At the end of that week, the players chaired a 4 The Kids auction, raising $250,000 before facing another home game, this one against the Colorado Rockies.
This time Pace was on the schedule to pitch. He’d had to see the team doc every single day that week to get approval, but he got it, and two hours before the start, he stood in the Heat’s luxurious clubhouse in front of his locker, looking down at the few vitamin packs he still had left. Most of the guys swore they noticed a difference in their energy and strength levels, but other than sleeping better, Pace hadn’t noticed anything. Still, for Tucker, he kept taking the stuff. He was pulling on his jersey when Henry, Ty, and Johnny joined him. He glanced over, but they said nothing, just stood there staring at him like Curly, Mo, and Larry.
Ty shoved Johnny, who shoved Henry. Who then looked at Pace. “You’ve got to kiss her, man.”
“What?”
“Holly,” Ty clarified. “You have to kiss her the same way you did in Atlanta, or we’ll lose again.”
Henry nodded.
Johnny nodded.
And Pace just stared at them. No one knew he’d kissed Holly, no one but him and Holly. And . . . Red. Dammit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, sliding Red a long death stare across the clubhouse.
From twenty feet, Red lifted a shoulder, then ambled over. “They guessed.”
“They did not.”
“Okay, they didn’t.” Red jerked his head toward Holly, who was taking pictures of Mason and Kyle goofing off at the food table. “But the last time we won was the last time you kissed her.”
Jesus. Normally Pace had a healthy respect for the superstitions of his sport, but this one . . . This one just might kill him.
“Just do it,” Henry said. “Kiss her.”
Yeah. Hardly that easy.
“If you want,” Ty offered. “I can do it for you.”
Over his dead body. Pace looked at Holly. She’d written two more intriguing, fascinating articles without more than a mention of him, and though the writing had been insight ful and quite hard-hitting, she hadn’t exposed any big secrets or been negative on the sport in any way. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did.
“Don’t mess this up,” Red said.
Pace tried to figure a way around this, but as he knew all too well, it was immaterial whether or not he believed that they’d lose if he didn’t kiss Holly again.
The guys believed it.
Shit.
“Here,” Henry said, offering up a Dr Pepper. “For fortification.”
“No, dude, he quit.” Ty offered his Nalgene bottle instead.
Pace downed the water in it, but his mouth was still dry.
“You ready?” Henry asked.
Wade had joined them, soaking up the conversation with interest. He slapped Pace’s back. “Go take one for the team, big guy.”
“Goddammit.” He headed toward the woman he’d been doing his best to avoid for days and found her in the middle of an off-color joke that was actually pretty funny.
He waited until she turned and looked at him. “Hey, you,” she said, a warm smile curving her mouth.
“Hey.” He shifted on his feet, trying to figure out a way to ease into this. “Uh, can I see you a minute?”
“Sure,” she said easily, because she had no idea how not easy this was going to be.
“In there?” He gestured to the shower room, following her there, until Gage caught his arm and whispered, “Kiss only.”
Pace looked at him. “What?”
“Yeah, no sleeping with her or we’ll lose.”
“Okay,” Pace said on a long exhale. “What the hell have you been smoking? What have you all been smoking?”
Gage hesitated. “Listen, certain people think it’s the sexual tension between the two of you that gave us that win.”
Certain people. Pace craned his neck and slid Red a look of disbelief.
Red pulled out his inhaler.
Dammit. Low blow.
“So kiss her,” Gage said quietly. “But don’t f—”
“Whoa.” Pace shook his head and pulled free. “You’re all a bunch of f**king nuts.”
Holly was waiting for him at the door to the shower room, which he opened for her. She was carefully put together today, surprise, wearing a white shirt opened over a red tee and snug, hip-hugging jean capris. Her hair had been contained in a ponytail, with long sweeping bangs outlining the face that continued to tease him in his dreams all damn night, every night, where he’d done a whole hell of a lot more than kiss her.
The shower room was humid from the team’s recent showers, and as she turned to face him, her careful hair began to frizz adorably. “I didn’t think women were allowed back here,” she said.
“They’re not, usually. This is a . . . special circumstance, approved by management.”
“Really? What’re the special circumstances?”
Stepping forward, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her up against him.
“Oh.” Her hands went to his chest as she tilted her face up, her lips parting in a little breath of surprise that he leaned in and swallowed whole with his mouth, and God, just like that he died and went to heaven.
With her own soft little murmur of pleasure, she sank her fingers into his hair, pressing her soft, warm body up against his, completely surrendering to him and completely snagging his heart in the process.