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She doesn’t answer.
She doesn’t start singing again.
The oven’s not beeping.
Nothing’s catching on fire and setting off the smoke alarms.
She definitely heard me.
Fuck.
Meg and I have known each other tangentially since Jude and I met playing ball together in college. See her—sawher occasionally whenever our teams faced off once we both hit the big league too.
And it’s my fault she’s here.
I ran into my buddy Zeus at the grocery store a while back. When he told me he and his wife had lost another nanny for their baby quadruplets, I remembered Jude saying Meg was temporarily without a job after some incident at the preschool where she’d been working.
Bad fit, Jude had said.Meg’s a bit unfiltered sometimes, and the preschool was a little uppity.
Zeus is a little unfiltered.
Okay, alotunfiltered. His wife even more so.
And Meg?
She never sits still. So having her crash here temporarily while she gets her bearings in the city was supposed to be like having an old friend-of-a-friend for dinner once or twice a week. There’s always somewhere she has to flit off to or something she has to do, which is also helpful with my mental attitude thatshe is not a woman in my house.
Until today.
When my defenses are low and I’m pissed and she’s desecrating my kitchen andmy dick still wants her.
My dick should be glad for what she’s doing in here.
Makes her far less attractive.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Arm hurts.”
“Trevor! Of course it does. You had major surgery and physical therapy is hard. Did you get any painkillers at the clinic? Can I—”
“Why do you do that?” I spin, make my shoulder twitch, and barely stifle a grimace of pain as I readjust the ice pack. “Why do you make excuses for people who are assholes to you?”
Her blue eyes widen until they’re practically round. Her lips part, and her pink tongue darts out to swipe them before she visibly swallows. “You’re not being an asshole to me.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re cranky, but I would be too if I were you.”
And now I’m swallowing. Hard.
She thinks my attitude is all about my damn shoulder giving out and ending my baseball career. About spending my last year demoted to the minors and spending half ofthatin rehab. About knowing it was the Fireballs ownership taking pity on me and letting me decide for myself when I was done instead of forcing me out of my contract, and then, when they called me up to give me a ceremonial role in the final World Series games, I completely and totally blew my shoulder out on the very last pitch.
I got my ring.
Barely feel like I earned it.
And I ended my career, no ifs, ands, or buts about it this time.
She’s not wrong.
