Chapter 14
[Ross]
She left the game early.
“For a moment there, I thought we lost you,” Kip teases, clapping me on the shoulder once we are inside the management offices.
“What do you mean?”
“You almost sprained your neck looking into the stands.”
“I did not,” I groan. But Kip didn’t miss how I took off my jacket and sent it with a security guard into the stands. What was she thinking, wearing shorts and a tee to a game when rain was predicted? Not to mention, how had I not known she’d be here?
“Looks like your experiment is working,” he chides next, shaking his head in disbelief.
Yeah, the experiment appears to be working as we won our game yesterday, finishing out the series with Boston.
Then today, the game ended in a win as well, despite her leaving early.
And suddenly, I’m not certain it’s spending the night with her that’s bringing me luck, or just her presence in the stands.
Which doesn’t make sense as she hadn’t attended those two away games with Boston.
I force myself not to look at the bigger picture. Like maybe just having her in my life is the lucky bit.
However, I am not the only one in her life and I’ve been unsettled since the moment she told me she had plans last night. Which was a definitive rejection and warning not to spontaneously, or otherwise, visit her place.
I didn’t like it. Didn’t like the thought of another man taking her out or sharing her bed or even touching her, which was just plain ridiculous.
We weren’t in an arrangement that demanded monogamy or loyalty.
Still, she’d mentioned what her husband did to her, and I didn’t like that he’d cheated on her.
I might have had a string of situationships in my past, but I was loyal in each and every one of them.
I couldn’t fathom cheating on a woman, especially someone as sweet, kind, and funny as Vee.
“Yeah,” I finally muster a response for Kip, who has been staring at me, waiting on a reply to his statement.
“You don’t sound very excited about it.” He narrows his eyes, placing his hands on his hips and tilting his head, trying to read me.
“I’m excited about the wins,” I state, trying to lift my enthusiasm.
“But not the woman?” His eyes widen, as if puzzled by his suggestion.
I lower to my desk chair and tug off my ball cap, tossing it to my desk before rubbing the heels of my palms against my eyes. I sigh.
“I think that’s the trouble.” I glance up at Kip. “I like her.”
Kip chuckles. “You like her? Like like-like her? Like you’re a couple of teenagers and not middle-aged adults? Come on, man.” Kip whines. “Find a better descriptor for your feelings.”
My brows hitch while I tip back in my desk chair. “Oh, are we doing that now? Sharing our feelings with one another?”
Kip scoffs. “Don’t be a dick, Davis. You haven’t liked a woman since Patty.”
I tip forward in my chair and brace my forearms on the desktop. “Tread carefully, Garcia,” I warn him in return.
“Look, fucking the supermodels might be fun for a while.” He grunts. “But that shit gets old, because we’re getting old. And even though Chandler was hot, she was cold.”
“Speak for yourself about age, old man,” I tease.
“Act your age. An adult.”
Kip isn’t wrong. Chandler only cared about herself, and her temperament ran to the extremes. She could appear playful and spontaneous and yet act distant and reserved. Somewhere in between was the sex.
And dammit, I hated that I’d admitted to Vee the other night that sex had been a focus of my relationship with Chandler. I didn’t want Vee thinking I used women.
Chandler for sex. Vee for superstitious sleeping arrangements.
Still, I wasn’t giving much of an impression that I’d want anything more with a woman. Right now, I don’t have time for more. I’m still too new to the team and need my eyes on the ball, not off in la-la land, daydreaming about a spunky author writing kinky plotlines.
Although she never did confirm that she wrote that particular book.
Anyway, I understand what Kip is trying to impart. Be a grown up.
“I honestly can’t think of any other way to describe my feelings. She’s the writer.” I simply like her. Not poetic or romantic or frilly verbiage. I just like her.
I chuckle to myself, recalling how she called me out on not being verbose the other night. When I hadn’t typed more than one word in a responding text to her. Patty would sometimes complain I wasn’t in touch with my emotions. I was goal-driven instead. Win.
My boys certainly felt the absence of my feelings, as I struggled after Patty’s death to deal with my grief and balance theirs at nine and eleven years old. I made a lot of mistakes.
“So, she’s a writer,” Kip singsongs, wiggling his brows. “Anything I’ve read.”
I remember her questioning me when I’d asked her the same thing. “Do you read romance?”
He gasps like I’ve shot him through the heart. The shocked expression on his face looks more like an admission of guilt than a pained accusation.
“Do you?” I question again, leaning forward once more, reminding myself I need to look up her books.
Kip glances nervously to his left. “I’ve been known to indulge in one or two.” His voice remains steady while his confidence waffles. His cheeks tinge pink. “Women like that.”
“Like what?” I ask, like I’m not well-versed in women.
“When you take an interest in them. Do what they do or read what they read. Hell, they especially like it when you read what they read to them.”
A minute passes while I process what he’s explained. Then I scoff while leaning against the arm of my chair. “Who knew you were such a romantic?”
“Maybe you should try it. You’re finally with a woman your own age. A woman you like,” he drones. “Might be more fun than you expect.”
With that, Kip turns on his heels and exits my office, leaving me feeling a little chastised and a tad hurt.
And I’m not certain which emotion lines up with what. The growing older jab, or the lack of interest poke, or the fact that I’m out of practice at being romantic.
+ + +
As romantic gestures go, presenting a woman with season tickets to the Chicago Anchors might not rank up there for some.
“That’s a sweet gesture,” Vee says half-heartedly once she lets me into her place and I present her the tickets.
For her service to the team, I’d said.
I’d sent a text before arriving unannounced and asked if I could stop by with something for her. I didn’t want to intrude on any plans she might have this evening.
“But I don’t need them,” she continues, glancing up at me as we stand in the entry area. She hasn’t invited me further into her place when I’d really like to finish that bottle of wine we started the other night, and talk.
Maybe she emptied the bottle with her plans last night.
“My dad was an avid fan. I can’t remember if I told you that before.”
I couldn’t either as I was too focused on her eyes. The blue soft yet sparkling, like the flicker of holiday lightbulbs. Her mouth is coated in a pink gloss. Freckles sprinkle her cheeks as if she has recently been in the sun when today had been gloomy and cloudy.
She’s pretty. Adorably pretty. Enticingly pretty.
“Anyway, he often took me to the games.” She shrugs.
“It was a special time for us. Like a date with Dad moment.” She wistfully sighs in recall, while the memories cinch her forehead a second, like an ache exists in remembering such sacred times.
“He took my girls to games as well, giving them precious memories, too. So, when he passed away, I couldn’t let the tradition go.
I took over his lottery spot, claiming the tickets in his memory. So, I have season tickets.”
I’m caught between stunned that she has an entire season worth of tickets and relieved that this means I’ll continue to see her. Not that we’d gotten to that particular discussion point in the experiment. The what’s next moment. But still, she’ll be around the stadium once we return to Chicago.
I also feel a little stupid, thinking I was offering her something special, when she already has season tickets and loads of memories mingled with them.
I slip the certificate I had printed which explained how she could claim her tickets back into my pocket, and we stare at one another a minute.
“So, you’ll be at all the home games, then?”
“Well, not all of them. If I have plans, or my girls can’t use the tickets, we sell them. Try to recoup a little bit of the cost.” She grimaces, expressing her dislike of the rising ticket prices.
“Plans, huh?” I grunt.
When she doesn’t respond or ask me to stick around, I invite myself to stay. “Want to finish that bottle of wine from the other night?” I arch one brow and slowly smile at my memory of us. Then my voice hardens. “Unless you finished it with your date last night.”
“I didn’t say I had a date last night.” Her voice rises in surprise, eyes widening as her hands come to her hips.
“You said you had plans.” But I can read between the lines, even if the lines seem to be blurring a little bit.
“I did have plans. I went to dinner with an author friend who lives in the area.” She tilts her head. “Why would you think I had a date?”
I lower my head, pursing my lips then twisting them, debating if I should answer honestly or not.
“I just thought plans meant you had a date, but you didn’t want to tell me.” And I didn’t like the idea of you having a date.
“Why wouldn’t I tell you?” Her tone suggests this is a legit question. “Furthermore, why would it matter?”
I feel her gaze on me, but I can’t look up at her. I’m being unfair, selfish even, but then I lift my head and answer honestly, “Because I don’t want to share you.”
Her sweet mouth pops open before she clamps her lips back together a second. Then she speaks, “You aren’t sharing me. We’re only sleeping together.”
The statement sounds so absurd, the argument exact, that we both laugh, scattering the tension between us and loosening the pressure on my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how tense I was over the idea of her having a date.