Love the One You're With (29 page)

He grinned back. The man really was handsome, and yet … nothing. Zilch. No zip, no attraction, nothing beyond an observation of something attractive, the way she might appreciate a good painting.

She discreetly placed her fingers against her wrist, feeling her pulse.

It was slow and steady.

“Good point,” he said, leaning back in his uncomfortable ballpark seat. “I want to have my wits about me when I rock your world.”

“Modest,” she said, taking a drink of her beer.

“And I see you don't want your wits about you when I rock your world?” he asked, looking pointedly at the drink in her hand.

“Mostly I'm just trying to make it through this game. Are they always this slow?”

“Welcome to baseball, toots. If you want fast action, you should join me at a hockey game sometime.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Is that a hypothetical suggestion, or are you asking me out?”

“Depends. Were you going to say yes?”

“Nope.”

“Then it was hypothetical.” Cole leaned in then, close enough so nobody could overhear. “But when you get over Jake, let me know.”

If
she got over Jake.

“You know about that?” she asked quietly, meeting his eyes.

“Let's just say you have the same someone-killed-my-puppy look that he had when I saw him last night.”

She took a deep breath. “I'm not going to beg you for details, you know.”

“I know. Wasn't going to give them, either.”

Damn
. She let him pluck her beer out of her hand and take a long drink.

Her eyes scanned the huge board in the outfield. It was the top of the fourth. She had an inning and a half. Then it'd be go time.

* * *

Grace obediently stood and let Julie redo her ponytail and apply some soft pink lipstick. She let Riley pop a mint into her mouth. She even let her boss explain to her the mechanics of a good kiss, although she started to tune out right around the time that Camille mentioned the word
molars
.

It wasn't a big deal. Movie stars fake-kissed all the time. And most of Grace's friends approached a first kiss the way they did trying on shoes. Sometimes you tried a pair on just because, even though they didn't go with anything in your closet.

And the entire stadium would be watching them, for heaven's sake. It's not like they were shooting a porno. Just a brief meeting of lips. It didn't mean anything.

All of which would have made her feel a little better if she didn't suspect that Cole was starting to get cold feet.

“Are you sure you're not going to dash out on me?” she asked him for the fifth time. Sometime around the middle of the fourth, he'd checked his phone and gone totally silent. His responses since then had been distracted and jumpy.

And other than letting Riley shove one of her mints in his mouth, he'd done a whole lot more texting on his phone than he had preparing for their moment. Come on, dude. Chapstick? Breath check?
Anything?

She lost all hope when Cole helped himself to some of Mitchell's nachos, his eyes never once leaving his phone.

A public nacho kiss.

Yummy.

“The camera's here,” Julie said, elbowing her side.

Grace turned, and sure enough, there was a big old camera pointing her way. Probably the one that would put the kiss on the big screen, given the Yankee Stadium logo on the cameraman's shirt.

There were a handful of other camera operators milling around too.
Those
guys had the logos of local TV stations on their shirts.

Crap
.

The media hounds really had shown up, although, judging by the heated conversation one of the reporters was having with Camille, they weren't thrilled about the turn of events.

The TV stations wanted Grace and
Jake
, not Grace and some dude they'd never seen.

Too bad
, Grace thought. Jake's off working on his tan and probably chasing after some gorgeous Costa Rican native.

“Smile,” Julie said under her breath. “You look just a tiny bit socio right now.”

“I feel a little socio,” Grace muttered back as she took deep breaths and tried to banish Jake from her mind.

He didn't want you. You were just a temporary toy
.

There was a loud cheer from the crowd, and Grace blindly watched an angry Boston batter toss his bat and helmet toward the dugout before a teammate came trotting out on the field and handed the batter his glove and hat.

She knew just enough about baseball to know what that meant. Boston had just gotten their third out of the fifth inning.

Which meant …

It was time.

Julie's fingers found Grace's biceps, and Julie repeated her previous order, more urgently this time: “Smile. The news camera's already rolling and that reporter is talking about you.”

Sure enough, a stunning blonde in perfect makeup and an out-of-place coral suit stood in the nearby stands, talking into a microphone and beaming at the camera.

The crowd was too noisy for Grace to catch all of it, but she got the gist.
Website. Epic battle of the sexes. Love and war …

Then the reporter turned toward Grace and Cole and began walking their way, taking the steps in that slow reporter march that built suspense. “And tonight marks the final path in this journey. Only there's a twist! Grace Brighton is in love, all right—only it's not with Jake Malone. She's found a new man in her life, and she wants
you
to judge their chemistry.”

“Is she serious with this?” Grace asked out of the corner of her mouth. “This isn't
The
freaking
Bachelorette
.”

“Just close your eyes and let Cole do all the work,” Julie said. “It'll be over before you know it.”

Sure enough, Cole was turning toward her, and although she didn't know him well, she'd swear his eyes were trying to reassure her.
It'll be fine
.

Right. How could kissing a complete stranger in front of tens of thousands of people plus an unknown number of television viewers be anything other than fine?

Cole took a half step toward her, and then Grace knew. She couldn't do this.

“I can't do this,” she said aloud, putting up a hand to stop Cole from coming any closer.

But Cole wasn't moving toward her.

And nobody seemed to have heard her protest. They were all staring at …

It took Grace several seconds to see what everybody else, including all three of the cameras, was seeing.

Jake
.

“I sense an impending photo op,” Riley said happily from behind her.

Cole started to move out of the way, but apparently he wasn't fast enough, because Jake none too gently pulled the back of Cole's shirt, roughly shoving his friend aside.

He was in jeans and a cheap-looking Yankees shirt, looking completely ruffled. Almost as if he'd come from Costa Rica to Yankee Stadium on foot.

For her.

He'd come for her.

Her eyes watered. “Jake—”

He shook his head, and instead of saying a word, he hooked a hand behind her neck as his other one went around her lower back, jerking her toward him as his lips found hers.

Perfect. It was utterly perfect.

Firm lips nudged hers just slightly apart as they moved over hers, both demanding and gentle, making love to her mouth in sweet, simple kisses that were both completely audience-appropriate and unbearably seductive.

Slowly her hands came up, her fingers tangling in his hair.

“Jake.”
It was a whisper. A plea that this was
real
.

Dimly she became aware of the escalating noise from the crowd. Of Riley and Julie's ecstatic whoops and someone—Cole?—hollering for them to get a room.

Slowly they pulled away, although Grace held off opening her eyes until the very last minute.

Please don't let this be a dream
.

It wasn't.

She was standing in Jake Malone's arms for all of Yankee Stadium and three different cameras to see.

“You came,” she said quietly.

He rested his forehead on hers, a rueful smile on his face. “Too much? It
was
too much, wasn't it? I feel like Tom Hanks would have been a little more subtle. None of this pull-the-other-guy-by-the-shirt-so-he-doesn't-touch-my-girl stuff—”

“Speaking of which, you owe me!” Cole said, yelling to be heard over the crowd.

They both ignored him.

“It
was
a little overdone,” she said, once she finally found her voice. “Plus now you've gone and set the bar so high. All your other girls will be wanting big gestures, and I know you'll only set foot in Yankee Stadium once—”

His face sobered. “No other girls, Grace. And no other guys, either. Not for you.”

Her smile dimmed. “This conversation feels familiar. Soon to be followed up with ‘Hey, baby, I'm off to Costa Rica.' And speaking of which … aren't you supposed to be there?”

Jake's eyes closed briefly. “Grace, I—”

Grace 1.0 would have kissed away his apologies, while 2.0 would have kneed him in the balls and told him just where to shove his apologies.

But this Grace, the
real
Grace—who she was when she wasn't trying to be anything or stop being anything—did neither of those.

This Grace loved. And because she loved, she listened.

“It's like this,” he said, the words coming out in a rush. “I've had this itch. It's always in the same spot, always right between my shoulder blades. And I know that sounds like some sort of weird disease or mental problem, and maybe it is the latter, because I equated it all to this idiotic idea that something was missing in my life.”

Eesh
. And she thought she'd been off the deep end with that 1.0 and 2.0 stuff.

“I thought it was adventure that was missing,” he rushed on, oblivious to the increasingly impatient crowd who wanted to see fireworks, not conversation. “I thought the road would fix everything, but the second I got to Costa Rica, it was all wrong.”

Grace took in a deep, shaky breath, not wanting to let herself hope, but hoping all the time.

Both of his hands moved up to cup her face, his thumbs brushing her cheeks. Julie made a gushing
awww
noise. Grace knew how Julie felt. It
was
a good move.

“I
did
need a change, Grace. I'd gotten sick of myself, and for good reason. I was a lot of crap and not a lot of substance.”

“Here, here,” Cole muttered.

Jake forged on. “But I didn't see the change when it was right in front of me.” His eyes moved fondly over her face as he smoothed a strand of hair back into her now messy ponytail. “You were the change I needed. I do want to be a one-woman kind of guy, Grace. But here's the part I forgot to mention the other day. I've wanted to be a one-woman kind of guy for a long time.”

“What about when the next adventure comes up?” she asked quietly.

“Then we'll talk about it. Like a couple. Although somehow I think you'll be all the adventure I need. I mean, just keeping you in chocolate and trying to predict your next move is exhausting.”

Her eyes searched his face, wanting so hard to believe him. “How do I know this isn't just a phase?”
What if you leave me?

“You don't know,” he said. “You'll just have to trust me.”

Her stomach clenched. “I'm not so good at that. Not anymore.”

“You've got to give me a chance, Grace,” he whispered.

“I did. And you left for freaking Central America with three days' notice.”

He winced. “Because I messed up. And I'll probably do it again. And so will you, but we'll keep trying. I know we will.”

“Why?”

“God, she's tough,” Riley grumbled from behind them.

Damn straight
. She wanted it all. And without it …

She saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. “My mom warned me I was going to have to say this … she didn't mention how hard it would be.”

“He's talking about his mom. Smooth moves, dude,” Mitchell muttered.

“Can we please get some quiet here?” Jake hollered, sounding slightly crazed. Everyone ignored him, of course.

“It's like this, Grace. I love you. I do. And I know this isn't a romantic way to say it, and I should probably have truffles and Merlot and some shit, and instead someone just spilled beer all over my foot, but that's the way my love is going to be. A little bit messy, completely confused. But it's real.”

“Better,” Mitchell chimed in again.

But Grace wasn't listening to any of that. She was trying to search inside herself. Maybe she'd cut 1.0 and 2.0 loose too quickly, because she needed someone to tell her what to do.…

“Stop thinking about it, Grace. Stop letting anyone else do the answering for you,” he said, his fingers linking with hers. “Besides, I already know you love me back.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That's taking your supposed expertise with women a bit far, isn't it?”

Wordlessly he slid a hand down her arm, gripping her hand and pulling it between them.

Then gently, purposefully, his fingers curved around and his thumb settled on the sensitive, fragile skin of her inner wrist.

Her pulse was in overdrive. Just like it had been that first day in the cab, and during that first kiss.

Except this time, it wasn't just excitement and attraction.

It was love. And he knew it.

“You're really annoying when you're right,” she whispered.

His eyes darkened before his fingers closed more firmly on her wrist, jerking her forward once more. “You know, even the most confident of men can use a little verbal confirmation
every now and then.”

She wound her arms around his neck. “Yeah? Because Carl tells me you've got a thing for girls with
K
names. Perhaps you should call one of them.”