“We’re having all kinds of firsts today,” I tease as we walk, hand in hand, through the bowels of Yankee stadium.
“We are.” He laughs. “Hotel sex for one.”
I swat at him. “That’s not what I meant, you pervert.”
“It’s true though.”
“It is, but I was referring more to this.” I squeeze his hand and stop in my tracks forcing him to do the same, our hands extended between us. “Me getting to see you off before a game and wish you good luck.”
His smile is shy and inviting, and I wonder if there will ever come a time when he looks at me like this and butterflies don’t tickle every single part of me. He tugs on my hand and pulls me so I land against him. “That is a very good first,” he says, brushing a lock of hair off my forehead and tucking it behind my ear. But it’s the way he looks at me—like he can see into my soul—that unnerves me and invigorates me in ways I never knew possible. “I can think of another first.”
“What’s that?”
He leans down and kisses me. A brief touch of tongues. A quick loss of breath from the punch of emotion he packs into that tender kiss. When he leans back and I lower from my tiptoes his smile is into megawatt territory. “I get to kiss you. In public. Without worrying about who’s going to see or what contract clause we’re going to violate—”
“Rule breaker,” I tease, but realizing he’s right, I kiss him this time.
“Only when it comes to you.” We stare at each other for a beat with giddy smiles on our faces that look ridiculous but can’t be helped. “You gonna be okay?” he asks, referring to sitting in the stands by myself to watch the game.
“Who me?” I laugh putting my hands out to my sides. “Stadiums are my second home.”
“My bad. How could I forget?”
I take a few steps back, teeth sunk in my bottom lip as we stare at each other before he nods and turns to head down the hall to the locker room.
“Hey, Hot Shot.” He turns. Looks at me. “Have a game, will ya?”
That grin returns full force. “Always.”
The chords fade from the national anthem and somehow, across the crowd, Easton finds me in the seat he was able to get me just to the visitor’s side of home plate. The closest you can possibly get to me without being on the field, he’d said. And when I’d laughed, his response was that You’re mine for only forty-eight hours, and I’m not going to waste a single minute of it being apart from you. For a man who doesn’t read romance novels, he sure knows how to make me feel swoony.
Our eyes meet, he tips his hat and nods, a slight smile on his lips before jogging off the field to the dugout.
“He’s a different person with you, you know.”
Startled, I turn to my left to find Finn sitting there. My back is up immediately, my displeasure and lack of trust in him front and center at the mere sight of him. “No one asked you.”
He chuckles and it scrapes over every nerve I have. “I can tell you’re thrilled I’m here.”
“It’s none of my business if you’re here or not.” I turn to face the game. The first pitch is thrown. A strike low and questionable, and Johnson, the Wrangler at bat, feels the same way by the way he looks back to the home plate umpire.
“Good seats, huh?”
Crap. That means he got them for Easton in lieu of making me sit in the family section that typically has okay seats. I swallow back my vitriol and replace it with manners. “Thank you. Yes, they are.”
The crowd cheers as Johnson strikes out and jogs back to the dugout. I keep my eyes there, study Easton sitting on the bench with his leg guards on, as he laughs about something one of his teammates says. It’s warming to see him in his element and kicking ass at that.
The next two outs happen quickly and the inning switches from the top to the bottom. Easton jogs out to the plate, all business, and I have to say it’s sexy as hell to watch a man do what he does best.
Especially when he squats down and gives me a view of his very fine ass.
“May I ask what it is about me that pisses you off so much?” Finn finally asks after being on the receiving end of my cold shoulder.
“Only if you want me to be honest.”
“It’s not an act, is it? You really don’t like me.”
I turn to look at him and shake my head. He doesn’t waver from my gaze, just holds it without flinching. “I don’t trust you. Any agent who tells their client to sign an agreement like you did Easton, isn’t out for their client but rather out for themselves. The question is what exactly is in it for you? You get your fifteen percent commission regardless of where Easton plays, so why give him bad advice unless you and Tillman have something going together on the side?”
He lifts his eyebrows and takes a slow sip of his beer, then looks back to the game unfolding before us. He watches Easton throw down to first base and almost pick off the runner taking too generous of a lead off the bag. “I see.” It’s all he says, but his expression says so much more that I can’t decipher.
“Are you trying to tell me something different happened?”
This time when he turns to face me, his eyes are harder, and there’s a grit to his voice. “Just so we’re clear, Tillman’s a fucker, and I hope he gets what I think is coming to him. As far as Easton is concerned, he’s like a brother to me. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt him or his career. You don’t have to like me. You don’t have to trust me. All that matters is that Easton does. So long as both of us are rooting for the same thing for him—success, health, a long career, happiness—that’s all that should matter.” The emotion in his voice surprises me, and there is really nothing more I can say to refute what he says.
Because it’s true.
I don’t have to like him to love Easton.
My knee jogs up and down. My hands are clasped. Finn is sitting forward on the edge of his seat. Tension fills the stands.
The score is tied with only one out and the Wrangler’s pitcher bungled up the beginning of the inning. His pitches wouldn’t hit the spots they needed to hit and now two batters later there are runners on first and third base. That means the runner on first is going to steal.
With less than two outs, no catcher risks throwing down to second base to get the runner out because that means the runner on third may try to score. It’s too risky.
No catcher but Easton Wylder that is.
Finn knows it too.
This is what sets him apart from the good catchers and makes him great. His cockiness. His justified belief in his abilities. His confidence in his body.
I study Easton. His stance behind the plate with one hand tucked behind his back, fingers twitching in anticipation, waiting for the ball to be pitched so he can do what he does best.
The pitcher checks both runners on first and third to try and stop them from getting too far from the bag. He winds up. He pitches.
With lightning-fast reflexes, Easton has thrown the ball with laser precision to second base. The tag is made. The runner’s out. And before the umpire even finishes throwing his thumb back in the “you’re out” signal, the shortstop is throwing back to home plate where the runner from third base is barreling down the line toward Easton.
He catches the ball split seconds before the runner slams into him full force. Easton is knocked to the ground with the runner on top of him but with the ball held tight.
The umpire signals out, and I jump out of my seat cheering like a maniac in a stadium full of people rooting for the Yankees. I high-five Finn. He whistles in celebration.
But it’s when I look back toward the plate, that my heart drops. Easton is still sitting there. His chest protector is being taken off him. His face a mask of pain I’ve seen before.
“No. No. No.” I’m out of my seat flying up the aisle needing to get to him when I have no clue where to go. All I know is I need to get there now. “Finn, where? Tell me where? Get me to him.”
He jogs ahead of me, weaving in and out of fans, as every part of me rejects what I just saw.
It feels like forever, but it’s only minutes before we’re out of breath and descending in an elevator. When it opens a security guard stands there.
“I’m Easton Wylder’s agent. She’s his personal PT. We need to get to him now.”
He eyes us as my hands shake, trying to get the pass Easton handed me earlier from my purse.
This can’t be happening.
“Here,” I all but shout when I find and hold it up. Before he has a chance to respond, I’m running down the hall following Finn toward the locker room.
His shoulder was good. Strong. It can’t be happening again.
Please let it not be happening again.
I can hear him before I see him. His cry of pain. His groaned “Fuck.” And when I clear the doorway, my heart drops to my feet. He’s on a table, his face distorted in agony as the team doctor evaluates his shoulder.
“Easton.” It’s the only thing I say as I rush to his side.
“When I threw . . . I felt it tear,” he says, a grown man reduced to tears.
But these tears aren’t from pain.
They’re from a valiant man terrified he’s going to lose the only thing he’s ever known.