The Hot Corner (26 page)

I left Brad to his tape and sat down to type up my thoughts and occasionally jot down something he said about an opposing team’s moves and strategies. I looked at the list of people I’d talked to and the people I needed to follow up with and decided it was as good a time as any to ask about something that had been nagging at me.

“Brad?”

“Yeah?”

“The list of people you told me to talk to—that was complete, right?”

He paused the television and turned around to peer at me. “Yeah, why?”

“Where’s Bailey?”

Silence greeted my question, and I gave him a go-ahead gesture.

I took a deep breath, determined to keep my cool. “She was your best friend, right? Don’t you talk to her anymore?”

“No, I don’t.” Brad turned around and started the tape up again.

I cleared my throat. “Well, um . . . shouldn’t I talk to someone who knew you best back then?”

I might hate her guts, but his dad was gone, and I’d already tackled teammates and coaches. Several of them had mentioned how Bailey and Brad had been joined at the hip. People called them the Killer Bs in high school, and a lot of them had thought one day they’d get married. That sick feeling in my stomach wasn’t something I was likely to forget.

“We grew apart. It happens.” His words were short and clipped. I saved my document and moved back to the couch. Brad avoided my eyes as I sat next to him.

“Brad? It’s okay, you can talk to me. I know she was important to you. And I know—”

“
Was
being the operative word.”

I said nothing, just sat and stared at him, and finally he sighed and stopped the tape.

“I fucked up. We don’t talk anymore.”

I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You . . . you slept with her?”

“What?” He glared at me and threw up his hands. “How many damn times do I have to tell you I didn’t fuck every girl I ever met?”

I laid a placating hand on his arm. “It’s just, that’s the best way I know of to screw up a friendship, and . . .” And I’d seen them together. I knew what had happened.

“Good thing you and I were never friends, then,” he said. He smiled at me, his mood shifting like lightning.

“You were my best friend.” It slipped out before I could stop myself, and he pulled me into his arms.

“I meant before we dated. You were my best friend, too.” He kissed the top of my head and eased me onto his lap. He held me and I continued to touch him, running my fingers through his hair and down his back for a while before he loosened his grip and buried his head in my neck. I held him and let him have his moments alone with his thoughts. Eventually, he looked up at me and I smiled at him.

“What do you say to pizza and beer?” I asked. “My treat.” It was what we ordered whenever one of us was having a bad day back in school.

“I’ve already got the beer, but you can get the pie.”

“Deal. How about we meet back here and put in a crappy movie and not watch it for a couple hours?” Our other form of therapy—making out.

I got a real smile from him. “I think that’ll work,” he said.

Hopefully it would soothe both of us. “I’m on it. Who delivers?”

Brad laughed. “There’s a flyer in the drawer next to the fridge.” He released me and I started for the door.

“Dani?”

I turned and found him where I’d left him, watching me. “Yes?”

“I love you.”

I felt tears spring to my eyes. “It’s only a pizza.”

He held my gaze, his face serious. “It’s a lot more than that, and you know it.”

Yeah, I did. So I gave him the truth. “I love you, too.”

He looked almost relieved, while I felt like I was going to hurl.

“Dani?”

“What?”

“Forget the pie.” He was in front of me in seconds and his lips crushed down on mine. Who needed comfort food when I had this?

Chapter 22

It was surprisingly easy to fall back into old patterns I’d thought were long forgotten. Brad got up first every morning to work out, while I mumbled and buried my head under the pillows. I had coffee ready and waiting when he got out of his shower. We spent a little time together before he went to the stadium, and I showered and got to writing. Eventually I’d come up for air and go to watch him play. We’d come home and have a snack before falling into bed and either making love or going to sleep. It felt good. Right.

He still forgot to put the toilet seat down half the time, and I still left clothes on the floor. For a change, he made the bed before he left but laughed every night when he found it either unmade from a nap I’d taken or rumpled because I’d brought my laptop into the bedroom and lain on my stomach while typing away. I made his favorite brownies, and he stocked the pantry with my favorite chips and boxes of microwave popcorn.

The museum of a condo had started feeling like a home, much to my utter shock. While I wasn’t looking forward to his next road trip, I thought I might not be as uncomfortable by myself as I’d imagined.

“What are you smiling about?”

I looked up from my laptop and took in my . . . jeez. My boyfriend. It sounded so weird now. “I was just thinking.”

“Never a good thing,” he said, deadpan, dodging the pillow I chucked at him. “I’m sorry. What were you thinking, baby?”

“Well, I was thinking how much I like staying here, but I’m having second thoughts now.”

Brad smirked and pulled my feet into his lap. He started to rub them, and I moaned and closed my computer. “And how about now?”

“Thoughts are shifting back to the positive.”

He tickled my foot, clamping down on my ankles when I shrieked and tried to get away from him.

“Negative!” I shouted. “Very negative!”

He stopped tickling me but pulled me closer so my legs were draped across his lap. He wrapped his arm around me and I leaned into his embrace. He smelled clean and so very good after his shower. “And now?”

“Mmm. I like day games the best, I think. So I get time with you at night.”

“I agree. I like homestands the most now, and I used to feel differently.”

I sat up to study him. “Why?”

“You weren’t here.”

“But you actually preferred living out of hotels?” I wrinkled my nose, and he laughed.

“Says she who took days of begging and pleading to leave her hotel and move in here.” He stroked my leg, his long fingers tickling the flesh of my inner thigh. I shivered but didn’t pull away.

“It was easier,” he said. “Not having to clean up after myself, being waited on hand and foot. You know how it is.”

After staying in the hotel in Chicago with him for a few days, I did. “But I only held out less than a week.”

“That’s because I’m so persuasive.”

He was that, all right. His fingers were creeping further up my leg, sliding just underneath my shorts. I shifted a bit so he had more room, earning a smug smile for my trouble.

“Maybe I’m just easy,” I said. He barked out a laugh, and I realized my verbal slip. “I mean a sucker.”

“Well, you’re good at that, too,” he said, leering. Damn it, I’d walked right into that one.

“I’m good at a lot of things you’ll be missing in the near future if you keep that up.”

“Really? You’d cut me off?” He poked his lip out in an adorable pout as his fingers found the line of my underwear and traced the fabric. I regretted my threat instantly.

“I could,” I said weakly.

“But you don’t want to.” Not hardly. Especially not when those talented fingers crept a little higher and brushed over me lightly. My eyes rolled and I started to pant.

“No, but I will.” My words sounded ridiculous even to my own ears, probably because I was breathless and pressing against his hand as I said them.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” He stilled his hand and shifted to face the television. “Well, will you look at that?”

I was loath to tear my glare away from his smug, handsome face, but I turned to see what he was talking about and there I was, sitting in the stands, grinning at Brad like a lovesick fool.

“Damn it, why do they keep showing me?” The feed cut to actual game highlights, thankfully, while Brad laughed.

“I think that cameraman has a crush on you. I’m going to have to get him fired.”

“You’ll do no such thing. But you can tell him to stop filming me. I’m not the attraction.”

“
Au contraire
, Red. I’m very attracted to you.”

I huffed as I turned my glare his way. “Could have fooled me.”

“What?” He smiled and flexed his fingers against me. I moaned. “Oh, you mean that? I was just respecting your boundaries.”

“I have no boundaries when it comes to you.” It was the simple truth. The man had knocked down all my walls and wormed his way back into my heart. I was such a fool, but I couldn’t help myself.

“You did when you first got here.”

“And you didn’t?” I asked.

“One look at you and I was putty in your hands.”

I had to laugh as I slid my hand over his crotch and found him hard and ready. “You’ve never been putty when you were in my hands.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” His fingers moved against me again and we stroked each other, our gazes locked as we both started to breathe heavier. “From the first time I caught you staring at me in English class, I’ve been yours.”

Just as I’d been his.

“I wasn’t staring at you,” I said. “The girl next to me was, and I was just trying to see what all the hoopla was.”

He pressed himself into my hand. “And you see it now, don’t you?”

I laughed and shook my head. “I didn’t fall for you because of the sex.”

“Why did you fall for me?” he asked, stilling his fingers.

That was a loaded question. “When? Then or now?”

“Both.”

“Then, because despite being one of the most wanted men on campus, you were sweet and kind and only had eyes for me. You made me laugh, turned me on, and challenged me at every turn.”

He smirked. “I like that. And now?”

Now was so much harder. “You still challenge me at every turn.”

Brad chuckled. “Nice.” His hand slid out of my shorts but, before I could protest, he pulled them down my legs. “Keep trying.”

He slid his hands back up toward my thighs. “Well, you still turn me on.” That much was obvious since I was panting like a bitch in heat.

“That we know. Keep going.”

He was such a pain, but his fingers were creeping ever higher. “You can be sweet and kind, when you want to be.”

“I can be lots of things,” he said, brushing his fingers over me. He could be lots of things, some good, and some bad. I wanted them all.

“You’re still wanted by tons of women. Even more now,” I muttered, sulking.

“And yet I still only have eyes for you.” He slid his fingers underneath the fabric and started touching me for real. I writhed against him.

“I want you,” I said. That, too, seemed like it would never change.

“And you’ll have me, soon.”

I opened my eyes when Brad’s fingers left me and shot him a dirty look. He laughed.

“What’s this
soon
crap?” I asked.

He laughed harder. “You answered me, so now I’m going to do the same.” Oh. I sat up and Brad took my hand. “I turned around in that classroom that day, and you were all I saw. It was like being struck by lightning. ‘There she is. She’s the one.’ I had to talk to you after class, see if you felt it, too. You were so damn cute, blushing and stammering, and I had to ask you out. Then we went to dinner and we talked so easily, like we’d known each other forever. The attraction was still there, obviously, but it was comfortable, too. Then I kissed you for the first time, and I never wanted to stop.”

My eyes fluttered closed and I had to catch my breath.

“I don’t know when I fell in love with you. It might have been over that first dinner. I know it didn’t take me long. You were smart and funny and you’d argue with me instead of just agreeing with anything I said like most girls I knew. You were genuinely nice to everyone, except for the girls who hit on me in front of you.”

I sneered at the reminder, and he laughed.

“And even then, you didn’t make a scene. You trusted me. You supported me and learned the game for me. It was impossible not to love you.”

Damn it. “You’re putting my answer to shame.”

He grinned and kissed my nose. “I’ve had a long time to think about it. As to why I love you now? For all those reasons, on top of your being the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. You might be more ornery and stubborn now, but I think I love that even more.”

I felt warm all over. “Well, you’re definitely more challenging and just as ornery and stubborn, so I guess we’re pretty well matched.”

“So it seems.”

“Brad, I’m proud of the man you’ve become,” I said. I had to give him all of it. “You’re so focused and dedicated to your career and, frankly, that doesn’t get enough publicity because of your personal life.” He grimaced, and I squeezed his hand. “One of the best things about you is how hard you’ve worked to achieve your dreams. I find that extremely sexy.”