“Can you get to the clubhouse?” Gage asked. “Now?”
“Sure.” She went running, heart in her throat, picturing . . . Hell, she didn’t know exactly. “What?” she gasped when Gage pulled her inside the moment she arrived, tugging her through the luxurious front room to the Heat’s shower room. “What is it?”
“Wait here.”
She blinked when he slammed the door, and then again when less than twenty seconds later it whipped open.
Gage pushed Pace inside. Pace turned back to the door only to have Gage slam it in his face. He was in warm-up sweats and a shoulder brace, his face dark and edgy and quite pissed off.
Which was interesting, as she should be the pissed off one. She’d tried to contact him. She’d even stopped by with her amazing brownies—and they were amazing.
And he’d ignored her.
So it was with no little amount of annoyance and hurt that she crossed her arms and tried to remain unmoved by the sight of him in that damn brace and failed. “Are you okay?”
“Working on that.”
Okaaaay. “So what’s going on?”
“The Skip’s lost it.”
“Meaning?”
“His elevator isn’t going to the top floor. He’s playing a couple of cards short of a full deck.” He turned to face her and swirled his finger near his ear, whistling like a cuckoo clock. “He’s crazy.”
Which didn’t answer the question. “Talk to me, Pace.”
“Yeah. See that’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re supposed to—”
The door whipped open and Gage poked his head in. “Hurry the hell up!”
The door slammed again.
“Jesus.” Pace shook his head. “Okay, listen. You’re not going to like this, but we have to kiss again.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But you’re not even pitching.”
A ghost of a smile twisted his lips. “Apparently winning has nothing to do my pitching and everything to do with your kiss.”
She laughed, but when he didn’t, she stared at him. “You’re serious.”
The door opened again. Gage’s head reappeared. “Serious.” The door shut.
Holly shook her head. “So I am supposed to just willingly kiss you even though you haven’t returned my calls?”
Pace closed his eyes and shook his head. He looked miserable and incredibly hot under the collar, and suddenly she got it. He was pissed for her.
He swiped a hand down his face. “Gage is convinced that we can’t sleep together until October, so he’s pretty much got me in lockdown.”
“From me.”
“Yes.”
“Are you telling me that a thirty-five-year-old man, a team manager of a major league baseball team, would actually believe that my kiss will win him a game?”
“I told you that you weren’t going to like this.”
“Ah.” She nodded as if she understood, but then shook her head because she didn’t. “Which part of kissing you again aren’t I going to like?”
“The part where you have to.” He grimaced and shoved the fingers of his left hand into his hair. “And then there are those press leaks.”
Her stomach went cold. “They think it’s me.”
“They don’t know. But I know, Holly, and I can’t—I won’t ask you to do this.”
Yeah, he really was mad for her, and damn if that didn’t drain the rest of her temper, and also do something else entirely—turn her on just a little bit. “Oh, gee, Pace.” She stepped close enough to put her hands on his chest. Yeah, suddenly she was feeling a whole lot better. “I feel so put out, having to kiss a man who kisses like heaven on earth.” She pushed him back to the shower wall then turned so that it was she who was trapped as she brushed her mouth over his jaw. “I really do . . .”
With a rough exhale, he turned his head and met her lips with his own, soft and gentle at first, then hungry and fierce, and the amusement faded right out of her lungs, replaced by an instant, staggering, brain-cell destroying heat—
“Okay, that’s it,” Gage said after letting himself in. “That’s great, thanks.” He wedged himself in between them. “That’s all we have time for.” And he unceremoniously pushed her out the door.
She turned back. “But—”
“We have another home game tomorrow,” Gage said. “Same time, same place.” And then he shut the door in her face.
Pace watched the Heat play while warming up the bench with his own sorry ass. They won, which helped some. Afterward he was checked again by the team docs, the news not good.
He wasn’t improving on PT. But another MRI didn’t reveal anything new. He went straight from testing to the big bash in the clubhouse, thrown by management with the sole purpose of bringing their popularity rating back up. It was a massive affair, heavy on the celebrities, press, and booze, cleverly designed to put on a good show.
Pace hated that kind of a show, and he went straight to the bar and ordered two Dr Peppers, full caffeine, full sugar. While he waited, he turned and surveyed the crowd, pretending he wasn’t searching for Holly.
Tucker came up to him, clasped a hand on his good shoulder, and smiled with genuine empathy. “Sucks being on the sidelines.”
For days people had been tiptoeing around him and his injury. Tucker was the first person to acknowledge to his face that he was screwed, a fact which Pace greatly appreciated. He was damn tired of empty platitudes. “Yeah.”