Текст книги "Game On"

Автор книги: Katie McCoy

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Chapter Twenty

Tim was annoyed. He threw his leather jacket into the backseat of the car and yanked the door open. I slipped quietly into the passenger seat, hoping that he would ignore me on the short ride back to the hotel.

“Fucking college athletes,” Tim spat as they pulled out of the parking lot. “Wouldn’t give me a goddamn thing to work with. Doesn’t he know that any attention is good attention?”

I bit my lip. I knew that Nathan wasn’t going to tell him anything. Tim was a grade-A douchebag; he could only work his magic if the person he was interviewing was an equal or greater douchebag who also lived for attention. Nathan was a rarity—a nice guy who had no interest in the spotlight. Tim had no way to get in with him.

“I thought he was going to be gay or something like that.” Tim had shook out a cigarette and was ranting with it bouncing from his lips. I began counting the blocks between us and the hotel. The smell of his cigarettes and his general musky sweatiness was making me feel lightheaded. Not to mention his utter awfulness. “I mean, if you couldn’t fuck an interview out of him, he must have a thing for guys, right?”

I clenched my jaw. I was not going to respond. There had been too many instances at work where I’d seen someone try to call Tim on his disgusting comments and it had just ended with Tim mocking the other person until they walked away.

“I mean, Jesus, Saucy, you’d think a pair of good tits would get this guy in the mood for opening up.”

I was thinking of opening up Tim’s lip with my fist, but I turned my head towards the window.

“I gave him his chance.” Now the annoyance had faded from his voice and I could hear the anger. Shit. The last thing Nathan needed was an angry, vindictive guy like Tim out to get him. “So now we bring out the big guns. Hire a private detective. Ask his friends, his enemies. Get someone to say something about this guy—on the record—about what a tool he is. Get someone to dig up some dirt. We’ve got a lot to do, Saucy. Hope you brought enough pairs of panties.”

Thankfully we had pulled up to the hotel. I got out as soon as the car came to a stop, thankful for the broken seatbelt. I made a beeline for the lobby and for the elevator, hoping that the valet would slow Tim down enough for me to get out of there and up to my room. Unfortunately the little shit was fast when he wanted to be.

“Hey, wait up,” he puffed, running across the lobby. “We need to decide on a game plan.”

The elevator doors slid open.

“I have a headache,” I told him, not really a lie. The sight of him gave me a headache. “I need to go lie down.”

“On the rag?” Tim asked as he followed me into the elevator.

I prayed that we weren’t staying on the same floor.

“Yes,” I told him.

I relished the look on his face, which was, in a word, horrified. Not very comfortable with menstruation it looked like. Perfect. Now I had a way to keep him away from me.

“I’m just so grateful that you understand that I have to take the afternoon off,” I said, plastering a thankful smile across my face. “Besides, you don’t want me acting all crazy while you’re trying to interview people about Nathan, do you?”

He had slowly been backing away from me, his face growing paler and paler.

The doors dinged open at my floor. I noticed he didn’t move to exit. Either he wasn’t on this floor or I had terrified him so much that he wasn’t going to leave the elevator. I was satisfied with the work I had done either way.

“Thanks so much for understanding,” I told him, making sure to pat him on the shoulder.

I saw him look down at the place on his jacket where I had touched him, as if he was afraid I was bleeding from my hands and left some on the leather.

“Uh,” he managed.

“Byeeeeee!” I said brightly, stepping out of the elevator, waving cheerfully at him until it closed in his stunned face.

“Shithead,” I muttered to myself.

Ugh. Tim was going to be a nightmare. Not just for me, but for Nathan, especially if he managed to find any inkling of wrongdoing. Tim had ended careers. He did it with glee. Whatever got him attention and acclaim. He didn’t care about anyone but himself.

For a moment I thought about calling Nathan, trying to warn him, but I had tried to tell him last night what was coming and he had called me a liar. Told me I had been playing him. The thought that he believed that made my heart ache, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I wasn’t going to help Tim, of course, but there wasn’t much more that I could do. Especially if Nathan wasn’t speaking to me.

I really did have a headache now and a bath combined with a mini-bar sized bottle of tequila I couldn’t really afford sounded like the best way to deal with my presently terrible situation.

But the minute the door closed behind me, I was suddenly too exhausted to do anything but face-plant on my bed. I just wanted this assignment to be over. To go home—even though I didn’t really have that anymore—and forget about Austin, about the Longhorns, and especially about a too-attractive, too-nice, too-fucking-sexy guy named Nathan Ryder. I especially wanted to forget what a good kisser he was.

Then there came a quiet, almost tentative knock at the door.

I lifted my head from the pillow I had burrowed into, not sure if I had actually heard it or if I was starting to go crazy, hearing knocking sounds in my head. With my luck, a descent into madness was certainly not unexpected at this point. It would be pretty par for the course, in fact.

But no, the knock came again, a little more assured this time.

I pushed off the bed, shoved my ponytail over my shoulder and went to answer it.

Even though I doubted it was Tim, who was probably hiding in his room weeping at the thought of the body of a woman he had sexually harassed on numerous occasions doing things that a woman’s body actual did, and was probably the kind of guy who pounded on a door the way he fucked—loudly and without any rhyme, I still braced myself for the possibility of finding him on the other side.

Instead, when I peered through the peephole, I found Nathan, looking extra adorable through the fisheye glass. He had his hands behind him and was rocking back and forth on his heels as if he was nervous. It looked as if he had something behind his back.

I opened the door, but not all the way. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control myself if I let him in.

“Hi,” I said.

His face did that happy-to-see-you thing that made him look utterly boyish and irresistible.

“Hi.”

We just stared at each other for a moment. I couldn’t understand what he was doing here. Didn’t he hate me? Because he didn’t seem to be looking at me like he hated me.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

I nodded and stepped aside to let him in. At least this time the room was clean and I wasn’t wearing a too-short robe. Not that I felt any less vulnerable this time around.

He stopped in the doorway and seemed to be looking around for something.

“So,” he began, and I realized that was carrying something. “I got you this.” He held it out.

It was a suitcase. A really, really nice suitcase. A suitcase that probably cost more than the suit and heels I was wearing and it was my nicest suit and most expensive shoes.

“You didn’t need to do that,” I told him, my heart doing a stupid flip-flop in my chest. No, no, no, no, no. This was not good. He was being so nice and the last thing I needed right now was a nice guy that I couldn’t have.

I stood there, not wanting to take the suitcase from him. Even though we had made the bet, even though he had promised to get me one, I didn’t know if I should take it. Things were different now. Weren’t they?

“I promised, didn’t I?”

The hand holding it out didn’t waver and I realized he’d probably stand there as long as it took and he was in pretty good shape so he could probably stand there a long time and as much as I liked looking at him, especially when he was holding something and the muscles in his arm were tensing in the most attractive manner, it really would be rude not to take the suitcase.

So I did.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Couldn’t have you going back to Houston with duct tape around your bag, now could I?” he asked.

“I didn’t think you’d care how I got back to Houston.” I put the suitcase down next to my old, crappy one which was most certainly going in the trash.

He winced. “About that—”

I held up my hand. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” he insisted. “I should have trusted you.”

“Why would you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level. “You don’t know me.”

“That’s not true.” He took a step towards me. “I do know you. At least, I know enough to realize that everything I said to you last night was wrong. That I was wrong.”

There it was again. An apology. A genuine one. I could get used to this kind of thing. Dammit, I thought. I was NOT supposed to be getting used to this kind of thing.

“You tried to warn me and I took it the wrong way,” Nathan said, reaching out and taking my hands. I didn’t want to melt, but I did. He just felt so good, just the smallest touch made me feel safe and comfortable. I realized how much better I felt just having him there. It made some of the terribleness of the day disappear.

But not all of it.

“Tim,” I said. “He’s—”

“He told me you were his assistant.”

I let out a deep sigh. “Of course he did.” That was typical Tim behavior. There was a reason he rarely worked with anyone else—I was actually a little surprised he had agreed to take on this assignment. Cleaning up after people wasn’t really his scene. Something else must be going on.

And by the expression on Nathan’s face, it looked like he had an idea of what it was.

“It’s usually best to ignore him,” I said. “He’s a blowhard.”

“He’s a disgusting pig.” Nathan’s expression was stormy. “And he said he’s trying to get you fired.”

“What?” I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I had the feeling that Tim wanted me out, I mean, he made it fairly obvious, but he must be feeling pretty confident about his ability to do so if he was telling strangers his plans. Unless he was just a total moron. But while Tim was an idiot in most things, he took his job pretty seriously and I didn’t think he would do anything to risk his own career. He must have an angle.

“He said he was going to take credit for the article. That he was going to use the work you did—grunt work, he called it—and build something worthwhile out of it.” Nathan’s jaw was clenched. “His words, not mine.”

I felt dizzy. I knew that Tim was going to treat me that way, but the fact that he was telling other people those things made me feel so terribly small. I had worked so hard to get where I was, now it seemed like it was getting torn away from me.

“He says they just hired you because they wanted more women on staff. He called you eye candy.” Nathan was talking through gritted teeth.

“All ass, no aspiration,” I muttered. That was Tim’s favorite way to describe the women at the Register, though he made sure to do it around people who wouldn’t report him to HR.

I took a deep breath, feeling tears tickle my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, but I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep it in. What hadn’t gone wrong in the past few days? Lost my boyfriend, lost my apartment, and now I was going to lose my job.

“Hey.” Nathan gave my hands a supportive squeeze. “You’re not going to get fired.”

How do you know that? I wanted to say. Nathan didn’t know anything about how my job worked or how much I had screwed up this assignment. Honestly, I probably deserved to be fired, especially if Tim could get a great article out of this when I couldn’t.

Nathan put a hand beneath my chin. “Listen to me. He’s a jerk and you’re a great journalist.”

“Ha,” I said, hearing the thickness in my voice.

“What are you doing now?” Nathan asked, catching me off guard with the question.

“Uh, I don’t know. Taking a bath and drinking myself to sleep?” I said bluntly. No point in lying when I was clearly falling apart in front of him.

“What if I told you I could make your day a thousand times better and you wouldn’t have to do a thing?”

Are you going to take off your clothes and feed me chocolate? I thought. Because that would make me feel great in no time.

Thankfully Nathan didn’t wait for an answer. He flashed me a huge smile and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Put on jeans and T-shirt and meet me downstairs in ten minutes. You won’t regret it.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“An animal shelter?” If I had even attempted to make any guesses to our final location, an animal shelter would have never even occurred to me.

“You’re not afraid of animals, are you?” he asked, coming around to get the door for me. Clearly one of the baseball coaches was teaching those boys some manners. Or maybe it was just Chris and Nathan. Either way, I was more than appreciative of the gesture.

“No,” I told him. “Haven’t had much experience with them, but I’m not afraid.”

“That’s for sure,” he said with a wink. He was being so nice to me. He hadn’t even commented when I came downstairs ten minutes after the ten minutes he had allotted, in jeans and a T-shirt and my tear-stained face scrubbed clean. It was the last thing I needed in terms of my growing attraction to him, but totally necessary in terms of how my day had gone so far.

I paused before we got to the shelter door.

“This isn’t some sort of doggy death row, is it?” The last thing I needed was to see some sad-eyed pooch that needed to be rescued or else he’d be put down. My heart was already feeling tender as it was.

“It’s a no-kill shelter,” Nathan assured me. “No death row here.”

The lobby of the shelter was clean and bright, pictures of happy-looking animals on posters adorning the walls. When I thought of animal shelters, the first thing that always came to mind was the one from Lady and the Tramp—a sad, dark place full of abandoned, downtrodden animals.

Nathan thanked the woman at the desk and came over, two visitor badges in his hand.

“Here you go,” he said.

We put them on and I followed him through a heavy metal door, also decorated with a poster. It read: “Who Rescued Who?” and had a picture of a little boy holding a puppy. It was stupid cute.

“Do you come here every month?” I asked Nathan as he led us down a hall. I kept waiting to hear the whimpering and whining of animals in need, but the place was pretty quiet and calm.

“Every week,” he told me. “It’s how I relax.”

I was about to ask him how spending time with sad, lonely animals helped him relax when we came to another door.

“Ready?” he asked and I nodded, not knowing what to expect.

Nathan rapped his knuckles on the door and I heard the patter of feet on the other side. Definitely not animal feet. Human. Then came the buzz of whispers and one authoritative voice that said:

“Hands up, mouth shut!”

The buzzing stopped and I heard something like a gate open and close and then finally the door opened.

A pretty young woman poked her head out of the room, her face breaking into a smile at the sight of Nathan. There came that annoying stab of jealousy. She looked a little older than I was, but I remember Nathan telling me that very first night we met that he preferred older women. And this “older” woman was very attractive, with a charming heart-shaped face, smooth brown skin and shiny jet black hair.

“Nathan!” she said, opening the door wide. Behind her I could see a small holding area, and beyond that a room where a bunch of elementary-aged kids were gathered, looking at us with wide, excited eyes. “We were wondering if you were going to skip today.”

“You know I would never miss this,” Nathan said.

“Well, it is a few days before an important game,” the woman said, stepping aside to let us through the door.

“Exactly,” Nathan said. “No better way to prepare.” Once we were all in the holding area, the door shut behind us, he gave the woman a hug and kiss on the cheek. Stop it, I told the jealousy monster growling in my stomach. You said no, remember. Over and over, you said no.

“Yvette,” Nathan said, turning to us. “This is Sophie. She’s going to help out today.”

“So nice to meet you,” Yvette said, holding out her hand. “Nathan always brings us the best volunteers.”

“Does he?” I asked, casting a sideways glance at him. He just shrugged.

“Come on,” Yvette said, leading up towards the gate where the kids were gathered. “Let me introduce you to the kids.”

“And what exactly have we volunteered for?” I asked under my breath as Nathan and I followed.

“You’ll see,” he said with a grin. “But I guarantee you won’t regret it.”

He was right. Because on the other side of the gate wasn’t just two dozen charming elementary school students, but an entire room filled with adorable, roaming kittens.

I noticed that most of the children had picture books in their hands. When I asked Yvette about it, she smiled and explained.

“The kids come and read to the cats,” she told me. “It allows them to practice their reading, and it gets the cats used to being around humans, which makes it easier to find them homes. It’s a win-win situation.”

“An adorable win-win situation,” I said and she smiled in agreement.

“Would you like to sit with one of our students?” she asked. “Sometimes they need help sounding out words. That’s what Nathan does when he volunteers with us.”

Sure enough, Nathan was seated on the floor next to a pigtailed youngster who was reading Shel Silverstein to a rapt audience of tabby kittens, who each took turns crawling across Nathan’s lap. My heart melted into a puddle of goo.

There was a tug on my shirt and I looked down to find a towheaded little boy with a copy of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

“I need help with some of the words,” he said and my goo-puddle heart melted even more.

“Of course,” I said and followed him to one of the seats under the window. The whole room was painted in bright colors with ledges built into the walls. Above us were open rafters and there were cats and kittens everywhere, some perched above, some peering out of little cubbyholes, while most seemed to be patrolling the situation on the ground, occasionally weaving through little legs or curling up on little laps. The minute I sat down with my reading partner, a beautiful Siamese came strolling up to us, purring wildly.

Like I told Nathan, I hadn’t had much experience with pets—there had always been some feral cats around our apartment complex, but they weren’t friendly and definitely had no interest in children. These cats, on the other hand, seemed thrilled to be around all of us. The Siamese wasted no time in leaping into my lap and settling down for a nap while my young friend read out loud to him, only needing help with two words.

Sitting there, I was filled with the kind of calm and peace I hadn’t felt in a long time and I understood exactly why Nathan came here. Nothing outside this room mattered at the moment. It was amazing how I was doing so little, really just sitting there, and yet, it made such a difference to both the kids and the pets.

Every so often, I would glance up and find Nathan looking over at me. It hadn’t taken long for him to get practically covered in sleeping kittens and the sight was obscenely adorable. My heart did that twisty thing that it seemed to be doing a lot now, but for once, I didn’t fight it. Yeah, I liked Nathan. I liked him a lot and today I was going to allow myself to feel that way, no matter how ill-advised it might be down the road.

When my reading pal, whose name was Jordon, went to retrieve another book, Yvette came over to sit next to me. The Siamese in my lap purred with pleasure as she reached over and gave it a scratch between the ears.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she told me. “We’re always short volunteers.”

“Really?” I asked. “This seems like something a lot of people would be interested in doing.”

“No one really knows about it,” she said. “The shelter is volunteer-run and it’s mostly retirees who aren’t really that savvy on social media. I do what I can, but I teach full-time and it takes a lot of energy wrangling these guys at the end of a day of teaching.”

This close, I could see that there were dark circles under her eyes, though they didn’t take away from her beauty in any way. I felt that twinge of jealousy again, but mostly because I couldn’t imagine being so altruistic. Though, if giving back to the community meant hanging out here for a few hours a week, I couldn’t imagine why more people wouldn’t be interested. The wheels in my head started turning.

“How did Nathan get involved?” I asked Yvette.

“One of the assistant coaches is my husband,” she said and that other, unpleasant jealous feeling I had had about Yvette and Nathan immediately vanished. “A lot of the guys come and volunteer,” she told me. “But it gets a little harder around game time. Nathan is the only one who is consistent. We’re really going to miss him when the majors take him.” A small frown appeared on her face.

“What is it?”

“Oh.” she looked around and lowered her voice. “There’s been some talk about shutting this program down.”

“Why?” I couldn’t imagine who would object to something that seemed to serve a community so well.

“No one wants to pay for it,” she said. “All the other local shelters are state-run, but that means they have to euthanize pets when they run out of space. We’re a non-profit, but we can’t do much without donations. And things haven’t been great lately.”

But Yvette smiled in Nathan’s direction. “He’s been a great help, though. Donates a lot every month, but he can’t support us forever. It’s not fair, either.”

If only other people in the community were as dedicated as he was, I thought, following her gaze. Or maybe the problem wasn’t that people weren’t interested. Like Yvette said, the volunteers weren’t great at social media. Maybe no one knew this place even existed.

Across the room, Nathan was totally engrossed in the book he was reading with the pigtailed girl, who was now sitting in his lap, with two tiny kittens in her own. I imagined it as the main image for the article, only now the article wasn’t about Nathan. It was about the shelter.