Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
I rest my head against the porcelain of this hotel tub, thinking.
So, I might not hate Lucca Cruz.
There might be a decent human being inside that Brazilian after all.
Maybe.
My water is cooling off, and after waiting out the hail and lightning, then returning to the pitch for a long, chilly second half, I really don’t want to get cold again. If I sit here much longer, turning into a prune, I’ll never get the chill to leave me.
I reach down to unplug the drain and stand, wrapping myself in a fluffy white towel. I dry off my body, my hair piled on top of my head in a bun, and slip into my flannel jammies. I am so glad I brought the flannel.
Time for room service and a Netflix binge—all in my king-sized bed.
I haven’t stepped from the bathroom yet when there’s a light tapping sound on my door.
I pause all movement and listen. Because I couldn’t have heard that right.
But again, there’s a knocking coming from the exit of my room.
Fastening the top button of my pajamas, I walk over to the door and peek through the peephole.
“Maggie?” Lucca says, as if he can see me back.
“Eep!” The yelp comes out of me without permission. I peek again through the spyhole in my door to see Lucca peeking back.
“Maggie?” he says again.
I peer down at my plaid jammies with fluffy orange cats wearing the same plaid jammies scattered from top to bottom.
I bite my lip, but he’s still out there.
He heard my yelp. He’s going to say my name again, and I— Well, I did sort of confess my love of cats already.
So, who cares that I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman in kitty pjs.
Besides, it’s not as if I’m trying to impress the man.
So, he’s the sexiest soccer player in the league—not my words, but Soccer Weekly’s. And sure, he decided to defend me on the field today. No one’s ever done that. And yeah, he came to check on me all alone in the women’s locker room.
So what?
None of that means I suddenly want to impress the man.
I’m not sure I believe the lecture I’m giving myself, so I throw the door open just to prove to myself that we can stand in front of Lucca Cruz—cat pjs and all—without reservation.
But the slow, deliberate smile that lights up his face as he looks my plaid cat flannels up, then down, has convinced me that I was wrong all along and we do care.
“What are you doing here, Lucca?”
“I brought you something.” He holds up a Pez dispenser, still in its package. It's a black cat, ready to deliver hard, overly sugary candies through its mouth. “I saw it and thought of you.”
“How… sweet.”
And then, without an invitation, Lucca steps into my room.
“Ah, sure, come on in.”
“Were you busy?” he says.
“No.” I scratch behind my ear. “Was there something—”
“You never really answered my question from before.”
I don’t remember any question. I remember feeling stressed over Lindy, and stunned that he was there, and then spilling all the tea about my sister.
I just needed to talk to one person outside my family for one minute.
Someone who doesn’t have overly strong opinions on the topic.
I shut the door behind me. “What question was that again?”
“Like I said the other day, I think we should be friends,” he says, and somehow this fully grown man reminds me a little of Wyatt.
I clear my throat and peer at the space between us. “That’s more of a statement than a question.”
“Yes,” he says, running one hand through his hair. “But would you consider it?”
I walk past him and plop down onto the bed. Lucca follows, almost like I’ve requested him to do so, and sits beside me.
“I don’t think we can be friends,” I tell him. I’m not trying to be unkind. He seems sincere. I just don’t see how this would work.
“I think you’re wrong.”
“Shocker,” I say with a laugh. When does Lucca ever think my calls are right? “Take away the fact that we have a… history. You know that we do,” I say when he looks skeptical.
“We didn’t know each other then. Now we do.”
“Yeah, well, take that out of the equation. I don’t think the league would be okay with an official and a player being friends.”
“You’re friends with Callum,” he says.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
I exhale, pulling my feet up, sitting cross-legged, and putting an inch more of space between us.
The man smells like musk and cedar, and it’s doing things to my sanity.
Facing him, I say, “I’m probably friends with Fran and acquaintances with Callum, but even then, it’s not like I can hang out with them.
Going to that art show was pushing it. It would be a conflict of interest. You know it would. ”
“We are a minor league, no?” he says, his accent causing a twinge in my stomach.
“No—I mean, yes. We are. But it doesn’t matter?” Why does everything this man say sound like it might be coated in butter? No wonder women—who are not me—melt under his gaze.
“In the minors, the rules are more… would you say… suggestions?”
I blink, my mouth dry. “Uh, no. They are rules. Plain and simple. Rules.”
“Yes,” he says, “but they aren’t held to the same standards that the majors would be.”
“Maybe not.” My heart patters. “But they should be.”
“Or maybe we should see the many advantages of the minor league.”
“You’re trouble,” I tell him, trying not to laugh. “I always knew it. But I had no idea how much.”
Lucca just smiles. Ugh. That straight-teethed, beaming Brazilian get-a-woman-into-all-kinds-of-trouble smile. He looks at me too intently. So intently that I’m starting to become self-conscious beneath his stare. And then he—
“Huh.”
“Did you just look at me and harumph?” I cross my arms, suddenly on the defense.
“Harumph?” he says. “I’ve lived in this country for a decade. I don’t know that word.”
I roll my gaze to the ceiling of this hotel room. “You know.” I roll my shoulders and demonstrate. “Hmph!” Sure, it’s more dramatic than his ‘huh.’ But I’m feeling a little jittery and maybe a little dramatic, too. It’s been a long day.
His gaze narrows. “I didn’t do that.”
“You did. You looked at me too closely, and then you went ‘huh’.” Again, I give the noise a touch more snark. I can’t help it.
“Ah. I see. I was looking.” And then he’s peering at me again.
Not just looking, but studying. “Maggie McCrae, you have a patch of freckles on your cheek,” he says, his eyes zoned in like a laser beam to my cheekbone, staring at my cluster.
He leans in closer than he’s ever leaned toward me before.
His eyes, so dark they could be black, come into view, and I can see the bark brown that’s there.
They aren’t black at all. I breathe in, hating how the air shakes and reverberates through my chest as it fills with musk and man and something that’s surely intoxicated women all over the world.
The pad of his pointer brushes ever so lightly on my face. “It’s a heart,” he says.
“Oh.” I swallow. I’m not sure anyone but me has ever noticed as much before. And it took a couple decades and a dark time for me to see that shape amongst my freckles. It took time for me to see me again.
I lean away from him, feeling too seen under his scrutiny.
But Lucca doesn’t take the hint.
I clear my throat loudly and lay a hand on his chest, pushing back. “Do you mind? You’re kind of taking up my space.”
He blinks, and those ridiculously long lashes that any woman would pay money for practically fan my cheeks. “Excuse me,” he says, sitting back. He runs his palms down the length of his thighs. “So, what do you think, Maggie Pie? Friends?”
“Lucca.” I shake my head. “This won’t work.”
One of his thick brows lifts in question. “Are you going to stop calling fouls on me?”
I scoff and tighten my arms in a fold once more. “Not a chance.”
But Lucca only grins at me. “Then I think this could work just fine.”