Knox (Sexy Bastard #3) (11 page)

“This week is going to go by too fast,” she says.

“It sure is,” I respond, turning to hand her a six-pack. I swallow hard. “And after that,” I say slowly, “I’ll be shipping off to training.”

She tilts her head up at me with a look of surprise on her face. That’s what I figured—that the MLB schedule isn’t taped to her refrigerator. I’d been avoiding bringing it up to her, because I figured it was a moot point anyway—nothing could happen between us.

But now, after this weekend, after the way I imagine next week will go too . . . It seems wrong not to bring it up somehow.

“Spring training, of course.” She forces a nonchalant smile, though I can tell it’s killing her. “Well then I guess we’d better make the most of the time we have left.” She manages to hold onto that neutral expression, tucking her snacks beneath her arm as she reaches for the beer.

Much as it hurts, I force a fake smile onto my face too. “I guess so.”

We both let that lame-ass statement burn between us while we check out and load up the car. Because really, what else can we do? We only have this week together, and after that, well, it’s anyone guess what will happen next.

The silence lingers as we drive back to the lake house, this morning’s banter replaced by a cautious quiet. It’s pretty obvious we’re both thinking about the guy whose car we used as a mobile motel room last night, and about all the other obstacles conspiring to keep us apart. I’m looking forward to spring training, but thinking about the connection we have, the way our bodies felt molded together last night, makes me anything but excited about being four hundred miles away from her in a couple of weeks.

Hell, maybe even Jackson won’t seem like so bad an obstacle, with that distance in our way.

G
etting called
into an emergency 8 a.m. meeting is an extremely crappy way to start the week. I can already feel the weekend’s easy rhythm fading away as I glance across the conference table at Karl, annoyingly and predictably immaculate despite our unexpected wakeup call. I’ve got unwashed hair swept into a messy bun and a stomach that’s growling from lack of sustenance.

Too bad this time Karl’s not bragging about his one-night stands and adventures. I’m pretty sure I have him beat in the hot hookup department after this weekend. Or hell, even this morning, when I woke up to Knox’s hot breath on my thighs, arching my back to meet his mouth. There’s nothing like an orgasm to wake you up from an already wet dream.

It softened the blow of this damn meeting, somewhat.

We sit in silence, waiting for the rest of the crisis management breakfast club while I suck down my coffee. Finally I see Tim, Coach Mike, assistant manager Dan Rich, and Eric Ness from legal striding down the hall with matching sets of furrowed brows.

“What’s going on, Tim?”

Karl’s out of his seat before they reach the room.

Never a good sign when legal is involved.

“Bad news, guys. Dale Hunter got a second DUI at 3 a.m. last night. Crashed his car.”

Shit.

That is very bad news indeed.

Bad news for Karl, whose bright idea it was to put Dale in the spotlight at our gala.

Bad news for the team, given that’s it’s only January and we’re still recovering from the sucker punch we got in November when three members of the team were photographed partying on a Miami houseboat with a boatload (literally) of Eastern European hookers.

Bad news for me, since I’ll be the one stuck cleaning up the mess.

But most of all, it’s bad news for Dale Hunter, who’s not even six months away from his last DUI.

“Was anybody hurt?” I ask. Injury to another party means the difference between a misdemeanor and a possible felony.

“No one was hurt, thank god. He was alone in the car when he ran up the curb and crashed,” Tim responds.

I relax, but only the tiniest bit. It’s a small ounce of good news. Dale will be doing community service and certainly won’t be sitting behind the wheel of a car for the next three years. But he may not have to see the inside of a jail cell.

“Who all knows about this?” Karl asks.

“We managed to get Dale home before any journalists got wind of it,” Eric answers. “And my fixer greased a few palms at the station to make sure the news wouldn’t travel yet.”

The fixer. This shady character who goes around taking care of the team’s dirty work. A guy so low-profile that no one but Eric has ever had contact with him. It’s no secret that every professional team has one. But still. I’ve heard the rumors.

They weren’t pretty.

I wait for Tim to act as the voice of reason, but he’s strangely silent.

I clear my throat.

“Your guy bought us some time, so that’s good. But there’s bound to be a leak at some point in the chain.” I place my palms flat on the table in front of me. “I think the best course of action will be to get ahead of the story by putting Dale out in front of reporters with an apology. Thoughts?”

No one looks too happy about this suggestion.

“With the season we had, the team can’t take another hit right now, Shelby,” Tim says. “Attendance and viewership have been down, and we could be in danger of losing some significant sponsors if this thing blows up.”

Seriously?
Tim is on board with this palm-greasing plan?

“I get that,” I say, trying to be conciliatory. “But it’s only going to blow up bigger and harder if we lay a cover-up on top of that DUI. Eventually it’s going to go public, especially if he has to go to trial over it. You know how these things go. Then everyone will be asking why we didn’t say anything about it sooner. Or, we can get Dale into a month-long rehab session by tomorrow, put out a really simple statement, and then once he’s out, he can film a PSA.”

Coach Mike is shaking his head violently. Not happy at all.

“We can’t afford to have Dale out of commission for a month, Shelby. We need this to go away.”

“I’ve got a college buddy in the district attorney’s office,” Karl says. “I could sniff around to see if they’re planning on making an example out of him.”

“We’ve got connections there too,” Eric says. “Let’s put our heads together and see if we can put together a package that makes everybody happy.”

Wow. The boys’ club has taken over once again. It feels like the decision’s already been made. But I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t give it another stab. As the VP of the department in charge of controlling the team’s public image, you’d think I’d have a bigger say. I take a deep breath and attempt to make my voice heard.

“Sweeping it under the rug was a lot easier in the days before every bystander with a smart phone could provide material evidence,” I say firmly. “Who knows, maybe there are videos of the crash out there that we don’t even know about—”

I’m not quite done with my diatribe when Tim cuts me off.

“Shelby, you need to get with the program. This cannot get out. Karl, you and Eric will work together to take the temperature over at the DA’s.”

Karl looks over at me with a satisfied smirk.

I try to keep my tone measured, even though I’m clenching my fists under the table now, as I ask, “What are we going to do about the two positive profiles of Dale and his wife running in national outlets next month? If this story gets out before the editors have time to file changes, we’ll have burned bridges at those publications forever.”

“The story isn’t going to get out. So let them go ahead with their glowing profiles.”

“Agreed,” Karl says unnecessarily. “Dale is going to need all the help he can get.”

They’re not the ones who spent years cultivating those media contacts, so I get why they’re not sweating the prospect of editorial blowback. But we’ll all be fielding calls from reporters if this thing goes live. I want to tell them to deal with the fallout themselves when this all goes wrong, but I know that, just like now, once again I’ll be the one who has to sweep up the messes of the less-than-stellar decisions they make. So I just force a neutral expression onto my face and glance at Tim. “I’ll keep an eye on social media for the day. Make sure nothing has leaked there.”

They don’t even bother to reply. Ugh.

A
day
like this calls for fully loaded breakfast biscuit from my old friend Ronald McDonald. I’ve just placed my order when my phone rings. Jackson. I sigh, and pick up to the sounds of a jackhammer.

“You on site?”

“Yeah, sorry sis. Nowhere to hide from the noise.”

Hiding is the operative word in my corner, too.

“How’s it going?”

“The usual. We’ve made about seventy adjustments to the plans since I got here. And the clients have threatened to fire the roofers. But on the bright side, none of my guys have actually killed each other.”

“Well if you do need help burying some bodies,” I tell him, “turns out I’m in that line of work.”

“Uh oh. Sounds ominous.”

“Yeah, we had some bad news this morning. Can’t get into it right now,” I say, grabbing my sandwich and heading for the door.

“Sorry to hear it. How was the weekend? Sorry I missed it.”

The rumblings in my stomach coalesce into a knot of anxiety and guilt. “It was really, really great.”
I fucked your best friend in your car. How about them apples?
“We made s’mores, and I got to eat Dairy Queen twice.”

I hate having to lie to my brother. Even if he kind of deserves it sometimes.

“Good. I’m glad you got to take a break before the shit hit the fan at work, at least. You work too hard sometimes, Shelbs. Take it from me—” His speech is interrupted by a loud crash, followed by angry shouts in the background. “You do not want work to wind up being the only thing in your life,” he adds. “Gotta run, sorry, we can trade war stories when I’m back.”

He disconnects, and I’m left feeling guiltier than ever. That was a very un-Jackson-like comment. I wonder if things are worse at the job site than he’s letting on. And here I am adding to his stress—although he doesn’t exactly know it yet.

I shove the remains of my bacon, egg, and cheese into my mouth and wish things would just get simpler somehow.

I
’m sitting
on my couch scrolling through takeout options when my phone rings. Knox.

First time we’ve used our devices for anything other than saucy texts.

“Hey,” I say, barely able to keep the weariness out of my voice.

“Hey Shelby. Everything okay?”

I guess I must sound pretty rough.

“I’m usually a very fun phone date, I promise.” I sigh. “Just had a rough day at the office. And no damn food in my fridge.”

“Hmmmm. Well I think I could help with at least one of those things. How about I come over with some takeout?”

Takeout on the couch is usually a date five type of situation. And I don’t even know if Knox and I have technically been on date one.

Then again, we’ve already gotten pretty familiar on this particular piece of furniture. And we’ve only got a week left before Jackson comes back and Knox ships off to training. “Sounds perfect,” I admit.

I’m ravenous by the time he shows up at my door with a bottle of wine and an order of spaghetti and meatballs, caesar salad, and chicken marsala from my favorite red sauce joint. “How did you know?”

“A very exclusive recommendation service I use. It’s called Yelp, maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“I don’t know much about the internet,” I reply with a smirk, my mood already improving at the sight of all that food. And of Knox’s gorgeous smile, looking more rugged than usual today with a day’s worth of stubble on his perfectly squared-off jawline. “But I know I’m happy as hell to see you.”

He drops the food on the side table and sweeps me into his arms. “That makes two of us.” Then his lips find mine, and I forget about my hunger temporarily, while a new kind of hunger builds in my veins.

T
he Dale Hunter
situation is supposed to be top secret. But as we sit side-by-side on the couch with our spaghetti dinners, I find myself opening up to Knox about the events of the day. Doesn’t take much more than a glass of wine to get Shelby Masters talking. And heck, Knox has already proven that he can keep a secret.

I refill our glasses, push my empty foil container onto the coffee table.

I get frustrated all over again as I tell Knox about the head-in-the-sand strategy my bosses seem to be adopting.

“I think your instincts are spot on.”

It’s good to hear him say that.

“Same as any team, though. Can’t always have it go your way when you’re working with a group. But be true to yourself and stick to your guns. And eventually, when shit goes south, they’ll remember that you were the voice of reason all along.”

“It would be nice if things didn’t have to blow up in our faces before that happened,” I grumble.

Knox shrugs. “One person can’t carry the weight of the whole team. That’s a lesson I learned pretty early on. Lots of pressure on the guy on the pitching mound.”

Suddenly I realize I’ve been doing the lion’s share of the talking. Knox is about to go into training season as the starting pitcher on a brand-new team. Guy’s gotta know a few things about stress. I set my already licked-clean plate aside and curl up on the couch, tickling his thigh with my feet. “What about you?” I say. “I’m sure starting over with a new team doesn’t make that any easier. How are things going over there?”

He sets his dinner aside too, and lets his hand trail up the back of my calves, a motion that shouldn’t be sexy, yet somehow sets a fire deep in my stomach. “So far I’ve only had to deal with a bit of harmless hazing. We’ll see how I do when I’m thrown to the wolves in training next week.”

Ugh. Training.
“Remind me how long you’ll be gone again?” I ask as casually as I can.

“Almost two months.”

“Ah,” I say. We let that hang between us, both our expressions even more morose than we seemed when we started this conversation. “Well that’s seems like it’ll be . . . ”

“Long,” he finishes, with a sideways, almost hesitant glance at me.

I grimace. “Read my mind.” If this is just a fling, that kind of absence will definitely derail it. And if it’s more . . . then the next two months are going to be absolute torture.

I guess we’ve got a few more phone dates in our future.

Reading my mind yet again, Knox scoots closer and slides his hand up to my shoulders instead, kneading the knots between them, which I didn’t even know were there. I relax into his touch, closing my eyes.
God
that feels good.

“We’ve still got a week left,” he points out. “Let’s enjoy the time we have. And after that, well, we can always share takeout over Skype, as long as you don’t mind BYOB-ing.”

“You know how to Skype?” I raise an eyebrow doubtfully.

“You might have to show me how,” he admits, pulling me toward him as those massaging fingers drift further down my spine in a way that makes me melt against him. “But I’m a very quick learner.”