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She sat up straighter, smoothed out the fabric, and cleared her throat. "I’m sure that’s nice when you’re like on a date or something," she said, a reminder to them both that this was definitely not that.
"Mmmm, well, actually most of my dates prefer to be seen," Landon pointed out.
Katie read the gossip blogs; she couldn’t argue with that point.
"So you’ve never brought a girl here before?" she asked, challenging him to deny what Paola had already confirmed.
A guilty half-grin hedged on to Landon’s face. "Maybe a few…but none that I brought here because I thoughtshewould like it."
Paola popped through the door with a huge tray of corn tortillas and sizzling meat, saving Katie from overthinking what he meant by that.Another tray followed with guacamole, pickled red onions, crumbly cheese, and a whole slew of other fixings. Katie followed Landon’s lead and dug in, filling her tortilla until it was almost too stuffed to fit in her mouth.Almost, her grumbling stomach reminded her, and she tipped her head to the side and angled the taco to make the first bite happen.
The flavors and textures burst against her tongue, and her eyebrows sprung up above her wide eyes. She nodded her approval to Landon as she dove back in for another bite.
"Add some salsa verde to those carnitas," he said, gesturing towards a small cup of green sauce.
She took his recommendation and they spent a good long while sampling the different taco varieties and debating the best toppings for each.
"Sooo," Landon ventured when the taco conversation lulled, "what’s your story,Catalina?"
Katie swallowed her bite with her hand over her mouth, then said, "My story?"
"Yeah, where you’re from, your family, how you got here…"
Her past could stay in the past as far as she was concerned, and Landon Ryan was about the last person in the world she wanted to rehash the gory details with.
"Oh, there’s not really much to tell. Your story has to be so much more exciting," she insisted.
"My story is on Wikipedia, so tell me yours."
Katie took a long time swallowing her food to get her thoughts together. "Like I said, not much to tell. Grew up in a small town in Georgia. Only child. I studied marketing and fashion merchandising at Georgia Southern, then did an internship at a pretty big fashion label in Atlanta. They offered me a position, but I ended up moving back home. Got a job at a radio station, behind the scenes stuff. Stayed there for a couple years. Then I moved here and I’ve been with the Mavericks since right about the start of the season."
"So how did you go from fashion to radio to baseball?" Landon asked the obvious question she’d been hoping he wouldn’t.
"Oh geez, that’s a long story. The short version, I guess, is that my mom pushed for the fashion stuff in college and I guess I agreed because she didn’t really want me to go in the first place."
"What kind of mom doesn’t want their kid to go to college?"
"I guess she just grew up with the fairy tale idea that marrying into wealth is the ultimate dream, as opposed to having to work for it. It was almost like she was embarrassed that I didn’t just want to get married and start a family as soon as possible. You can’t fault someone for the way they’re raised. Those beliefs are hard to break out of...or so my therapist tells me at least."
He flashed her a quick smile for the joke, then pointed out, "Except you obviously did. Break out, I mean."
She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. I gave up the fashion job to move home and be with my fiancé—nowex-fiance," she added, feeling the need to point it out for some reason.
"Which I’m assuming mom was fine with because his family has money." Landon filled in the blank she wasn’t planning to mention.
"Good guess. Kyle and my mom both fought me on getting another job once I moved back, but I insisted, at least until we were actually married. So I found whatever I could—the radio station gig—and thank goodness I did because when I finally got smart and dumped the asshole, my boss at the radio station helped me get this job with the Mavericks. His college roommate works in HR."
"So why’d you dump the asshole?" he asked.
"Because he was an asshole, duh," she quipped.
This time he didn’t smile back. He studied her for a long thoughtful moment before he finally said, "I guess it all worked out then, huh? It’s the perfect job for a hardcore baseball fan."
"How do you know I’m a hardcore fan?" Katie asked. It certainly helped in her job, but it wasn’t a requirement. In fact, she suspected Lori preferred her assistants more like Ellis who cared less about the sport and more about the spectacle.
"I’ve seen you pay homage," Landon said.
"Pay homage?"
