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Glancing up at Summer’s amused face, he scowled. “Got a problem?’
“No. You’re so…domesticated. It’s sexy.”
In spite of himself, he laughed. “Nice save, slugger. You’re about to strike out though, so finish up my bacon so we can get you into your Sunday best.”
“You should come to church too. It might do you some good.” She arched up on her tiptoes and flung her hand in the direction of his hair. Her fingers glanced off his cheek. “Your halo’s looking a little rusty, ballboy.”
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go if you will sit down with me with your schedule and discuss the possibility of personal security like a mature adult.” The flash in her eyes would’ve made a lesser man retreat. Not him. He had a sister and knew how to talk to emotional women. “It’s only fair,” he added, though he didn’t give a shit about fairness and would’ve gotten her to listen to reason one way or another anyway.
It worked.
“Okay. Fine. I suppose I owe you that much,” she agreed. Then she cocked her head and bit her lip. That thoughtful look of hers was going to kill him. “Did you lose your job at the club because of me?”
“No. I lost it because it wasn’t suited for me.”
“Why’d you take it in the first place? Don’t you have ball to get back to?” She turned back to the stove and traced her fingernail along the edge of the spatula. “It sucks the Daggers let you go. I can’t believe no one else has picked you up yet.”
“What do you know about my career?” Again that same sharpness re-entered his voice. He couldn’t help it. There were sensitive subjects, then there were conversational landmines. His current free agent status resided firmly in the latter territory.
The way her lips pinched at the corners stirred something low in his gut, right beneath the snug band of his belt. “Plenty,” she murmured, and the heaviness between his legs increased tenfold. “The only thing higher than the amount of women you’ve supposedly nailed is your win percentage.” She didn’t mention his slump again, thank God. Nor his injury. He hoped she’d put both out of her pretty little head. “So how the hell are you still a free agent? I was sure the Cords would grab you—”
“Easy enough not to be picked up when you’re a bigger liability than you are an asset.” He didn’t add anything else.
Like how he’d started drinking more to contend with the unrelenting pain and weakness he couldn’t stretch his way through. Better to be known as a fuckup than to risk his trainers finding out that not only was he almost thirty-two, his body was already starting that inevitable downward slide to obsolescence.
She shocked the hell out of him by shrugging as she slid the bacon onto their plates. “So you drink and have fun. What young guy doesn’t? It doesn’t hurt anyone. You get the job done and anyone who doesn’t want you is an idiot.”
The vehemence in her tone made him slide a finger under her chin to tilt her face up to his. Big mistake. Their mouths were too close—relatively speaking, despite their sizable height difference—and her eyes were too big, the pupils drowning the blue until just a rim of color remained. The shade reminded him of the hottest point of a flame. “Slugger’s the right name for you.” Somehow he kept his voice level even as his cock lurched against his zipper in its latest bid for freedom. “And I can’t say I mind having you swinging in my corner.”
She turned into him, setting down the frying pan with a barely noticeable metallic clink. “I know value when I see it.”
The finger he’d left under her chin twitched. He wanted to run it along the curved line of her jaw up to her delicate earlobe. She wore tiny gold hoops in her single piercings, the look as innocent as the thin chain bearing a small cross that circled her throat. Symbols of the purity she fought to disavow every time she opened her pink-glossed mouth.
“And I know when something will cost too much,” he returned, shifting back to pick up a piece of bacon from his plate. She’d fried it to the perfect crispness and the flavor burst on his tongue, a pathetic substitute for what he really wanted to taste. “Let’s eat and get you to church.”
Summer was on her knees beside Chase Dixon. A dream come true. But in her fantasies, she hadn’t been clutching a hymnal.
She also hadn’t been wearing one of his long-sleeved T-shirts under her zipped-to-the-neck jacket. She’d had no choice, since the shirt he’d picked out for her to borrow said “Going Long, Pitching Deep”. It was also about sixteen sizes too big and smelled of his mint-and-spice cologne, not to mention his lemony detergent.
Yeah, perfect church attire with her sheer skirt. Thanks, Chase. She only called him Deuce because he said he didn’t want her to. In her head, he would always be Chase, the guy she’d crushed on way too long for absolutely no reason. It was clear he’d placed her in a mental jail called “off-limits virgin” and refused to allow himself conjugal visits.
Ha, she hadn’t been a virgin for years. She was even semi-skilled at oral sex. So there.
To his credit, he didn’t seem bored throughout the service. He remembered all the prayers and followed along without trouble, which made her wonder if he’d visited the house of the Lord more recently than he’d indicated.
In their close-knit Irish and Italian neighborhood in Yardley, it had seemed like every other family attended the same church. Chase, Cass and their mom and dad were no exception.
Well, at least until Chase and Cass’s parents had split. Their mom remarried and started a new family across the country in Colorado, and so had Chase’s dad, minus the new family part. Dale Dixon’s trophy wife had only stuck around a few years. Since then the rumor mill claimed he’d cuddled up to the same liquid lover his son liked to bed down with. Whether Dale’s latest stint in rehab would stick was anyone’s guess.
It also remained to be seen whether Chase would be successful in AA. She hadn’t realized his drinking had become that serious, but she’d known he liked to live hard and party harder. It had been pure chance running into him at The Platinum Club. Since he’d gone pro after college, he made rare appearances at home. One of the last times she’d seen him had been at the ill-fated party last summer when she’d made a grab for both The Platinum Club’s business card and his lips. Both missions had ended up as dismal failures.
Now Chase knelt at her side in his Sunday-best gray slacks and black collarless shirt, and she’d gotten so sidetracked by her thoughts that she’d missed the beginning of “Amazing Grace”. She closed her eyes and let her voice lift with the others around her, allowing the swelling music to take her away from real life as it usually did.
She’d always found sanctuary in the sounds, sights and smells of church. The familiar sting of burning incense, the gleaming wood pews and the bright sunlight refracting through the jewel-toned stained glass all calmed her mind. There was unity here, and a quiet sort of peace that seemed to take root only when she sang with the people in her midst. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know them or vice versa. For this moment they shared a common spirituality that went way beyond the teachings of their religion.
Or at least she told herself that whenever the memories of a past when she hadn’t been as accepted tried to wedge their way into her mind.
Not here. Not today. Not when Chase stood beside her, his pervasive heat and broad frame somehow infusing her consciousness though her eyes were shut.
