A week later, I wandered home from my book tour. My apartment was cold. Turned out, I hadn’t left the heat up enough to come home to cozy. But, exhausted, I dragged my butt around trying to unpack and sort my laundry and send thank you notes to all the bookstores who had hosted me.

Anything to make me even more exhausted.

Because, the moment I’d stepped back into my apartment everything had just swept right over me again, washing the modicum of peace I’d gained being so busy on my trip right out. From the fact that Connor’s games and coffee machine were sitting out and ready to go, to the fact that half of my hamper was filled with oversized t-shirts, everything caused my apartment to feel tainted with Connor. As if he’d just stepped out and would be back any moment.

I’d forced myself not to watch any more of the interviews or gigs. I stayed offline. I avoided the magazine racks at the bookstores. I did everything but delete his phone number from my phone—everything I could think of to get to the other side of this.

And then I walked back into my apartment and it was all here waiting for me.

I grabbed one of the boxes of ARCs on my desk and dumped them out to shove all his stuff in there, but then felt bad because it wasn’t his fault I felt bad. Which made me feel worse.

The girls had been texting me all day, trying to make plans for the upcoming weekend. I had a feeling they were afraid I’d become a slobbering mass of emotions while Connor was gone.

Of course, I had, but I wasn’t telling anyone that.

Part of me was glad he was traveling again. There was something about us not being in the same city that made it feel easier.

I was fine. It had been a deal. We had paid the bet. Move along, nothing to see here.

That’s what I kept telling myself too.

So, I worked myself to fall down tired and headed to bed, planning on diving back into the book I was nearly finished with from constant fear-driven work, and knowing it would suck me in to a world that was not this one.

* * *

The knock at my door was as much of a surprise as anything could be. I crawled out of bed, exhausted in too many ways to count. Wrapping my robe around me, I ignored the second pounding on the door wondering who in their right mind would need me in the middle of the night.

I pulled it open, expecting one of my neighbors, but instead found a tired, rumpled Connor standing there looking better than most men look rested and ready to go. He had an overnight bag slung over his shoulder and the same suit he’d worn last week on TV.

I stared at him, trying to rationalize just closing the door again and going back to bed where it was safe. I didn’t need to add alone to that statement, did I? But, knowing that anything he said was going to hurt more than my daily recovery pain, I braced myself. I wasn’t ready for us to be just friends—even though that’s all we’d ever been.

My heart stopped and then triple timed at the sight of him. I took a deep breath, then another trying to get myself under control. Trying not to show him the thing he wanted to see the least…how in love with him I was.

“Hey,” he stepped in, dropping his bag and facing me on the threshold of my home. “Did I wake you up?”

Since it was almost two a.m. and I didn’t know what I’d say. I just nodded, biting back the sarcasm. But, even with that, I was just too exhausted to deal with the emotions rushing over me at the sight of him.

“What do you want, Connor?” Even I could hear it in my voice. The whole strong front thing wasn’t going to hold up for very long. Or at all.

My tone, my words—I watched them hit him as if I’d slapped him in the face. I know, it wasn’t very friendly, but I wasn’t feeling friendly.

“Seriously, Hails?” He gave me a look of such disbelief that I didn’t know what I’d missed. I didn’t know why he was even here. Why he’d shown up now, why he had to be standing on my doorstep.

Every defensive wall I had went up around me. Emotional moats were dug, trebuchets armed.

“Connor, I’m tired, exhausted. I’ve been traveling. And, aren’t you supposed to be in Atlanta or something today?” I asked as if I hadn’t memorized the schedule I’d avoided watching. As if I couldn’t tell better than Dex at this point where you could see—or avoid seeing so your heart wasn’t further bruised—Connor Ryan.

“Right. I was in Atlanta.” He spoke each word carefully, seeming to measure out where he was going with this. “But now I’m here.”

As if I could avoid noticing that. I wanted to hit him, raise my smaller fists to his thick, solid chest and beat on it. I wanted to beg him to leave and just let me be. I wanted to scream and cry and demand to know if he knew he was killing me little by little.

I wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let him go.

I sucked in a deep breath, blinking to make sure there were no tears in my eyes, before raising my gaze again to meet him head on and repeating my question, “So, what do you want?”

Red-flash heat crept up his neck and he looked angry and uncertain and annoyed and a million other things at once before he stepped in further and slammed the door, pacing away and coming back to hover over me.

“You want to know what I want? You don’t know or you want to hear it?” He pushed, the tone of his words forcing me back a step. “I want to be us. I want to not worry about…” He stopped, ran his hand through his hair, and glanced away. “I want to know if I get traded, we’ll make it work. I want a little place like this, something with an office for you and a guest room because no matter how much money I make, my mother won’t let me pay for a hotel. And we’re keeping that chair because it’s comfortable and your ex is an idiot. I want a dog. I don’t care if we have to get a dog nanny. That dog will know he’s our family. I want to come home to you every night I’m not on the road. I want to be the person who orders your meals and makes sure you eat more than sugar when you’re on deadlines. I want to celebrate launches and deals and bestsellers and buy you the booze when that Paige woman slams you. I want to hold you every night and I don’t want to have to wear eight layers of clothes to be in your bed. I want your friends to at least put up with me. I want you to never ask if Gavin is single again. I want our lives to become so mixed up that I don’t know where mine ends and yours begins. I want to be the guy who I was supposed to be while we were together.”

He sucked in a breath, his gaze slipping away as he ran out of steam before flashing back up to slam into mine, almost knocking me off my feet.

“What do you want?” he asked, looking more unsure than I thought he was capable.

I leaned back, feeling the ridges of the doorframe support me as my legs threatened to give out. I closed my eyes, shaking, shaking to my core and praying I wasn’t asleep or delusional or part of some weird plan. But when I opened them, he was there, still hovering looking anxious and worried and like he was going to spring forward if I continued to slip down the wall. And I realized that the only way to have what I wanted was to take that risk. To reach out and trust that those words, those perfect, perfect words were the truth of it all.

“You.” My hands were shaking so badly I was afraid to reach for him. Afraid I’d miss or fall or that he was an oasis in my emotional desert that would disappear if I reached out. “I just want you.”

And I knew, as the words slipped out, that it was true. I just wanted him and I was willing to risk it.

Connor laughed, an exhale of nerves as he swung out and caught me against him. “That’s what I said.”

His mouth came down on mine, sending a jolt through me and waking me from the hazy world I’d been walking around in since my slow fall into love with Connor Ryan.

There was nothing slow about my feelings now. I’d lost my breath either from the kiss knocking it out of me or the strong arms banded around me. But, I’d rather pass out than let go.

Connor kissed like he did everything, smooth and hot. My toes tingled as he pulled away, kissing my cheek, my eyes, my forehead before coming back to my lips and taking them again.

After long, drunk kisses convincing me I was right where I should be, Connor lifted his head from mine, kissing his way up my jaw to whisper in my ear. “I love you, but I’m never sleeping on that tiny couch again.”

I gave him a little grin and reached up to kiss him again. “If you insist.”

* * *

Thanks for reading The Catching Kind - want more Connor and Hails? Check out a sneak peak of their follow up:

CHAPTER ONE

“Hails!” Connor shouted from the kitchen. The kitchen where my nice warm bed wasn’t. “Hailey!”

I dragged a pillow over my head. He had more than enough caffeine in there to get him through whatever was going through his overactive mind—the addict. There was no way I was getting up at…I rolled over and looked at the clock. Seriously? Four forty-eight in the morning?

“Hailey!” Connor stood in the doorway, a pair of track pants hanging off his hips, a steaming cup of coffee wrapped in his oversized mitt of a hand. “Gavin is in South America.”

Okay. I knew I wasn’t awake yet, but I wasn’t sure what Gavin’s travels had to do with anything.

“Why?”

“Something about work and hang gliding. Which,” he raged on as he stomped to the dresser and set the coffee down before pacing my tiny room. “He went hang gliding. Hang gliding. Without me.”

“You’re not allowed to go hang gliding.” Which honestly, with the ideas he and his brother came up with, I was more than a little glad the team owners had rules about what Connor was and wasn’t allowed to do to put his body at risk.

“Like he couldn’t have waited a few more years.” He crossed his arms, and I’m not gonna lie. I was momentarily distracted by the perfectly sculpted upper body that somehow came attached to my pro-athlete boyfriend. “Hails. My eyes are up here.”

“Right…but the prettier part of you is a bit lower.”

“Hailey Tate.” He sounded way more insulted than I’d expected…which was not at all. “My eyes are stunning. People Magazine said so.”

Of course they did.

“Well, if People said so, who am I to argue?”

“Right. So, Gavin.” He took another sip of coffee. “Gavin has taken off to South America and I need him. I need to talk to him about something. Important stuff.”

“Well, call him.” So I can go back to sleep.

Part of me wondered if I’d said the second part out loud based on the look he gave me.

“I can’t. No reception wherever he is.” He paced the room again, back and forth. Back and forth. “Here’s the thing. I think I need to marry you.”

I—

Um…

What?

I tried to say words. I’m not sure what they were going to be, but it didn’t really matter because after a moment, Connor just carried on.

“If Gavin was here, I’d take him out for a beer—”

“At four-something in the morning?” I asked, oddly stuck on the wrong thing.

“No.” Connor looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. But I didn’t wake him up to announce that I had an obligation to marry him. “Tonight.”

“Then would I still be asleep if Gavin were here?”

“Maybe.” He ran a gaze down my leg to where my toes stuck out from the bottom of the blanket and smirked. “Maybe not.”

I tried not to get sidetracked by the look he gave me. Especially since he may or may not have just proposed.

“Connor…” I waved my hand at him, hoping he’d keep talking long enough for my brain to catch up.

“Right. So, Gavin is gone and I feel like I need to propose to you and since my brother-slash-best friend is gone, I need to talk it out with my other best friend.”

“Okay.” I nodded, not really sure what all this meant.

“You, Hailey! You’re my other best friend.” He rolled his eyes at me.

I was pretty sure I was going to have to uninvite him to the rest of my book signings if he was just going to pick up the bad habits of some of my tween readers.

“Oh, that’s so sweet.” I pushed the blankets down and crawled to the end of the bed to give him a hug. “You’re my other best friend too.”

Connor snorted. “Right, after Jenna, Kasey, Jayne, Max, and…Dane.”

He spit Dane’s name out as if it was a curse he wasn’t allowed to say in the house. He was still a little bitter about Dane supposedly planning on marrying me once he was done sleeping with every available woman under forty.

“No, sweetie. Just Jenna and Kasey. And really,” I gave him a quick squeeze, “when you think about it, they’re more like one person. So you have Gavin and I have Jensey…um, Kasna. Something.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” Connor rested his cheek on top of my head, melting into my hug.

He was still struggling with closing the gap between who he was in real life and who he let the other Nighthawks see. We’d been hanging out with his teammate Marcus and his wife, Chantelle, a bit and it had been really good to see Connor around a guy who didn’t want to arrest him or hit him for dating me.

Ah, the small joys.

“I’m not,” I answered. And it was true. “You’re my favorite person for a lot of things. And trust me, you’re glad you aren’t that person for things like pedicures and PMS talk.”

His back muscles under my hands tightened. Sadly, even big strong pro-baseball players panicked at those three little letters.

“So…” How to reenter this conversation? “Why do you think you have to marry me?”

Connor’s hand slipped down my back, running his fingers along the length of my spine and back up. Up and down. I was still trying to figure out if he did that at times like this to calm me down or himself.

“Well, I like your place better than mine.”

“Which explains why you’re always here.” I hid my grin in his shoulder. “Plus, even if you lived here, that leather chair is still mine.”

He made a low mm-hmm sound and kept going. “And, I want to be around you all the time.”

Well, that was sweeter.

“And, if we’re married, the paparazzi would leave you alone after the initial ridiculousness around whatever dress you wore and if you did something fancy with your hair. I think you’d feel safer without them following you everywhere.”

Okay, still sweet, but not exactly romantic. In Connor’s brain, that was probably right up there with roses though.

“And,” he rushed on, “I’m in love with you and don’t want any other guy to even look at you. Unless he’s looking at you because he realizes you’re with me and he can admire from a distance. And also so no matter what we’re always together. And so we can get a dog.”

And with that mysterious flow of thought from my otherwise intelligent boyfriend, he pulled back, kissed me on the nose, and turned away.

A gut-deep sigh rushed out of him as if just saying all that took the pressure off.

“Okay. Thanks.” He pulled a t-shirt over his head and headed for the door, high-fiving me as he went. “Good talk. Off to the trainers.”

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the hand I’d somehow auto-offered for the high-five, trying to figure out what in the world had just happened as the door fell shut behind him.

CONTINUE READING The Proposing Kind:

Thanks so much for reading The Catching Kind. I’ve been so happy at how Connor won the crowd over even before he won over Hailey. They were amazingly fun to write.

* * *