Текст книги "Game On"

Автор книги: Katie McCoy

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Chapter Fourteen

He took me to an arcade. It was noisy and crowded and almost a worse place than the bar to hold an interview. There was no way I’d be able to record anything in this din. I had a hard time disguising my disappointment.

“Trust me,” he said when we walked in.

I just stared at him, my heart sinking. I had gotten two more emails from my editor-in-chief asking for an update, making that a total of three emails I had ignored from him. I felt guilty, but before walking into the arcade, I had felt confident that I would be able to get something tonight that I could send them tomorrow. Now I wasn’t so sure.

If this had been a date, or a night out with friends, I would have been in heaven. There was something so comforting about the atmosphere around us, of kids feeding quarters into machines, all hoping to win the piles of prizes behind the counter—stuffed animals, MP3 players, and other things that were probably cheaper if they were straight-up bought in a store, but way less satisfying than if they were won at the arcade.

There had been an arcade next to my mom’s favorite bar, so I knew the environment well. It felt familiar. Safe. Quarters were something she could give me, so every time she wanted to have a night out, she’d give me a bag of quarters and send me to the arcade until it was closing time. For months I had my eye on a big pink stuffed unicorn. I didn’t have many toys and that stuffed animal seemed like the most magical, beautiful thing I had ever seen. The idea of owning it seemed impossible, but also within my reach if I worked hard enough. And that’s what I did. Every single time I went there I played to win the unicorn. While the other kids cashed in their tickets for smaller, more quickly satisfying trinkets, I kept my tickets in a bag underneath my bed. 1,000 tickets. That’s what the unicorn cost. It took me six months, but I got it. And it was still in my bedroom back in my mom’s apartment in Houston. She was allowed to get rid of anything else I owned, but she knew that she couldn’t touch that unicorn.

“Let’s make a bet,” Nathan said to me, shaking me out of my memories.

“A bet?”

“Yeah, a bet.” There was that wicked smile again. “If you win, you get something you want, and if I win…”

“I just want this interview to go well,” I interrupted before he could tell me what he wanted. I knew what he wanted. Because I wanted it too. And that was a bad idea.

“I already promised I’d be honest with you,” he said.

I gave him a dubious look and he held up his hands.

“OK, OK, I also promised a place that was better than the bar. But trust me, let’s spend an hour or so here and then go somewhere quieter. I’ll be much more relaxed.” He lifted his pinky. “Pinky swear.”

I hooked my pinky with his, hoping this swear was worth something to him.

“One hour,” I told him.

“Two,” he countered.

“One,” I stood firm.

“Fine,” he said, looking around at the machines. “Pick something you want to wager.”

“I already told you what I want.”

“You’ll get your interview. Something else.”

“I don’t want anything else,” I told him. Which was sort of true. I didn’t want anything that was possible in our current situation.

“Liar,” Nathan said, looking over his shoulder at me. “I saw your suitcase.”

“My suitcase?” For a moment I was confused.

“In your hotel room,” he explained. Oh, my stupid broken suitcase. I felt my face heat at the memory of it. Bet that someone like Nathan never had to worry about his suitcase completely breaking apart in the lobby of a fancy hotel. Bet he never had to worry about his suitcases at all. Just another reminder of what everyone else had and I didn’t. “Looks like you could use a replacement,” he said.

“And you’ll get me one?” I asked.

He wagged his finger at me. “If you win.” When I hesitated, he gave me a smile. “I’ll even let you pick the game.”

Clearly he had plans for this bet. Too bad he didn’t know that when it came to arcade games, I was not one to admit defeat. Too many of my nights had been spent among these brightly colored, bell-ringing games.

“And what do you want, Mr. Ryder?” Even though I was confident in my abilities, I needed to know what kind of bet I was getting myself into. Skee-ball was my game of choice, but I hadn’t played in years. Still, I was sure I would make a pretty decent opponent. But I didn’t want to make any promises I couldn’t keep.

“Hmm.” He placed a finger against his cheek. “Perhaps I just want a favor.”

“A favor?” My eyebrows went up. “What kind of favor?”

“One to be determined at a later time,” he said. Clearly he was confident he was going to win. I wasn’t surprised. Nathan Ryder didn’t strike me as someone who was used to losing.

I shook my head. “That sounds awfully vague. Not a fair trade at all.”

“I promise it won’t be more complicated than a replacement suitcase,” he told me.

I wasn’t sure I believed him, but the way he smiled at me made it hard to resist. Everything about him made him hard to resist. And I never backed down from a challenge. Especially one set in an arcade. Nathan didn’t realize it, but he had just made a very foolish bet.

“Deal,” I said, holding out my hand.

He smiled and took it. His fingers were warm and soft, not really what I expected from a ballplayer. There were calluses there, of course, but they felt well worn, not sharp and rough against my skin. I did my best not to imagine them on other parts of my body. We exchanged a firm shake.

“Pick your poison,” he said, gesturing towards the machines around us.

This time I was the one who smiled as I pointed towards the skee-ball machine.

***

I was used to taking my time with the game. Having been left in arcades for a good portion of my childhood, just me and a bag of quarters, kept me from rushing each turn. There was nothing worse than reaching the end of my bag and realizing that my mother would probably still be at the bar for another several hours. I had learned to stretch out my fun, which in the end, had made me better at the game.

“Two out of three?” Nathan asked as he filled my hands with quarters.

“Whatever you want,” I told him as we headed to the machine. I was eager to get my interview, but I was also looking forward to winning. Somewhere between the handshake and the quarter machine, I had already determined my victory. I had already begun thinking about the kind of suitcase I would make him buy me.

He raised his eyebrows at me, clearly picking up on my newfound confidence. “Would you prefer three out of five?”

“If that will make you feel more comfortable.” I gave him a cheeky smile.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “Kicking your butt is going to make me feel very, very comfortable.”

I just shrugged. Better to let your opponent psyche himself out. Focus on the game, Hall, I told myself as he began feeding quarters into the machine.

“Ladies first.” He stepped aside to let me go.

“Thank you.” I gave him a little bow and grabbed the first ball in the shoot. It had been a few years since I had played, but with my fingers wrapped around the wooden sphere, it was all coming back to me. I considered my options. I could start by playing badly, give him a false sense of security and then kick his butt just when he was starting to get sloppy with confidence, or I could just play the way I always played and win that way.

I tossed the ball lightly up and caught it. I always preferred to play my best. Especially when it came to skee-ball. So I took my shot.

Nathan let out a low whistle as the ball jumped smoothly into the twenty-point hoop.

“You’ve done this before,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” I glanced back at him. “I’ll be gentle.” I made another shot and watched thirty more points get added to my score. But when I reached for the next ball, he got there first. As he handed it to me, he caught my gaze.

“Who said I had any interest in you being gentle?” he asked, his voice low and sexy.

Feeling a blush rise in my cheeks, I turned away from him, flustered, my mind filling with all the non-gentle things I would and could do to him. In my haste and state of distraction, I neglected to aim and immediately found my ball bounce embarrassingly onto the board without scoring any points. I whirled to face him.

“That’s cheating,” I said. “Not fair!”

But he just shook his head at me. “All’s fair in bets and skee-ball,” he countered with a wicked grin.

***

He was going to regret making a bet with me in about three, two, one, I thought as I neatly sunk my last ball in the fifty-point pocket. Even if I hadn’t made it, I still would have crushed him, but there was something satisfying about making that difficult shot on my last turn. Especially since Nathan had done his best to distract me during the entire game.

I had to hand it to him. He was competitive but not a dick about it. I had known enough guys who, once they realized they were going to lose, started playing dirty. And Nathan had been playing dirty, but in a way I had a hard time having a problem with.

He hadn’t said much more after that first sexually charged comment; instead he focused his attention on distracting me in other ways. Each time it was my turn, he made the point of grabbing the ball first so he could hand it over, his fingers dragging against mine in a way that was anything but innocent. Each touch gave me a thrill, from the gentle brush of his hand against the small of my back, to the unnecessary, yet completely intoxicating bump of his shoulders against mine as he stood closer than he should as I made each shot. By the time I scored my last points, I was a bundle of tension, waiting for our next not-so-innocent interaction.

I looked back at him and he was staring, mouth open, eyes open, in astonishment. When he finally seemed to realize he had officially lost, he blinked and looked over at me.

“You’re a hustler!” he accused with a smile. He put his hands on his hips.

I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore how much I wanted those same hands on my hips. I could hardly breathe I wanted to touch him so much. “How can I be a hustler if you’re the one who suggested the bet?”

“You’re a really good hustler,” he retorted, looking back at the skee-ball machine as if he could figure out my secrets by staring at it.

“Well, it better be a really good suitcase.” I stepped back, putting some much-needed distance between us. I would also have welcomed a cold bucket of water at that moment. Everything about him was making me hot.

He, on the other hand, seemed completely calm. “Of course.”

I thought about the email I had gotten that morning from my editor with the request to send a first draft of an interview I still hadn’t done. That put a damper on my desires. Nothing like the fear of failing your first big assignment to keep your hormones in check.

“Besides,” I said. “You’re the one who claimed that everything’s fair in bets and skee-ball.”

He groaned. “I knew I was going to regret that.”

“Not my problem,” I told him, looking around the crowded arcade for a place we could talk. “And now,” I pointed to the food court which seemed to be the least populated area and was half-outdoors. “Now, I think it’s time for our interview.”

Chapter Fifteen

We sat down with our plastic trays piled high with arcade pizza, nachos, chili fries and beverages. A soda for me, a beer for him.

“Sure you don’t want your own?” Nathan asked, offering me the beer. The scent of it was enough to remind me of last night’s debacle and this morning’s pain and I quickly shook my head as a wave of nausea swept through me.

“No thanks.” I dug through my purse looking for my phone. When I found it, I placed it on the table with the recording app ready.

“Probably a good idea.” He was eyeing the phone like it was a spider. “I was barely able to defend myself last night.”

“Defend yourself? Against Nick?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Against you.”

“Me?” I sputtered, trying to think of big, broad Nathan Ryder needing to defend himself against anyone, let alone me. Though, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing him try. I imagined the two of us tangled together in a way that was anything but defensive.

“That’s right,” he said seriously. “I was scared for my life.”

I rolled my eyes. “Men.”

He put a hand on his chest as if I had wounded him. “You are a powerful force, Ms. Hall,” he told me. “Your little friend practically curled into a ball on the ground the moment you left.”

Shit. I had totally forgotten that I had left Nick and Nathan alone together after I had stalked off. I could only imagine what they had found to talk about.

As if he could tell what I was thinking, Nathan grinned.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We didn’t get into any male bonding after you left. He pretty much slunk back to the bar and I went home. Though I did feel like you let him off a little too easy.”

“Too easy?” I had been yelling at Nick about our crappy sex life in the middle of a sidewalk in Austin. I couldn’t imagine how I could have been more terrifying to a guy who, once he was off the stage, was usually startled by his own shadow.

“Any guy that leaves his girlfriend unsatisfied deserves a far worse punishment than you gave him,” Nathan said seriously.

My blush came on fast and intense. I wanted to put my head down on the table and just disappear. The last thing I wanted to do at this moment was discuss the sex I had, or more accurately hadn’t been having with my stupid ex-boyfriend. Then the rest of my drunken rant came back to me and I realized I hadn’t just been telling Nick how bad sex had been with him, but I had also screeched something about how I wish I had been having sex with Nathan. I think I had also said something about his cute butt.

Fuck me.

No. That was what kept getting me into trouble in the first place. Fuck no one, I corrected myself. Fuck no one, especially not me and especially not Nathan.

When I finally managed to compose myself, my cheeks still tingling from embarrassment, I glanced up to find Nathan looking at me with an expression of complete satisfaction. Jerk, I thought, but without any anger.

I cleared my throat and reached for my phone, but before I could start the recording app, Nathan’s hand closed over mine. His fingers were warm and soft.

“Good boyfriends don’t treat their girlfriends the way he treated you,” he said. “You deserve better.”

You deserve me, was what his expression seem to say, but those words went unspoken. I was grateful because I felt a strange rush of sadness. I hadn’t allowed myself to grieve the end of my relationship. Despite its flaws and its short length, there had been good things, and now I realized that I was on my own again. That I would be going back to Houston to a bed that I no longer shared. And that made me sad.

But this was not the time.

I cleared my throat and pushed away the embarrassing tickle of tears. Pulling my hand and phone out of Nathan’s grasp, I pasted a smile on my face.

“So, Nathan Ryder,” I said, pointing the speaker at him. “Tell me what you love about baseball.”

***

After an hour I started to worry. Nathan was funny and kind and a great person to talk to, but any time he started talking about anything personal, whether it was about his family and friends, he flashed me a smile and said: “But this is all off record.”

Off record I had a great human-interest piece. A story about Nathan and his three older sisters, a lawyer, a doctor, and fancy New York editor—how they put on family talent shows where Nathan did juggling tricks. Or a story about Nathan’s parents—both teachers who met when they were in high school. Or a story about Nathan’s first coach, who had noticed his natural talent and encouraged him to join a local team. Nathan was a good student, a good kid, and a good ballplayer. Only he didn’t want anyone to know about it. He didn’t want me to write anything that wasn’t already in the millions of profiles that had been written about him. I couldn’t say anything new. Even the poetry thing—which was adorable—was off the record.

I had been trying to construct an article around him for the past half hour but had barely come up with anything more than “Nathan Ryder was a stand-up kind of guy but I can’t really tell you why, just trust me.” It would be the kind of article that people would skim for some sort of big reveal or interesting tidbit and would come away disappointed when they found neither.

I leaned back in my wobbly plastic arcade chair, trying not to feel so depressed.

Even when I tried to ask questions that weren’t even about personal details, just preferences, he still managed to dodge them. I was starting to get really, really annoyed. Like he had sprayed me in the face with water again, if that had been an accident.

“Favorite dessert?” I thought that maybe if I tried working through a few innocuous questions, I could wiggle a few more personal ones past him, but he just raised his eyebrow at me, as if he could tell exactly what I was trying to do.

“Well, off the record,” he began, and I bit back a frustrated groan. There was a possibility I would dump my soda on him if he kept this up. “I love ice cream. The more chocolate, the better. And I usually don’t share.” He winked at me. “Unless someone asks very nicely.”

“Favorite holiday?”

“Off the record, it’s Thanksgiving. It’s cheesy, but I really enjoy spending time with my family. And stuffing. I really like stuffing.”

“It certainly doesn’t show,” I muttered. Nothing about his body said that this was a guy who enjoyed eating as much as he claimed to.

“Baseball is good exercise,” he said. “It’s all about control and strength. There’s nothing like being able to take a baseball and with the aid of a piece of wood, knock it up into the sky with everyone around you cheering. It’s kind of an amazing feeling.”

I was totally enthralled. This was the kind of Nathan people wanted to see. Someone intense, eloquent, and totally enamored with his sport. He loved baseball, that was clear, and at the end of his little speech, I loved it as well. But he seemed to realize he had exposed himself a little more than he intended because he then shot me a wicked grin. “And I have been known to enjoy working off those calories in other, more creative ways.”

Immediately my mind went to work imagining those various different ways. I swallowed hard, as several different images of how we could burn calories together popped into my head.

“So you have other interests outside of baseball?” I quickly tried to take back control of the interview.

“Of course,” he told me, his gaze now intense. “In fact, I bet I share quite a few of those interests with you.”

Goddamn it, he was good, I thought, my pulse thrumming in my throat. Get it together, Hall, you won skee-ball, you can win this interview. I shot him a smile and leaned forward slightly, hoping he’d catch a glimpse of my cleavage, which had previously been respectfully restrained. I wasn’t going to let him distract me. If anything, I was going to do the distracting. Maybe he’d forget all about his stupid “off-the-record” rule.

“Well, why don’t you tell which interests you’d like to share with me,” I offered, lowering my voice to a purr.

“Hmm.” He reached across the table where my hand lay and gently smoothed his fingers across the inside of my wrist. I shivered, despite myself. “Like I said, the right person could persuade me to share anything, whether it’s my favorite ice cream or,” he glanced down at my open blouse, “or my favorite shirt.” His eyes caught mine again. “I can be very, very generous when it comes to those kind of things.”

I found that I was speechless, my entire body humming with desire. Until he spoke again.

“But, of course, that’s all off the record.”

Fuck.

I yanked my hand away.

“Seriously?” I asked, feeling frustrated, in more ways than one. I needed an ice bath. “You’re not going to give me anything?”

“Told you,” he shrugged, at least having the decency to look a little sheepish. “I’m not newsworthy.”

“No, you’re an incredible pain in my ass,” I shot back bluntly. “And that’s on the record.”

“And off the record?” he wanted to know.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” I told him with a glare.

He looked down at the table now covered with paper plates that had practically been licked clean. I would have been embarrassed, but Nathan had gone at the cheap, greasy food with the same enthusiasm. Both our plastic cups were empty as well. He picked them up.

“Let’s refuel before we start on the next question.” Without waiting for a response, he took our drinks to the counter, leaving me alone at the table. It would have been a perfect time to think up a new line of questioning, but I found myself distracted by the perfectly delicious sight of Nathan in his well-worn jeans. I bit back a sigh as he leaned forward to grab the now-refilled drinks, giving me and the rest of the room a great look at his great ass. Too bad I couldn’t write my article on the perfection of his body, going into agonizing detail of the way the soft denim cupped his rear and clung to his muscular thighs.

I felt the heat rise again in my face as he turned, arms full of drinks, and caught me openly staring at him. His own smile grew, from the charming one he had shared at the table, to something slightly wicked.

He headed back to the table, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn he was putting a little more a lazy, languid roll to his hips with each step. Either way, I knew that it was going to take a whole lot of self-control to keep on topic once he returned to the table.

But I was nothing if not resilient. I was also just undersexed, I told myself. I was still upset about the break-up and looking for attention and attraction in all the wrong places. He was a baseball player, for god’s sakes, I told myself. He could have his pick of literally any woman. He was flirting so he wouldn’t have to answer questions. Because there had definitely been a few that he had quickly rejected.

“What about girls?” I asked when he sat back down at the table with our drinks.

The sexy grin flickered; he was clearly sensing that I was not fucking around anymore. No more Miss Nice Reporter, I thought. You brought out the bitch and she’s not leaving until she has her on-the-record details. “You don’t even give a guy a moment to settle down, do you?” he asked. I still needed that story and I was allowing myself to get distracted by his great ass and fantastic smile.

“It’s just getting late,” I said, pointing to the rest of the arcade which was half as full as it had been when we arrived. I hadn’t looked at my phone, but I was going to bet there were at least three more messages from my editor asking for a draft of the article and I still didn’t have anything of substance to put in it. I was going to have to prod a little more aggressively. “Girls,” I repeated, pushing my phone a little closer to him.

He frowned at it. “Are you asking for yourself or for the article?”

“For the article, of course,” I said, wishing that were the whole truth. I could sense that there was something there, but I did want to know why a guy like him seemed to be so interested in a girl like me. My lips and hair were nice but they weren’t nice enough to land a soon-to-be major league baseball player. Were they?

“Well.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Off the record, there’s no one.” He gave me a smug smile.

I glared at him. “I don’t know what the problem would be in telling people that you’re single.”

“Because that’s something that seems unnecessary for anyone to know except myself and a person I might be interested in.”

I did my best to ignore him. It was like skee-ball again, only instead of brushing against me, he was going to distract me with comments like that.

“What about high school,” I tried again. “Did you date in high school?”

“Can I ask you a question?” he asked abruptly.

“This isn’t about me,” I reminded him.

“It’s about baseball,” he told me, but there was a glimmer in his eye. Maybe if I gave him something, he’d give in return. An answer, of course, though I had the impression he’d give me anything else I might ask for. I shuddered.

“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Do you think I would make it in your fantasy draft?” he asked.

I was confused. What was he talking about?

“Mandy told me about the piece you did for that online magazine,” he clarified. “The one where you drafted all the historical players and reviewed the season. I read it the other night.”

My mouth dropped open. “You read the whole thing?” That had been an entire season’s worth of articles. Several hours’ worth of reading. Nick had gotten through half a paragraph.

“Stayed up late,” Nathan confessed. “Couldn’t stop reading it, actually.”

I felt myself blush, but for the first time with him, it wasn’t because he was making me feel all hot and bothered. I was truly touched by what he said.

“You really know your stuff,” he said.

“I’m just a nerd who likes baseball,” I told him and he grinned.

“And I’m just a nerd who likes to play it.”

We just stared at each other for a moment before Nathan cleared his throat. I looked away, feeling strangely emotional.

“Come on.” He abruptly rose from the table. “Let’s get out of here.”

Before I could say anything, he grabbed the trash from the table and tossed it in the garbage, took his beer, downed it, and headed out the door towards the parking lot.

Dammit, I thought to myself as I followed him. I had lost my chance to get something out of the interview.

But when I got outside, instead of spotting him halfway across the parking lot, waiting by his car, I found him completely distracted. By the batting cages. A guy and girl, clearly high school sweethearts, were in one of the cages together, the guy with his arms around the girl, showing her how to hold the bat.

“Ever tried one of these?” Nathan asked as I came to stand next to him.

I shook my head. Even though the arcade my mom had often left me in had a batting cage, I had never really given it a shot. It seemed a little scary, the whoosh and smack of a ball hurtling at uncomfortable speeds often towards your head. For the first time I realized how terrifying it must be to experience that in front of a stadium full of people, all of them hoping you’re going to hit the ball and win the game.

But the look on Nathan’s face was one of excitement, not fear. It was clear he absolutely loved all aspects of this game. He smiled fondly at the couple, still trying to get the girl’s stance correct, and I found myself with a stroke of genius.

“Nathan,” I said, coming around in front of him. “What would you say to making another bet?”