Chapter Seven
Heidi
Stay focused.
Two words that had kept me on the straight and narrow for my entire life. Well, with the exception of a certain spring break sex fest.
Get the interview.
I had solitary one-on-one time with the hot new rookie. If I couldn’t get some sort of article together from this, then I didn’t deserve to work at a major newspaper. That was my single goal for the next hour.
Except that every time I looked at him, I remembered the way he’d gazed at me three years ago, fascination and awe in his eyes. He’d watched me blow-dry my hair and it had been one of the single hottest moments of my life. Worse, he had a hunger, too—then and now—that made my toes curl and my mouth water. And it was hell on my concentration.
Get the interview.
I’d just get him talking about himself. Easy-peasy, right? What superstar didn’t like bragging? Or what guy for that matter? All it would take was a smile and a “that’s so fascinating,” and he would spill all sorts of things that I could put in a piece, even if I couldn’t quote him directly.
Except three years ago, that hadn’t worked. He’d been the least full-of-himself guy I’d ever met. With those sweet dimples and honest expression, I knew the boy I remembered was right here. The one who had taken my breath away because he’d been fascinated by me. And part of me wanted that back. He’d made me feel powerful, fascinating, and so bold, I lived out one of my favorite fantasies with him.
I took a deep breath and tried not to inhale his scent. Raw male plus Ivory soap. Who knew that was so sexy? But I had a job here and I decided to start with flattery.
“I followed your career,” I said. Then I flushed. “I kind of stalked you.”
“Really?” Did he doubt it? He probably had hundreds of women stalking him.
“You’re amazing. You said you’d go straight to the majors and you have.”
“My life is boring,” he said with a casual flick of his wrist. Then he smiled at me with those all-American blue eyes and I lost my train of thought. “What have you been doing since college?”
How could a man be that pretty? Seriously. Those blue eyes, that chiseled jaw… Had he been this rugged three years ago? Or had a little more maturity given him manlier distinction softened by the boyish charm of his freckles? I didn’t have to think hard about the answer. In my mind’s eye, it was all him. But the answer was yes, he had more maturity now, but I still saw the boy who’d made me think of rings, kids, and a house in the suburbs. Looking back, it seemed ridiculous, but right now I felt it again. Like being with him was perfect, and all he’d done was ask about me.
“Heidi?”
I jolted, quickly scrambling back in the conversation. “The Indianapolis Sun needed an intern coordinator. I applied and got the job.” No, no. Don’t start talking about myself. This had to be about him. “Did you ever figure out what it is that makes you a great player?” I focused on his eyes and tried not to melt into the blue.
He hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “My normal answer is the brain game. I excel at the mental stuff. But it didn’t happen today. I kept thinking about you.”
Talk about a gut punch. Simple words but they stole my breath. Had he really been thinking about me? Like I had been standing at the back of the Press Box and remembering every second of our night together?
Pull it together!
“Mental toughness, huh? What exactly does that mean?”
“What does it mean when you manage interns? Do they give you shit?”
“All the time,” I groused.
He chuckled. “Come on. Give me a little more. I’ve been waiting three years to hear this.”
If he was so interested, he should have called. But I put away that mental grumble and tried to get on a more casual footing with him. “Well, I had to get obsessively organized. And then I had to be a Nazi about assignments. Kids are used to talking their way around teachers, but a newspaper can’t survive that way. One screwup and they were out.”
He touched my back with one hand while pushing open a heavy door with the other. Really gallant. I remembered the same gesture from three years ago, and my skin had tingled then, just like it was now. And as I stepped through the door, I lost myself in my favorite what-if fantasy. What if he’d stayed that night? What if I’d been with him all through his minor league career and had celebrated with him when he came to Indianapolis? Would I be struggling to pay my rent right now? Would I have fought so hard to work at the paper? Or would I have lost myself among all those baseball groupies and become just another hanger-on? Would he have tired of me then and dumped me years ago?
Meanwhile, he was chuckling. That low, sweet vibration I felt all the way to my toes. “And here I thought pro sports were competitive. Thankfully I don’t get fired after one error. So, what’s a firing offense in journalism?”
He was being charming, and I tried not to fall into it. The echoes of three years ago kept haunting me. Not just our sex fest, but how easily we’d talked about everything.
“The usual,” I answered. “Bad facts. Skating the edge of true. You can’t completely eliminate bias, but journalists are supposed to report, not opine.”
He looked down at me, his blue eyes warming. “I forgot how smart you are.”
Lust, pure and core deep, surged through my blood. Was I really that simple? That a single compliment turned me into goo? But hell, he said it like he meant it. And he looked at me like he really saw me. No one else did. Not even my parents.
Flustered, I looked away, my voice coming out raw from the emotions clanging inside me.
“I’m not smart.” A smart woman would have a career by now, like he did.
“Sure you are. ‘Opine.’ Who uses that word?”
I looked back at him. “Oh. Um. It means to give an opinion. At length—”
“I know what it means.” I swear his eyes twinkled. “I just love the way you talk.”
I loved the way he looked at me. The corner of his eyes crinkled, and every part of his face seemed honest. I loved how open he was. His laughter, his thoughts, everything right there on his face or in his body. Right now he held another door open for me, and as I passed through, our faces seemed to hover inches apart. He watched me with an intensity that couldn’t be faked. And I felt the heat of his whole body. He was so large that even at a casual distance, I still felt surrounded by him.
My steps slowed and our gazes held. Suddenly I had a very real-sense memory of being naked in his arms. As if he were right then stroking me to orgasm. As if he were inside me, filling me like no other man had since. Every part of me went wet and hungry. If I closed my eyes, I swear just the memory of him thrusting inside would make me come. And I might have done just that. The desire was so strong, but he broke the moment.
He stepped back, color staining his cheeks. Mine heated as well, as I realized what I’d been thinking. Suddenly, I had two goals for the next hour. One: get material for an article. Two: don’t sleep with the man. Because the only thing I wanted more than another night with him was a career as a journalist. And good reporters didn’t sleep with their sources. And then he touched me again, and I was hard put not to forget everything in favor of him. “This way,” he said, pressing his palm more firmly against my lower back. It was like aiming a hair dryer right at the base of my spine. I started heating in expanding waves. My nipples tightened and my mind went straight back to three years ago.
Focus!
I pulled my attention back from my body. It was incredibly hard and for a bit, all I managed was to walk where he directed, through a door to the outside. Past benches and…oh! Wake up and smell the dugout! I was in the surprisingly large area where the players hung out while waiting for their turn at bat. And yeah, it had the distinctive odor of tobacco and sweaty men. Then, a few steps up the stairs, we walked out onto the Bobcats baseball field and looked up at nearly fifty thousand seats.
“Wow. That’s big,” I said as I slowly turned around.
“Yeah. I think that every time I step out here.”
I glanced back to him. The sun was hanging low in the sky, but it had enough juice to paint his blond hair with red and orange. His blue eyes were crystal clear as they looked at me, and for a fanciful moment, I saw him as a mythical creature. Puck, a goblin of mischief. Loki also filtered through my thoughts as did Coyote. But it didn’t matter which name I picked, they were all him. Mischievous, tempting, and sexy as hell. I wanted to jump into whatever rabbit hole he offered, just because he was smiling at me.
“This isn’t a good idea,” I said. Then flushed when I realized I’d spoken aloud.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about that night,” he said. “Our night.”
Neither had I, but I wasn’t about to wander down that path. In fact, it was time I gave us both a verbal cold shower. “I’m here to get an interview, Rob. I need it to pay my rent.”
He blinked, then frowned. “What?”
I huffed out a breath, all the while wondering exactly what had possessed me to open that can of worms. “I got laid off from the paying job. Now my only hope is as a stringer. And the only story they want is yours.”
He shook his head. “I can’t, Heidi. I’d get fired. No joke, they’re really serious about that.”
I nodded. I knew it was true. In fact, everyone had said exactly that, but apparently I figured I could find a work-around. Instead, I sighed. “Tell me what it’s like playing here. Are you terrified?” I looked around at the acres of seats. “I would be.”
He hesitated to answer, and I held up my hand.
“This is just for me. I swear. No article.” I gave him a half-hearted shrug. “I’ve always wanted to work in the fast-food industry anyway.”
“No, you wanted to be a journalist, but your parents wanted you in law.”
I laughed. Trust him to remember all the details. “They may be right. Lawyers aren’t getting laid off.”
So we started to talk like we had years ago. Mostly he pushed me to share what I’d been doing for the last three years. I already knew what he’d been doing, and he didn’t elaborate, except to say he absolutely loved baseball despite the pressures of being the boy wonder. I listened and nodded, except I could see that he was lying. There was a tight cast to his shoulders as he spoke and a note of tension in his voice. It could have been because he was treading close to giving me something for an article, but I didn’t think so. The pressure was getting to him, and I hated to see the stress in his face and body.
We walked all around the park, just talking. I tingled at every casual touch, damning myself for reverting to that naive girl I’d been on spring break. I was a mature woman now with real bills. And I couldn’t afford to go through months of heartbreak again from a one-night stand with a hot Nebraska boy. Even if he did make my toes curl with every smile.
We started talking like we had three years ago. I told him about how nervous I’d been applying for the internship. He talked about rolling his ankle in his first game for the Bobcats. Good medicine and rest had helped him recover fast, but it was a constant worry. I talked about my boss, Hank, and he spoke about spending time with the daughter of the team’s owner. Her name was Brittany and she was known to enjoy the attention of all the new Bobcats recruits. He asked about Sam, and I told him my best friend and I still talked often. He said he missed Nebraska. Or more specifically, he missed his former best friend who had apparently turned on him the minute Rob had gone pro. Jealously was the most obvious culprit, but Rob seemed to think there was more to it than that. And that Tommy might have a reason to hate him.
I hated that the journalist in me scented a juicy story there—one that I could exploit without needing to interview Rob directly. Unless, of course, everything he said was off the record—as I’d promised—in which case I had nothing for my article but my ethics.
“God, I’ve missed you.”
His words jolted me out of my thoughts and straight back into lust. He missed me, and the ache of that thought had me imagining what we could have been to each other for the last three years. My only defense against the surge of longing was to go on the offense. So I squared my shoulders and faced him with the hardest expression I could muster.
“That can’t be true.”
He jerked to a stop, his eyes wide with surprise. “What?”
“Quit the bullshit, Rob. You could have contacted me anytime in the last three years.”
“I didn’t have your phone number.”
I arched a brow. In this digital age, there were a hundred different ways to contact me. If he’d wanted to, he could have found me. And the flush on his cheeks told me he knew it was true.
“Exactly,” I said, though inside, my gut knotted into a fist. He’d just confirmed that he hadn’t given me a second thought, whereas I’d been stalking him—
“Soon after spring break, I got in trouble,” he said, his voice low.
I jerked my head up. I hadn’t heard of any trouble, and I’d been watching him. But the way he said the words made my heart break without even knowing why.
“Remember your question to me?” he continued. “Why was I so good? It really threw me.”
I shook my head. “You went straight to the Indigos without any problem.”
“I went, but I had problems. I lost my mojo. Sure, I did okay, but nothing like before. I kept thinking that godlike hand-eye coordination wasn’t enough. I had to be more, but I didn’t know what that was.”
I remembered his quip so long ago, but I also recalled that he’d seemed troubled, even as he’d made the joke.
“But you played fine.” Sure they hadn’t made the playoffs, but that was because their pitcher had given up six runs.
He huffed out a breath. “I wasn’t fine. I was losing my focus, confused about who I was, and thinking nonstop about you.” Then before I could argue, he held up a hand. “Until my coach told me to choose. The girl or the career.”
“You choose the career.” Obviously.
He nodded. “But that still didn’t finish it. You’d started me thinking and I couldn’t stop. Not until I figured it out.”
I straightened. “Well? What’s the answer?”
His expression shifted. Like the sun coming out, he went from confessional to brilliant with just a slow smile that pulled out that dimple. “Patience.”
I was so enthralled with that dimple that I didn’t hear his answer at first. And then when I did, I had to replay it in my head. “What?”
“Patience. Hitting homers isn’t just about focus and athleticism.”
“There’s practice, dedication, raw swing speed—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved those off with a flick of his fingers. “It’s about waiting for the right pitch and for the ball to get to the right place.” His smile widened. “Patience.”
“And what if you don’t get the right pitch?”
“But I always do. Eventually.”
That didn’t make any sense. In fact, there were a whole slew of guys working really hard to make sure he didn’t get the right pitch ever.
“That’s why I screwed up today,” he said. “Because I wasn’t being patient. I was too anxious to see you after the game.”
I felt my body heat at that. I’d been crazy insane wondering if I’d get a chance to see him. How much worse would it have been for him to know we’d be able to talk to each other after all these years? Then my thoughts splintered as he reached out and stroked my cheek. A slow caress that made my breath catch and my core tighten with need.
“I had to realize that patience was my secret weapon. And that what worked in baseball would work in real life.”
“Patience?” I echoed, the word coming out more like a whisper than a question.
“Yes. It wasn’t the right time for us back then. We were in different cities, different times in our lives. You were still in college and I was in the minors, trying to figure out how to live an adult life. It wasn’t going to work and we both knew it.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. Back then, I’d been fine with a one-sided secret obsession. A real relationship would never have worked. Neither of us had the time or focus that a relationship required.
“You still could have called,” I groused.
“But I never would have stopped at a call. And it wasn’t time yet.”
I grimaced, unwilling to agree even when part of me already had. “We could have set boundaries.”
His lips curved, and this time the look was lascivious. “That never works with me.”
Or with me.
“And look,” he continued, as he stroked his thumb along my jaw. Every part of my body thrilled to that caress. Like he was dialing me up to 110 degrees. “I’m in Indianapolis, and you’re right here. It’s time, Heidi. And all I had to do was wait.”
My entire psyche rebelled at that. Who waited passively for a relationship to come around? My Asian upbringing emphasized discipline and drive. But I knew that sometimes waiting was the hardest thing to do, and even harder was trusting what was meant to be would be. But God, I hated that idea. Almost as much as I thrilled to the idea that we were fated somehow. That the universe had somehow conspired to get us together when the time was right. As in right now.
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally murmured. “I’d never expected a superathlete to be so fatalistic.”
He snorted. “Superstar athletes are exactly the ones who know there are thousands of things we can’t control. We just have to prepare as best we can and not worry about the rest.”
“Patience,” I said, finally getting what he was talking about.
“Yeah,” he agreed. But the way he said it, with his gaze so intense on my face, made my breath catch. He was talking about me, about waiting for me. I didn’t know whether to be amazed or angry.
And right in the middle of this very intense moment, my stomach chose to remind me that I hadn’t had anything but coffee that day. It growled, loud and long, effectively breaking the moment as I blushed an embarrassed bright red.
“Hungry?” he asked with a grin.
“Um, yeah.”
He bowed slightly and held out his hand like a superposh butler. “This way, madame.”
I chuckled as we headed for the press box. And while I was still thrumming from the last conversation, he started a new one.
“So did your parents fight you? When you told them you wanted to be a journalist?”
Talk about a crash landing. Just when I started to enjoy the thrill of being with him again, he had to ask that.
“Ouch,” he said as he looked at my face. “Was it really bad?”
“Um…” I began.
“You haven’t told them? They still think you’re going?”
I stared at my feet rather than face him. Or my parents. “Journalism isn’t paying right now. If I can’t work at the paper, maybe I should let my parents pay for law school.”
His eyebrows rose. “They’re willing to pay your tuition?”
I nodded, feeling sick to my stomach. How fortunate was I to have parents who would foot the bill? But only if I did what they wanted. “They want me to go into corporate law. That’s the fastest way to big money, but it includes hundred-hour workweeks and the lingering guilt that I’m making rich, white guys richer by stomping on the poor.”
“You were never afraid of hard work, so it must be the guilt.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“Three years ago, you called yourself a nerd. Hard work isn’t a problem for you.”
Maybe he could know that.
The smell of cheeseburgers hit my nostrils and my stomach growled again. We were in the press box, which had two long tables for reporters set up in tiers as they looked out over the baseball field. The view was excellent, even though the stadium lights were off. And though we had a full panoramic view, the setting sun made it feel intimate. Maybe even romantic.
“Down here,” he said as he moved through the box to the table pressed right against the window. On it sat a covered tray. He lifted the top with a ta-da gesture, and I saw burgers, fries, one soda, and one water bottle. Perfect.
“That looks great.”
He opened the water bottle with a quick twist. I couldn’t help watching how his forearms flexed, how he had biceps that led to broad shoulders that were all part of the full yumminess of a pro athlete. He’d been good looking before, but in the past three years, he’d filled out with muscles to spare. This close it was hard not to notice that there wasn’t any fat on his ripped body. Then he tilted the bottle up to his lips and started drinking. Lord, even his neck was sexy as he swallowed. Tan, roped with muscles, and with an Adams apple that bobbed up and down in a purely masculine, suggestive way.
Holy shit, I was depraved. No Adam’s apple ever bobbed suggestively. I remembered three years ago when I’d looked at his throat while he was inside me. I remembered the way he’d clenched his jaw just before his release and how his Adam’s apple had bobbed. I remembered, and God, I wanted to see it again.
He finished drinking and then flushed. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I got thirsty talking so much.”
I’d been the one talking the most. Seems to me that was how he got me the last time. I’d never had a man listen to me so closely before. Or since. Then he gestured to the seat and I stumbled into it. My feet were aching from the Louboutin shoes. They weren’t made for walking all over a stadium. The moment I settled into the chair, I kicked them off. The ability to stretch my toes was nearly as sensual as the memories swirling through my brain.
Meanwhile, he settled beside me, though his chair angled in my direction. And as he picked up his cheeseburger, he watched my face. “Are you going to do it?” he pressed. “Go corporate for the money?”
“Probably,” I answered, disliking the topic. “I hate being poor.”
“But there’s got to be other journalism jobs. Don’t give up on this dream.”
I didn’t want to, but the industry was shrinking. A smart girl would switch to a career that wasn’t firing seasoned reporters. If he’d spent the last three years thinking about my question to him, I’d spent the last three years envying his success at baseball. How I wished I had hit the top in journalism right out of college. Best to turn the discussion back to him.
“You never had to make that choice, did you? Money or passion. It was baseball all the way, and here you are with a multimillion-dollar contract.”
“Sure I did. I made it a thousand different times.” He took a bite of his cheeseburger, forcing me to wait for him to explain while he chewed. “I could have gotten a job in high school, but I wanted to play. In-season, off-season, I was at the park hitting. Finally got a job watching the cages because I was always there.”
I nodded. “See? You didn’t have to choose.”
“I did,” he stressed. “Every time I got asked to go to a party or went out on a date. I broke up with my first two girlfriends because they took too much time away from baseball.”
I winced in sympathy for the girls. How awful would it be to be dumped for baseball training?
“You had an all-American childhood,” I countered. “It says so in all the literature.”
“If by all-American you mean I trained, went to school, and trained some more.”
“You loved it.”
He grinned. “Exactly. I chose my passion and I’ve never regretted the things I gave up so I could play.” He gestured to the field down below. “And look where it got me.”
He had a point. He’d hit the major leagues and all the money that came with being a superstar.
“But what if it hadn’t worked out? What if something happened and you got injured or you just weren’t talented enough?”
He swallowed a fry, then went back for the water bottle. It looked like he was just eating, but I thought I’d detected a wince. Maybe a flash of terror. But when he finally spoke, his voice was easy and controlled.
“If that happens, then I’ll figure things out then.” His look turned dark. “Patience also means I have to accept it when things aren’t how I planned.”
Huh. “That’s so not how I was raised.”
“You an überplanner?”
“My backup plans have backup plans.”
He nodded. “And what has that gotten you?”
I groaned. “A Hail Mary pass while I try to get an interview with the area’s newest superstar.”
He coughed. “Good luck with that.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do now.”
He reached forward and stroked my cheek. It was a quick gesture, executed with a friendly grin. I felt his thumb at the corner of my mouth as it swiped upward. Then he pulled back and showed me the smear of mustard he’d lifted off my cheek.
“I love mustard,” he said with a grin. Then he licked his thumb, and I just about died. Flat-out died. He was flirting, and I was tingling. His eyes were dancing in merriment, and I was wet and aching. I couldn’t stop looking at his mouth or thinking about where I wanted him to lick next.
And while all those thoughts were burning through my brain, he had to go and say exactly what I was thinking.
“You were the best night of my life.”
“That can’t be true,” I said, annoyed that my voice was hoarse. “You’ve had a spectacular career and you’re just getting started.”
“It was,” he stressed. Then uncertainty flashed through his expression. “Wasn’t it the same for you?”
“I—um… Well, yeah, but…” Lord, my tongue had just decided to go rogue and blabber without direction. He looked at me, and I finally blurted out the truth. “It, um, ended rather badly. For me.”
He blinked. Two full closing and opening of his eyelids as he apparently tried to process what I’d said. “Because I’d…because I left?”
“Yes, because you left!” God, men were so stupid sometimes. “That wasn’t a normal thing for me, you know. I don’t just sleep around.”
“I know. But what did you think would happen? It was spring break.”
“I know!” My voice had taken on some force because, honestly, I’d been saying the same thing to myself for three years. It was spring break. We were in different schools. There’d never been any future in it. But somehow I’d thought he’d at least try. That he would call me or look me up on Facebook or something. Anything to show that the night had been special to him. That I had been special.
But he hadn’t, and that’s what had hurt the most.
He must have read my expression, because he looked like a kicked puppy. He ducked his head, but not before he showed me his stricken face. “I know I should have called. Explained. Something. But I didn’t know how to do it, and I didn’t want to get messed up again.”
We’d been through this already, and I was a bitch to hold on to it. So I decided not to. Right then and there, I made my choice to forgive him. “A clean break was best.”
His gaze cut back to mine. “That’s what I thought.”
“You were right. I’m just being…” What? “Girly. And I hate that. I’m not a you-done-me-wrong kind of woman.”
He reached out slowly this time. I saw his large hand approach my cheek and I tried to force myself back. I couldn’t do it. I wanted him to touch me again. I wanted to feel his fingers caress my skin. When he finally connected, I released a soft sigh of delight.
“I like that you’re girly,” he said as he stroked up my cheek. “And I did do you wrong.”
“You’re forgiven,” I said. What else was I going to say when I was practically nuzzling his palm? I inhaled his scent, earthy man and Ivory soap. And when I closed my eyes, I remembered the sand and the rumble of the waves.
He stroked his fingers into my hair and tilted my head back. He was going to kiss me. I felt it in the heat on my face and the rapid beat of my heart. He was going to kiss me again, and I’d be right back at spring break, my heart wide open. I couldn’t do that again. I was just pulling back when he did it just like last time. He said the perfect thing and I melted.
“I should never have left.”
And with that, I tumbled. Again.