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SUTTON
“We needto talk about last October.”
My vision narrows, going fuzzy around the edges as warning bells go off in my brain. The vision thing is the migraine I felt creeping in around the fifth inning, and has only been getting progressively worse. The warning bells were set off by the mention of last October, and theone thingMax and I agreed we’d never talk about again.
“No we don’t,” I tell him, trying to keep the rising panic out of my voice. “There’s really nothing to talk about.”
Maxwell pinches his eyes shut and huffs out a breath. It’s as if I can see him counting, centering himself before he speaks again. And I know we need to talk about this at some point, we can’t keep acting like it didn’t happen because it did. And I want it to happen again but wecan’t. We absolutely can’t.
“Why can’t we talk about it, Sutton?”
“Because I don’t want it to change anything between us.”
“Why would it change anything?”
“Because, we have a great thing going, you and me. We’re unlikely animal friends. It shouldn’t work, but it does, and the rottweiler shouldn’t go around kissing the duckling.”
Maxwell stares at me across the table. Eyes searching mine,and lip twitching ever so slightly at the corners with a bemused smile that he usually tries to hide…from everyone but me.
“Are you calling me a duckling?” He asks, a growl in his voice.
“You know I’m not,” I’m more exasperated with him than I should be. “Look, the metaphor got away from me but my point stands. We don’t need to talk about it because it never should have happened.”
I push away from the table and stand up, ready to gather my dishes and high tail it out of here. And I’m close, until the rottweiler gets in my way. Max reaches out a hand and grabs my wrist, pulling me to him as warmth spreads up my arm, radiating through my body.
“Sutton.” My name is nothing more than an exhale as his eyes meet mine, and despite my better judgment, I acquiesce as he tugs me down toward him. My hand, as if on its own, ignoring every warning bell, curves around the back of his neck, my fingers threading into the closely cropped hair at the back of his neck, and then my lips meet his – or maybe his meet mine – as I’m tugged onto his lap.
“We can’t,” I whisper against his lips, breaking the kiss and pressing my forehead to his. “We can’t.”
“Give me one good reason,” his stubble scrapes softly against my cheek as he presses a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth. “One good reason, and we’ll never speak of October – or tonight – again.”
“I’m a coach.”
“You’re notmycoach,” he smirks.
“I am, Maxwell. Anytime you have to hit, I’m your coach. We can’t do this.”
“Is that your reason?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” His smirk stretches into a full blown grin, a mischievous gleam in his eye as he brings his lips to mine in a kiss so soft that it is a contradiction of the man whose arms are wrapped around my waist, my hands pressed to the solid wall of muscle he calls a chest. “That’s a terrible reason.”
“It’s not,” I sigh.
I’ve thought about this. A lot. Almost every night since that night in October, I’ve thought about what it might be like to have something more with Maxwell. And it all boils down to: I’m his coach.
“It is,” he insists. “Because in the union’s last bargaining agreement, we somehow managed to sell our souls to the devil. The designated hitter, too. You don’t coach me anymore. You don’t coachanypitchers anymore, now that the DH is universal.”
“I don’t want to date any other pitchers.” My mouth betrays me, and his grin softens into something much sweeter.
“Does that mean you want to date me, Duckling?”
“That’s not going anywhere, is it?” I cover my face with my hands, and Maxwell’s calloused fingers encircle my wrists, pulling my hands from my face before pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“Not likely, no.”
“Okay.” I relax into his arms, not wanting to break this contact with him anytime soon but… “But, at some point we’re going to have to sit down and figure out what this is going to look like. We need ground rules.”
