Game On(33)

I felt totally exposed in front of him. And not in the way I had imagined many, many times.

“I—” I said, just as he blurted out, “I just wanted to—”

There was a moment of silence and then, “You first—,” we both said.

We stared at each for a moment and then shared an embarrassed laugh. Some of the tension broke, but not all of it. I tugged at my robe, wrapping it tighter around me.

“Ladies first.” He gave me a smile.

I cleared my throat. “I wanted to apologize for last night.” I found myself staring at the end of the terry cloth belt that I was winding around my fingers. “It was incredibly unprofessional of me and I completely understand if you want to request another reporter do the interview. I also need to apologize for being a total jerk last night. Clearly my ex-boyfriend brings out the worst while beer brings up the peanuts,” I joked lamely, feeling so incredibly awful for how I had treated him.

I risked a glance up at him, but he was also looking downward, apparently at his feet. What did he have to be so embarrassed about?

“I wanted to apologize as well,” he said, finally looking up at me. “I was a real jerk to you last night.”

“I think that was pretty well covered by me,” I countered, pushing my wet hair back over my shoulder. He watched the movement, his gaze then following the line of my neck before dipping down towards the suddenly gaping neck of my robe. I pulled it closed and he jerked his eyes back up to my face, his cheeks even more red.

He coughed. “I shouldn’t have taken you to that bar.”

“You didn’t know that Nick would be there,” I told him, before furrowing my brows at him. “Right?”

He nodded. “But I still shouldn’t have taken you there. You were right. It wasn’t a place for an interview and I knew that.” He went back to staring at his feet. “This whole time you’ve just been trying to do your job and I’ve been a big baby about it.”

“You don’t like journalists.” I shrugged my shoulders, still waiting for the brush-off. “I understand that. Some people don’t like the spotlight.”

“It’s not just that,” he said. “I just don’t think I deserve it.”

I was surprised. Like, really, really surprised. He was an incredibly talented baseball star—usually that was the kind of person that lived for the spotlight. “Why would you think that?” I asked.

“I just think there are more important people out there. People who deserve attention. People who don’t get it.” He looked up at me sheepishly. “Besides, I am not newsworthy.”

“I think you should let me be the judge of that,” I told him, for a moment forgetting that he still hadn’t agreed to actually go through with the interview. But I sensed that there was potential here. “OK,” I leaned forward. “Why don’t I make a deal with you?”

“A deal?” he raised an eyebrow. “What kind of deal?”

“You give me one evening. One. I get my interview, all the standard questions, the whole usual thing. If I decide you’re not newsworthy, I’ll do the article on something else.” There was no way that the Register would agree to this, but there was also no way that Nathan wasn’t worth writing about. Nobody went from college ball straight to the major league.

“Something else?” he asked, looking intrigued. “Like what?”

I lifted a shoulder. “You seemed to think that there were things more interesting than you. I guess you’ll have to prove it to me.”

He smiled and my heart skipped a beat.

“Sounds like a challenge,” he said.

“Guess it is,” I responded. There was hope for this article yet.

“OK,” he stood and regarded me. “I’m guessing you’d like to do the interview tonight.”

“If you don’t mind.” I gave him a smile and stood as well, keeping a tight grip on my robe.

“Six?”

“Great,” I walked him to the door.

He gave me a half smile as he stepped into the hallway. “Guess it’s up to me to prove to you how boring I really am.”

“And I’m looking forward to seeing you try,” I teased as he turned to face me. We were still standing close together. Too close in fact. Or not close enough, I couldn’t really tell. All I knew was that if he leaned forward just a little bit, he would be able to kiss me. And I’d be able to kiss him back.

Nathan’s eyes dropped to my lips and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. For a moment I thought he was going to do it, finish what we had started in the frat house the other night.

But there was a clattering from down the hall and we both jumped apart as a cleaning lady rolled past us. Even though she kept her eyes discreetly down, I could tell she knew exactly what was going on.

Nathan cleared his throat. “I’ll see you at six,” he finally managed.

I nodded and waited until he had disappeared into the elevator before I closed the door.





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.