On Fridays I take myself out to lunch as a reward for being a badass all week. I quickly learned that life as a writer is very different from anything else I’d ever done. For two years I was a nanny. And being a nanny meant I was always moving . . . well, until I collapsed from exhaustion at the end of each day. But even then it was just a pause between frantically chasing two tiny girls and keeping them alive.

But now I was a full-time writer, and that was more like becoming the human version of a rock. Inside, my mind was working at a million miles an hour, living the lives of a dozen different people at once. Outside . . . not so much. Other than the movement of my fingers over the keyboard, my body didn’t really move. The other side effect? If I didn’t take the time to think about it, I forgot about going outside.

So on Fridays—whether anyone could come with me or not—I took myself to Samurai Blue for lunch. It was a standing date. My best friends knew they were welcome if they could make it but that I enjoyed simply being out of the house for an hour, eating good food. So if I was alone, that was fine too.

It was on one of these quiet Friday afternoons, somewhere between my soup and my salad, that I started to wonder if maybe I’d gotten a little too comfortable being alone. I was reading an early copy of a friend’s book, humming between spoonfuls of soup, when the person sitting beside me spoke up.

“Did you know you’re wearing two different shoes?”

At first I stared at the older woman. Other than saying hello when she sat down beside me at the sushi bar we hadn’t spoken. Now I could see that she was about the age of my mother, her makeup light and her smile kind.

I tore my gaze away to look down at my feet.

Son of a—

“No,” I sighed. “I did not. Thank you.”

She smiled. It was a very sympathetic smile. Not at all patronizing or—even worse—freaked out. Yeah, I’d scared a few people with my five-day-writing-sprint-no-shower-zombie looks before. “Your shirt is on inside out, too.”

Son of a bitch! I didn’t enjoy swearing but this most certainly called for it. How many times had I asked the girls to wear their clothes correctly over the years? Dozens. If not hundreds. And here I was, in public, with less care than two little girls.

I was a terrible example.

“Thank you.” I turned bright red. Needless to say, I did not do embarrassment well. “I’ll be right back.” I slid quietly into the tiny bathroom at the back of the restaurant. I’d secretly hoped when I looked in the mirror I’d find she was wrong. Unfortunately my super cute turquoise sleeveless blouse was, in fact, inside out.

Add in the tennis shoe on my left foot and the gold flat on my right, and I was a hot mess.

“Pull it together, Zoe,” I muttered under my breath. The fact of the matter was that I was stressed. I didn’t want to admit that success was turning me into a basket case of nerves because logically it should be the other way around. Success should mean less stress. It should mean comfort and ease.

Instead I was full of insecurities and slowly unraveling under the weight of expectation. I needed to open my mouth and talk to my friends. Or my agent. Both. I needed to talk to all of them. Talking would help so much and I knew I should have picked up the phone and insisted either June or Carrie make it to lunch today.

But I didn’t want to impose.

And look where that got me. Insecure in a bathroom fixing my inside out clothes. At least my hair looked fabulous.

When I returned from the bathroom the lady was gone and my sushi had arrived. A little weight lifted. Other than the mismatched shoes, I was back to being a totally normal, if not slightly eccentric, woman.

Cue the twist in the story. At least that’s what I would have written on my bright pink Post-it note if I were plotting the story of my life. Just as I was lifting the first delicious bite to my mouth a new person sat down beside me.

A much larger person.

A masculine brute of a man.

“Zoe?”

I choked on my food.

“Oh god, Zoe. Are you okay?”

I waved at him with my napkin as I swallowed gulps of water. “Fine.” I coughed some more. “I’m totally fine.”

And totally bright red. Again.

Today was going swimmingly.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He turned his chair a few degrees to face me. Forcing me to look into the depths of his brown eyes. Erik Cassidy. Second baseman for the Mantas, the team my friends and former employer all worked for. Erik and I had met more times than I could count and I became more flustered with each meeting.

Because there was hot, and there was Erik.

“It’s not your fault,” I murmured. “I’m just having a day.”

The waitress set a glass of water down beside Erik and refilled my glass. I watched his bicep flex as he picked up the cup and took a long sip. Erik had an athlete’s body through and through. Combined with his caramel skin and brooding eyes, he was pretty much my hottest dreams brought to life.

It would be easy to eye-fuck him and leave it at that, but he was also a really great guy. I knew that both from personal experience and from the constant string of compliments dropped by my friends who worked with him.

So yeah, hot, sweet, and broody. In my book that was the trifecta of holy-crap-I’m-so-fucked.

Which was why I normally avoided him at all costs. It was totally fine to have an overwhelming physical reaction to someone if you were never in the same place with them. I fooled myself into believing our paths would rarely, if ever, cross. So it was okay to have the occasional midnight fantasy about him. He was safe territory. I got to have hot sweaty sex with him in my mind, which made my life of celibacy a little more tolerable.

Not so much when he was sitting so close our arms kept brushing.

My skin heated. My heart beat faster. The tips of my freaking ears burned. How fast could I slam this sushi and pay my bill?

“It’s been a while.” His smooth voice washed over me, settling my nerves a little.

“It has.” I shoved another piece in my mouth.

“You’ll be at the birthday party next Saturday?”

One of my former charges was turning five and her party was next Saturday. Of course I’d be there. “I didn’t think unicorn parties were your scene.”

His chuckle was soft and low. “You’d be surprised.”

Sometimes it overwhelmed me how working for the Spencers had brought so many people into my quiet life. They were those kind of people. They drew you into their lives and made you part of the family. Eve was the Director of Fan Experience for the Mantas. Her sister, and my roommate, was one of the team’s trainers. One of my best friends, Carrie, was the team’s orthopedic physician, and her husband, Wes, was one of Erik’s teammates. All their lives overlapped until it was totally normal for a writer like me to hang out with a bunch of famous professional baseball players and executives.

Except that in my mind this would never be normal.

“How’s the season going?” I asked as if I didn’t know. Three years ago all I knew about the sport was that it was a sport. It was natural I’d learn the basics of the game being surrounded by it on a daily basis, but something had taken over. I wouldn’t call it obsession . . . at least not yet . . . but I also kept it to myself how much I followed the game.

I wasn’t sure why. I think maybe it was because it was still so foreign to me. Zoe Burke didn’t care about baseball.

And yet, I totally did.

“Game tonight,” he said. “You should come.”

Longing filled me. In another life I’d have squealed with delight that Erik-freaking-Cassidy had just suggested I come to a game. I’d flirt and wishfully hope he’d ask me to wait for him after the game.

But I was never going to live that life.

“I have to finish the book I’m working on.”

To my surprise his entire face softened into a brilliant smile. “Is this your fantasy series or one of the romances?”

My breath caught in my throat. Erik knew what I wrote? “Uh . . . this is something else. It’s kind of a historical saga.”

“Well, if it’s anything like your other work, I’m sure it will be amazing.”

The floor must have fallen out from under my feet because I could swear I was in a free fall. My heart beat a million miles an hour and I couldn’t tell which way was up. “Um . . . thank you?”

He gave me a funny look. “You’re very welcome. How’s it going? June said something about big news coming?”

Well, that explained why he knew so much about my books. He’d heard stuff from June in the locker room.

“Monday. The news will come out Monday.” I tried really hard to hide how disappointed I was to realize he didn’t really know anything about my life’s work. Why would he? We weren’t friends and men generally didn’t care about the careers of women writers.

“More books in The Butterfly Rebellion? Because I’d do just about anything to get an advanced copy of the next book.”

I stared at him for a really long time. Probably too long. “I . . . uh . . . you’ve read them?”

He picked up his chopsticks and dug into his ginger salad. “Oh yes. Pretty much my favorite series ever. Do you think they’ll make it into a movie or—oh! A television series like Game of Thrones? Those would be epic with the right producers.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what it was like to have an out-of-body experience, but somewhere in the middle of his excited chatter it felt a lot like I detached from my body and was now watching from above as this incredibly sexy fantasy man gushed about my books.

Either that or I was asleep and this was all a dream.

Somehow I made my lips move. “We’ve had interest but so far nothing concrete. Not for this series.”

His head shot around, eyebrow cocked up. Then he leaned closer and whispered. “This news on Monday? Does it involve a movie deal?”

I nodded quickly. The only people who knew were Jake and Eve, June and Roman, and Wes and Carrie. The deal would officially be announced on Monday, at which point everyone would know, not that it would be the end of the world for Erik to know a few days early.

“The book I need to finish tonight is the third and final book in the trilogy.”

He set down his chopsticks and quietly clapped. “Congrats, Zo. I can’t wait to see the news. You deserve it.”

My fantasy of Erik was going into overdrive tonight. And then I was going to avoid him like the plague for at least six months. There’s no way I could face him with the kind of places my imagination planned to go tonight.

“Thank you.”

When the waitress set his tray of sushi down he whispered something to her. I tried really hard to listen in, but I couldn’t make out what he said.

He glanced at me. “I wish you could come to the game but now I want you to stay home and write.” Then he grinned and the most amazing dimple popped in his cheek.

It’s entirely possible my panties combusted into a cloud of smoke. Damn what a smile.

“Why would it matter if I was at the game? Aren’t you working? You’d never know if I was there.”

“I’d know,” he said without looking away. “And Zoe?”

I swallowed hard in hopes it would somehow help slow my hammering heart. “Yes?”

“I didn’t mean, ‘Hey go hang in Eve’s box like you usually do and enjoy the game.’ I meant, ‘come sit in the family section and watch me.’”

It suddenly felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me. No air moved in or out of my lungs no matter how hard I tried. That look. Oh god, that look. His dark eyes drank me in but not in a hungry, sexual way. It was more pleading than that. More intimate. As if Erik saw no one else but me.

I shot straight up, knocking my chair backward. It clattered to the floor with a bang, drawing the attention of every single person in the restaurant. Erik jumped out of his seat and righted my chair. My hands shook uncontrollably as I fished my weekly stash of sushi money out of my wallet and threw it on the bar.

Then I turned and ran out before Erik could stop me. I was almost at my car when his voice rang out across the parking lot.