A few seconds later, though, the shortstop strides over, and the hair on the back of my neck pricks up.
The effect this man has on me is so goddamn unfair. My future looks full of less hot tub and more ice bath.
“Guess we’re in the same tower, rookie,” he says, and something about the sexy rumble of his voice tells me everything in my life is about to be ten thousand times harder than I’d thought.
And no ice bath will do the trick.
Not when the way he says rookie lights me up all over.
“Welcome to the jungle,” I say as the elevator arrives.
He laughs lightly. “It is a jungle in here, isn’t it?”
I step into the elevator with Declan, and the doors close on us.
7
Declan
Things I’d like to know—why elevators shrink the second you enter them with a guy you’re hot for.
Can someone explain that law of physics?
Is it a variation on Newton’s Laws? The space between two people becomes immeasurably smaller when you want to get your hands on him?
Yeah, I bet that’s a rule of sexual gravity.
Also, Grant smells incredible. All clean and soapy still, even hours later, and that freshly showered smell is my favorite one on a man.
Especially when I can dirty him up.
Damn it.
Isn’t that exactly what I’m not supposed to think about?
I blame the elevator. This one feels like it’s two-feet wide, and all I want to do is push him into the corner, slide my hands down his chest and get my lips on his.
I clench my teeth.
Will the lust to evaporate.
I’ve got this. I know what I’m doing. And I sure as shit am not giving in to temptation. I know how to handle the hard stuff. I’ve been handling it for years, ever since I got my life in order in college. Ever since I decided how I wanted to live—in control, in charge.
This temptation of the rookie is nothing.
But a little help comes in handy now and then.
Drawing a deep breath as the elevator chugs past the first floor, I repeat the words I needed back in college. Words that Emma taught me when I was struggling to have the guts to speak in front of a crowd. Doors she opened for me through stanzas, verses, beats.
I start with Robert Frost.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep . . .
Poems helped me get over some of my fears.
They’ve given me strength. They’ve fed me.
This one gives me the courage to say something I don’t need to say, but I definitely want to say. Grant might admire me for my gameplay, but I admire the hell out of him for what he voiced tonight with one simple pronoun.
Sometimes when I go on a date, he pays for me. But sometimes I pay for him, depending on my mood.
I turn to the man next to me. “That took a lot of guts, what you said in the locker room.”
He meets my gaze, the expression in his dark blue eyes serious. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I’d rather tell my own story.”
There’s more there for sure. A conversation I’d love to have if we were at dinner. A deep dive I’d like to take. But I can’t, and I won’t.
“Couldn’t agree more,” I say, keeping it simple as I offer a fist for knocking in solidarity.
He knocks back.
But I can’t seem to stay away, so I toss out one question. “Spoken from experience?”
“Yeah. Before I was ready,” he says, his jaw tight. But then he rolls his shoulders, like he’s shrugging it off, or maybe just moving on.
“That sucks, man. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” I say, a pang of sympathy tugging on my heart for whatever he went through.
“That’s why I’d rather speak up. You know?” He looks to me, waits, a man-to-man moment. Wiseass Grant has left the elevator. Hell, he hasn’t been a wiseass this whole ride.
Solemnly, I nod. “I do. I absolutely do.”
He exhales deeply, the sound of relief. “What about you? Did you have to do a big song-and-dance show your rookie season too?”
With a straight face, I answer him. “I did. I chose tap for my routine.”
“Ah, so that was your pick in the talent portion of the coming out pageant?”
“Of course. What conveys it better than that?”
“Little else,” he says with a grin.
The elevator stops at my floor. As the doors open, I ask, “What floor are you on?”
“Sixth.”
I stick my arm between the doors to keep them open. This convo isn’t finished. “But in all seriousness, I wasn’t quite as smooth as you. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing.” The memory flashes clearly of awkward, unsure me. “I wrote it down. On a sheet of paper. Photocopied it.”
His eyes light up with interest. “Yeah? You were going to go the ‘letter to my teammates’ route?”
The elevator buzzes a complaint, signaling it doesn’t want to entertain this talk. The machine wants to send Grant upstairs, but fuck that. Some talks aren’t meant to remain unfinished.
I nod to the quiet hall. “Let’s let the elevator do its business. Walk with me, and I’ll tell you the rest.”
He steps out, and we head down the carpeted hallway. I swallow a little roughly, vividly remembering my first spring training four years ago. “I had this whole letter ready to go. I have a boyfriend, but even if I didn’t, don’t worry. I’m still me.”
“And did you share it with them?”
I shake my head. “No. I read it in front of the mirror. Like it was a poem I was practicing for lit class in college. And it sounded so stupid that I crumpled it up and threw it out. Anyway . . .” I heave a sigh and scrub a hand over my jaw. “It took me a while to figure out what to say. I’m not a . . . sharer.”
That’s the understatement of the year. Of my life.
“Not everyone is. Nothing wrong with that.”
“But it was dragging me down, an albatross hung around my neck. So finally, a couple weeks in, I just told the guys when we were playing video games.”
“And?”
A small smile tugs at my lips as I remember that night. “Chance said Cool, and we can talk about that if you want, but I’d really like to beat our roommates in Madden first.”
“And did you? Beat them?”
I chuckle as we near my room. “We did. Easier to focus after I got that off my chest. Then Chance asked me more questions. He was engaged then. He’s married now to Natasha, but he’s been a relationship guy for as long as I’ve known him. So, he was easy to talk to. Wanted to know if there was someone I was involved with. I said yes. Then he went all Sherlock Holmes and said, ‘that must be why you’re always talking on the phone at night.’”
“Were you?”
“Yeah. The guy I was seeing at the time was . . . chatty.”
“And you’re not?”
Laughing, I scratch my jaw. “I guess I’m chatty this second. But no, not usually. And I’m more of a texter, anyway.”
“And what about the rest of the team? Did you say something to them?”
“The next day, I said something at practice. It was not my finest moment.” I grimace. I’d worked like hell, learning to speak smoothly in front of a crowd, and I wish I’d handled that better. Less . . . chip-on-my-shoulder-y. “I said, ‘this doesn’t mean I’m checking you out in the locker room.’”