Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Scottie
I’ve been up for ten minutes, sitting cross-legged on my bed in pajama shorts and an oversized top. My laptop is open and the blue glow is frying my retinas while I pretend I’m working. But I’m having a hard time focusing on my work.
Instead, I keep glancing at my phone.
I’m not waiting for my morning coffee, or anything.
Obviously.
Not eagerly checking for the delivery app notification that means Lucas ordered me coffee from four floors down without technically breaking any rules.
It’s not like I rely on it to start my day.
This safe, thoughtful gesture that tells me he’s thinking about me while being aware of the ever-shifting yet uncrossable line between us …
This stupid, uncrossable line.
How dare he be so respectful? And does he think that’s what he’s doing now, not sending me a drink?
A glance at my phone confirms no notification. No cheerful Your order is on the way! banner.
Knock knock knock.
It’s so soft, if I weren’t awake, I’d miss it. Is it my coffee? Maybe the notification system is down. I slide off the bed and pad to the door.
Then my heart leaps to my throat, because it’s not the delivery guy.
It’s Lucas.
The hallway light turns him into a neon sign in the middle of all that beige—his Firebirds hoodie bright enough to guide ships through fog, hair sticking up like he lost a fight with a pillow, eyes still heavy with sleep.
He’s holding a cardboard drink carrier with two cups.
For a second I just stare at him, because this was not the plan. The plan involved an app notification and plausible deniability, not Lucas physically appearing outside my door at five in the morning looking like someone I’m already half in love with.
“You’re here,” I say, my voice even quieter than I intend. “I thought you’d just send a delivery.”
Lucas shifts his weight like he’s suddenly unsure whether he should be here at all, which would almost be funny if my insides weren’t doing somersaults.
His voice is rough with sleep and so low, it feels like the whole hallway dropped a few feet.
“A delivery doesn’t care if you’re okay at five in the morning, Quinn,” he says, holding the carrier out.
“I took a risk getting you a prickly pear latte, so I got you a sea salt caramel mocha, too. Just in case.”
My fingers brush his when I reach for the tray, and the tiny spark that jumps between us jolts me wider awake than caffeine ever could. For a second we just stand there like idiots, his messy hair and my ridiculous pajamas and the smell of coffee beans drifting between us.
And then I hear it.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Heavy footsteps echoing down the hall.
My stomach falls straight to the carpet.
Mel Turner.
The bullpen coach runs the stairs early every morning, like the team won’t be in shape if he isn’t.
If he catches Lucas outside my room at this hour, Lucas being branded a “clubhouse distraction” will be the least of our troubles.
“Mel!” I whisper.
Lucas glances down the hallway and then back at me. For a split second he freezes, not because he doesn’t care, but because he doesn’t know what to do. Lucas doesn’t cross lines.
Which would be admirable if it weren’t currently going to get us fired.
I grab the front of his hoodie, yank him inside, and push him against the wall.
The door clicks shut moments before Mel’s footsteps thunder past, and suddenly Lucas and I are standing in the narrow entryway of my room, his back against the wall, us chest to chest in the dark except for the faint blue light from the laptop on my bed.
My fists are still bunched in his sweatshirt.
His breath is warm against my forehead.
“I told you not to break the rules,” I whisper, though I don’t let go.
“I didn’t,” he says quietly. His hands hover for half a second like he’s asking permission before settling on my waist, steady and careful. “I knocked, and you opened the door.”
It’s so Lucas it almost makes me laugh. He’ll bring me coffee before sunrise, but he’ll still stand outside the line I drew like it’s an electric fence.
My heart is pounding so hard I’m surprised the whole hallway can’t hear it. “You know you could’ve just had it delivered,” I say.
“I know,” he says.
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I wanted to see you.”
The silence stretches between us, thick and warm and dangerously alive. Waking early to order me coffee is already a sacrifice, but there’s the easy sacrifice—an app—and there’s this.
He got up before dawn, probably took an early morning run to Pinnacle Perk, stood in the line, half asleep, and brought it to me.
My whole life, people have come to me when they need something handled. Jake, my coworkers, half the players in this organization. I fix things, smooth things over, keep everything running so nobody else has to deal with the mess.
If I leave a room, people assume I’ll come back.
Yet Lucas is standing in my room at five in the morning with two coffees, messy hair, and sleep still clinging to his voice, and for the first time in my life, I catch a glimpse of what it might be like to have a life where someone follows me instead of waiting for me to return.
“The drinks are going to get cold,” I say, because my brain cannot process this level of feeling before sunrise.
“Let them,” he murmurs.
“Logan’s going to wonder where you are.”
“Let him.”
“I have work to do.”
He reaches a hand up, and his thumb brushes my cheek. The light touch sends a ripple through me that makes me acutely aware of every inch of space between us.
For one quiet minute the team doesn’t exist. The brozone doesn’t exist. Jake doesn’t exist.
There’s just Lucas standing in my room, waiting for me to tell him what comes next.
And that leaves me to decide what comes next.
With my hands on his chest, his on my waist, and only our mingling breath between us, the next step feels easy.
Inevitable.
My eyes fall to his lips. They look sunburned from yesterday, and I can practically taste the heat on them.
The moment I start to rise to my tiptoes, his lips part. His hands tighten on my waist, and butterflies take flight in my stomach. I slide one hand up to his neck and slip a finger beneath the bead necklaces he must wear to bed. His skin is smooth, but hot, too. Sunburned.
He leans down so his forehead bumps mine, and it’s almost enough—this contact. But he’s hesitating, waiting for me to take the lead, and suddenly, the weight of that decision feels too heavy for me to bear.
“You need to reapply sunscreen,” I say, closing my eyes, the words landing like an apology.
He’s quiet for just a second—long enough that I feel the loss of what almost happened—and then he chuckles.
The next thing I know, his warm, chapped lips are pressing against my forehead and his arms are wrapping me into a hug that’s almost as good as a kiss.
We’ve hugged before, so this is easy. No decision necessary.
With his back against the wall and me leaning against him, he rests his cheek against my head and holds me close and tight.
We stay like that for so long—breathing together, the whole world going still around us—that I could almost fall asleep for how good it feels.
The butterflies in my stomach land. Stop fluttering their wings. Relax completely.
But eventually, the sound of a door outside the room snaps me to my senses, causing a wave of anxiety that crashes over those poor butterflies.
“You should go,” I say. “If someone sees you leave, we’ll be on the first plane home tomorrow.”
His shoulders slump, but he kisses me one last time on the head, letting his lips linger for just a second before he then releases me.
I have to force myself not to whimper as I step back from him. I open the door and glance up and down the hall.
“All clear,” I say.
He covers my hand on the doorknob with his and squeezes enough that I meet his eye. “Then I’ll see you at breakfast,” he says.
I close the door and stand there for a moment with my hand still on the knob, listening to his footsteps move down the hall until I can’t hear them anymore.
The drinks are still warm. We were a heartbeat away from kissing. And I just sent him away because of a sound in the hallway.
Right.
Mel’s footsteps were a compelling reason. But I’ve been giving reasons for a long time now—good ones, logical ones, reasons that hold up under examination and that are handy when to reach for when the real answer makes me too uncomfortable.
The real answer is that I don’t know how to let someone come looking for me. I don’t know how to be the person someone else cares for.
I pick up both drinks—the prickly pear latte and the sea salt caramel mocha.
Maybe it starts like this.
***
When I get down to the dining room early, I find Lucas sitting alone at a small corner table. The only other people in the dining room aren’t with the Firebirds—two older men in golf polos murmuring over oatmeal.
It sends a thrill through me that rivals pulling him into my room this morning.
We’re in public, but there are no teammates. No front office. No eyes that know us.
I head over to the table before I can second guess myself and sit right across from him. He gives a small jump, and then he smiles. His eyes are less puffy than they were at five, but his blond hair is still a mess so wild, I’m filled with an urge to fix it. Or fluff it up more.
“Are you sitting on your hand?” Lucas asks, tipping over to look under the table.
“No. That’s absurd,” I say, pulling my hand from under my thigh before he can catch me.
“Oh my gosh, you want to touch me so bad, you had to sit on your hand,” he whispers.
I roll my eyes but let one corner of my mouth nudge up.
“I wanted to fix your hair, okay? You look crazy.”
“Crazy hot, though,” he says. “It’s okay, you can admit it.”
I inhale loudly, trying not to smile. Wishing I could flirt back.
Or maybe wishing we were back in my room …
He digs his fork into a huge omelet with green chiles that makes my stomach growl.