“How do you know I wasn’t chatting earlier? You only got here a few minutes ago.”
“Well, were you?” She calls my bluff too easily.
I exhale and lean back in my chair. “Did you have any other questions?”
“Look,” she starts, moving even closer. Her thighs nearly press against the edge of my desk by the time she stops between two chairs. “How about we call a truce?”
Surprise has my reply flying out. “Why?”
“Other than the obvious? You’ve made the reasons pretty clear.”
“And you haven’t wanted to accept them. What’s changed?”
Just accept it and move on, Roman.
“The last thing I want to do is make someone uncomfortable. So, I’ll back off,” she says with a carefree shrug.
For some reason, that chafes. My mood sours despite the obvious sense of relief I should be feeling. This is what I wanted, after all. So why does it feel so fucking wrong?
“Great,” I declare, leaning forward.
Brielle’s smile is slow to grow. By the time it has, she’s already started to move around my desk. Her sudden closeness has me stiffening, desire coursing through me at a furious speed. My cock twitches as it draws blood from the rest of my body.
“Are you opposed to some company while you watch, friend?” she asks softly, her voice a gentle caress.
“You’re interested in rewatching the game?”
She stares past me at the monitor that’s casting the only light in the room. The glow creates shadows beneath her eyes and the underside of her jaw. I like the look of her in my team’s jersey,even if it’s not possible for her to be wearing my name on the back of it. That’s not something I’d ever get to see, even if it were.
Whose name is on her back right now?
“Are you doubting my interest in baseball?” she returns, pulling her eyes back to settle on me. “Because I can assure you I’m just a big a fan as you are.”
“That’s a big claim.”
“It’s not a claim. I can prove it.”
I huff a low laugh and nod to one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Sit, then.”
She wastes no time in hauling it over and parking it beside me. I stare at the paused game as she sits and scoots closer, her knee brushing my outer thigh just once.
Her perfume drifts around us in a cloud of deep, rich fruits that has my palms growing clammy. I grab the computer mouse and give it a shake to distract myself.
“Aren’t you going to ask me a bunch of pointless questions now to see if I’m telling the truth?”
I pause. “What?”
She crosses one leg over the other and swings her foot like a pendulum. “Been here and done this a thousand times, Roman. Go for it. This is what always happens when a woman tells a man that she’s a fan of a sport.”
“That’s pathetic. I’m not going to ask you anything. Just watch.”
I leave it at that and hit Play on the game. It kicks off from the top of the third inning, right before Finn threw his first home run of the game. After this, it all started to go downhill. Not just him, but the outfield, too. Jett let two balls slip past him, which led to the first batter getting home for the other team and another an inning later.
Not every game is perfect. This one was just further from that point than we’ve had in a long while, even if we managed to recover.
“What is the point of this?” Brielle asks, her voice judgment-free.
“Of watching film?”
