great job with those kids.”
“Kids are one thing, women . . . that’s a different story,” he drawled. He hovered his face close to hers, letting her know—with only an inch between them—how much she turned him on. The sensory memory of what she’d felt like in his arms flooded him in a wave of lust. Her pupils widened, a flush stained her cheekbones. Her throat moved with a hard swallow, but she didn’t shrink away.
“I don’t believe you,” she said in a low whisper. “That night in the parking lot, it was a dangerous situation. And every step of the way, you kept trying to protect me from the guy with the BB gun.” Her voice gained in strength. “You didn’t do one single inappropriate thing except take your shirt off. And I kind of goaded you into that. You want everyone to think you’re a bad seed. But you’re not.”
“Your father thinks I am. You should listen to your father.”
“Do you always listen to your father?”
The question slammed into him like an arrow. He flinched backward, unable to hide his reaction. “That’s different,” he choked. “Your father’s a legend, mine was a—”
He pushed away from the cement block wall, raking his hands through his hair. She followed him. “What? Your father was a what?”
“Nothing, anymore.”
“He’s dead?”
Yes, he was dead. If only he’d died ten years earlier, before he’d taken his first hit of heroin, before he mortgaged the house, gotten into debt, and destroyed every single solid thing in his and Nina’s life. “He’s dead. And before he was dead, he was bad.”
That sour, twisted mouth, the deadened eyes. The memory of his father didn’t belong in the same stairwell as Paige Taylor.
“So don’t be so sure you know me, Paige.”
“But I want to know you.”
“Not going to happen.” He took her chin in his hand, blocking out the feel of her soft skin. He had to make her understand, make her stay away from him. “I’ll do your damn campaign, you can take your photos, but that’s it. Don’t be thinking I’m some kind of good guy. I’ve done things and been places you have no idea about.”
Their eyes locked, his words echoing around them in the dusty stairwell. He formed his features into the stony, intimidating mask that warned most people off. But at the same time . . . he couldn’t help feathering his fingers across her fine skin, a light touch like a butterfly landing on a flower.
Her eyelids fluttered, though she continued to hold his gaze. Behind his hard expression, he felt like a fraud, because all he wanted was to pull her against his body and revel in her softness. Beg her to look at him this way—as if he was worth a damn—all day, all night, tomorrow and the next day.
Rattled by that thought, he dropped his hand. Paige was dangerous, so dangerous, with her shining blue eyes and tempting mouth.
She rapped him on the chest, right over his heart. Surprised, he dropped his hand from her chin. “No, Trevor Stark, I don’t just think you’re a good guy. I’d stake the future of the Catfish on it.”
With a saucy nod, as if that settled everything, she dashed back up the staircase toward the marketing department.
Damn it, once again she’d gotten the last word.