34. CADE
CHAPTER 34
CADE
“ D o you hear me?” Kim demands from the shower stall next to mine, loud enough so I can’t use the excuse of the water spray, or the noise all around us as a hoard of naked men soap themselves up and chitchat like school kids.
“Yes, honey,” I respond as I rinse my hair.
From my other side, Lucky asks, “Who’s the wife in this relationship?”
“Starr.”
“Kim.”
This gives Lucky great amusement, and good for him. I’d punch them both if my hand wasn’t so valuable.
Sighing, I turn my face into the cold spray for a moment, gathering myself to speak in a civilized manner. “Yes, Kim. I will do more stretching at home before bed, and I will eat extra protein too. Quit nagging me. I don’t give you shit every single day.”
He’s lathering himself with dedication as he says, “That’s because nothing you say is going to make me a better player than I already am.”
I stare at him, and I even feel Lucky step around me to also stare him down. Kim just shrugs those tatted shoulders of his.
“Wow, that’s cold, man.” Lucky shakes his head and returns to stand under his shower.
“Point taken, Mr.-All-Star-Top-Pedigree-Dog,” I enunciate every word in a deadpanned way. “But one more annoying word out of your mouth and I’ll drop this bar of soap right at your feet when you’re not noticing.”
Kim raises soapy hands in defense. “Hey, soap bar jokes in the showers are a step too far.”
I flip him off and finish showering. In the end, I don’t make him slip to his demise because I’ve never been a fan of getting in trouble with the law. It’s just too much hassle.
That’s also why I’m still thinking about whether to press charges against the three women or not. The punishment so far might already be enough. They’ve been banned for life, and thanks to the media, they’ve also been immortalized for posterity as part of the select Florida Women club of very public mughosts. I can’t imagine that would go well with their employers and families.
The Orlando Wild organization left it up to me to press more serious criminal charges and I haven’t decided. I have no proof that one of them has stalked me longer than the recent incident, so I think without that the case for a restraining order is weak. Lou said he’d back me up either way, but that also going on my first season as a starter pitcher with this hanging over me might have mental repercussions. I’ve never felt more like just a jock with a high school diploma until this moment.
For now, I’m going to let it be. Like the team is doing at the facilities, I’m also upgrading my home security system. I’ve installed more cameras than a bank.
I grab a clean towel from the rack and get to work. A couple of guys go by to grab towels too, and stop before me.
“Hey, Starr. Looking good out there.”
I resist the urge to say and in here too. Instead, I return, “You too, man. Wild save you made at the bottom of the second.”
“Ha! That’s a good one.”
We lift our chins at each other in farewell and keep doing our thing.
Once I’m mostly dry, I wrap my towel around my waist and take the bend around the showers to the lockers. Ever since we got our first female trainer, the management made some changes to the clubhouse so that we essentially have two lockers: these ones right behind the showers, and the ones outside. This area is smaller and by company policy, it’s the only area in the clubhouse where we’re allowed to be buck naked.
I put on my underwear here and wrap the towel around my neck before heading out to the open area. I don’t like getting dressed here because the shower steam makes my clothes cling and I hate that. Besides, it’s not like Hope Garcia, a full blown athletic trainer whose main hobby is reading books about muscle groups, clutches her pearls at the sight of some skin. In fact, that’s why for the longest time I thought she was made of steel.
Until yesterday.
I may be just a jock with a high school diploma, but I know what the look on her face meant when I was getting out of the ice water tub.
Hope Garcia isn’t as stoic as she seems and she definitely liked what she saw.
It was in the way her pupils dilated while she ate me up top to bottom, how her nostrils flared, her difficulty swallowing or even speaking, and for the first time in my life I saw color rise to her face.
I came this close to pulling her against my wet and freezing body, and warming up my lips with hers.
But considering what she’s been through with one nightmare date after another, enough to ask me for help with coaching her through it, I’m convinced that she deserves some proper, old school romancing. Something to let her really understand that she’s worth every effort.
On the other hand, slowly introducing the idea of maybe dating me, instead of some random guy from an app, can give her plenty of time to decide if she really wants to be with me. One thing is finding me attractive—which, yay—but an entirely different one is keeping me around long term. There’s no precedent of that in my entire twenty seven years of life. The one girlfriend in my teens ditched me just as quick as we got together. Then I was a temporary stop for the rest of the women in my life since.
What I know for sure is that I never felt for any of them what I feel for Hope. That need to keep her safe, while also standing in sheer awe of her, and the visceral desire to have her pressed up against me in something more than a friendly hug.
I don’t know what that says about me, that I was never capable of feeling this way with other women. But I know it means that she is the real deal for me.
And speaking of her, Hope appears through the door from the gym, eyes trained to the front as she strides with purpose toward her boss. Steve is talking with one of the younger players off to my right—dude’s in a similar state of undress to me and she doesn’t give him a second glance while she shows some piece of paper to her boss.
I’m extra slow getting dressed now, not because I want her to catch me in my underwear again like some sort of creep, but because every single system in my body slows down in her presence except for two. My eyeballs, taking her in, the shirt slightly bunched at her waist, the way the black leggings hug her powerful thighs, her wide hips and her firm butt. And my heart, working on overdrive to pump blood harder than it does even in the middle of a game.
“Okay, thanks,” I hear her say. She does the same chin nod as a farewell that the guys do, swivels around while keeping her back to me, and jets right out.
So cold. So fast. So purposely not looking at me.
“Hmm.” I narrow my eyes at the doors swinging shut behind her, and this time I hurry up getting dressed. My plans for tonight were going home to stretch again and eat a whole cow, because I’m sure Kim will notice if I don’t do as he says one way or another. But I’d much rather see if Hope would like some ice cream or something low key and still friendly.
Lucky strides out half dressed by the time I’m putting on a black T-shirt over my head. “So how about we?—”
“Hey, be right back man.” I bump his shoulder, grab the jean shirt I intend to put on top later, and walk right out of the clubhouse and into the training gym.
A few long strides take me to the bend at the right, where light streams from the inside of the trainers’ office. It’s too silent to be packed with the other trainers, but it could also mean that Hope ran all the way out and is on her way to the parking lot.
My pulse trips when I spot her in her office, but it’s not because of the best reason. She stands on her tippy toes on a step ladder, trying to reach something on a high shelf. At the first sign of the step ladder tipping and her little yelp, my amygdala kicks in and I rush.
“Oof!”
That’s the sound of air swooshing out of her lungs as she crashes against my chest. I cinch my arms tight around her waist to stop her fall. Her head falls back on my shoulder. As gravity tries to take her, her chest pushes against my arms and she gasps. Slowly, I let her slide down until her feet touch the floor. And then something truly weird happens.
None of us move.
Me, I know why. I’m trying to imprint this moment in my memory for the rest of my life. To savor the way every curve of her body feels against mine, the scent of vanilla that teases my nose and makes my mouth water, the softness of her cheek against mine, her hands squeezing my arms.
Shit, she’s driving me wild and doesn’t even know it.
But why is she not moving?
Wait, does she think I’m some random groper?
I loosen my hold on her right away, and I’d think she’d push my arms away the rest of the way, maybe roundhouse kick me next—yet she doesn’t. Instead, her hands stay on my skin a moment longer and she speaks before even turning.
“What are you doing here, Cade?”
I blink slow at the back of her head, following the trail of her ponytail to the back of her neck. I wonder if it would taste like vanilla if I kiss it.
Shaking my head hard, I take a step back and answer, “Returning the favor already, apparently. That was really dangerous, darlin’.” In more ways than one.
She grabs onto the shelving unit and climbs on the step ladder again. “Well, thanks. But I had it under control. It’s not even that high.”
“Please, you were just about to hurt your pretty behind,” I say. Maybe my body’s still ruling me here, but I place my hands around her waist and lift her up the rest of the way.
She gasps. “Cade! What?—”
“C’mon, get the thing.”
“Ugh.” She reaches for a box of something. “You can set me down now.”
But instead of lowering her to the death trap, I lower her down to the floor and this time she whirls at me fast.
Jabbing a finger to my chest, she whispers, “You shouldn’t have done that, no matter what happens to me. What if I got you hurt?”
I cock an eyebrow. “You can’t possibly think that would be enough to hurt me.”
“But what if?” She frowns.
“Nothing happened, though.” I glance around. “My question is why are you even doing this in the first place? Shouldn’t someone taller do it? Or at least use a safer ladder?”
She snaps her mouth shut and retreats a little. “Fair point on the ladder, but I’m the only one responsible for stock so that’s why I have to do it.”
“Only?” My eyebrows tighten.
“Yup. That’s what happens when you’re the only woman in the team and also the youngest.”
My jaw tightens and Hope’s eyes close in on it. I open my mouth, about to release a string of curses on her behalf, when my stomach roars like an angry lion instead. We both look down at it, almost expecting a beast to tear out.
The annoyance in her face is completely gone after that. “I guess you should go eat something, Cowboy.”
Oh shit, that’s an opening if I know one.
Casually putting my hands in my joggers’ pockets, I ask, “What about you? Is your own lion roaring any time soon?”
“I, uh…” She clears her throat. “Mine’s more like a kitten purr but it started a while ago, yes.”
“Want to—” I don’t even finish my question when a different voice interrupts.
“What’s this?”
I move aside and face the newcomer. Rosalina Mena is bent down, picking up my shirt that I tossed aside when I made the dash to catch Hope. Right behind her is Audrey Winters, who steps into the trainers’ office, takes one look at both of us and her eyebrows rise.
“Sugar. Princess.” I tip my head at them.
“I assume this is yours, Cowboy?” Mena offers my shirt, forcing me to walk over to her.
“Yeah, thanks.” I take the garment and unfurl it so I can put it on.
Winters shifts her eyes between Hope and I. “So…”
“Right.” Hope gives me a little smile that I can’t decipher. “The girls and I are going to dinner, and since your stomach just tried to attack us… wanna join?”
Do I wanna?—
That’s what I came here for. To find the way to stay around her a little longer. If that included fasting under a rushing cascade for a whole day, I’d do it.
I don’t know how I manage to keep my tone and demeanor casual, as I respond with, “sure.”