Loving Him Off the Field (Santa Fe Bobcats #2)(28)

“And where do you fall?”

“I’m more toward the beer-and-companionship side.” He stretched and laid his long arm across the back of her chair, forearm brushing her neck. It wasn’t a move, she knew. The sitting area was just too small for comfort. They were bound to touch. Which of course, didn’t explain why the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and said yes, please, more of that. “I do like the social aspect. It’s why I started in the first place. It was something to do that would force me to not be thinking about work all the time. But then . . .” She held up her hands, let them fall back into her lap, and grinned. “It became about the game. My parents and I played a lot when I was a kid. Then they died, and I stopped.”

He was quiet for a moment. The sound of pins clattering and jovial conversation surrounded them, but in their tiny corner of the building, it was as if the world around them had been muffled. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. It’s been a while, but thanks. Anyway, I stopped playing for a bit, and got tied up in work and things. Then one day I was sitting around with nothing to do, feeling sorry for myself that my career wasn’t going the way I’d hoped, and I was looking at this photo of my parents and . . .” She shook her head. “This is a silly story.”

“Not silly. Keep going,” he encouraged easily, sounding sincere.

“Okay. Um . . .” She focused on picking the rhythm of the story back up, instead of staring into his eyes, watching her every motion. “I grabbed an old photo album, and started flipping through. And I kept coming up with pictures of us at a bowling alley, having so much fun we could hardly breathe. My dad used to have this gag,” she said, smiling at the memory, “where he’d pretend the ball was too heavy to pick up, so he’d move on to a lighter one, and it’d make him fly back because it was too light. Silly,” she added, knowing it was hard to explain. “You had to see it.”

“He was a funny guy? Your dad?”

“Hilarious. Which embarrassed me to no end in my sullen, black-humored teenage years, of course. Which is when we stopped bowling as much. They joined a league themselves—with Ernie, actually—but I just stopped. I regret it was my fault we didn’t keep going together.”

“I’m sure that’s not the only reason. Teenagers are busy. Your parents were probably busy with work, too.”

She liked him even more for trying to shield her feelings. “Maybe. But I’m guessing my attitude didn’t help. Anyway, so I kept remembering all the fun times we had while bowling, and before I knew it, I’d signed myself up for the local league. I found Ernie from my mom’s old contact book,” she said, pointing to the wiry old man. “He took me under his wing, brought me into the team. He’s a good friend.”

“Sounds like it.” Was it her imagination or did his fingertips brush down her shoulder? “So now you bowl in a league, and wear a shirt with your name on it.”

She glanced down at the neon blue and green polo shirt. “Our team colors. Carol picked.”

“Could be worse.”

“How?”

“They could be Green Bay colors,” he said with total honesty.

She laughed. Laughed and folded in on herself until she could barely breathe. “Oh. Oh, that was good. Nicely played.”

“Aileen!” Al waved at her. “You’re up.”

“Coming!” She patted his knee. “I’ll be back. Don’t move.”





Chapter Nine




He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. He was sporting a boner the size of Texas that would be obvious the moment he stood up. What kind of an * was he that the story about her dead parents had made him pop wood?

Of course, the story hadn’t really been so much about her parents as it had been about finding her joy again. That part, he liked. A lot. When she talked about looking through the photos, her face had been a soft happiness. When she spoke of her father’s bowling ball jokes, her eyes sparkled with laughter. And her self-deprecating humor about the ugly shirt she wore tucked into those jeans that cupped her ass had made him bite back a smile himself.

He wasn’t here to flirt, for Christ sake. He was here to annoy the hell out of her so she stopped hassling him for an interview.

She finished her frame—another strike—and walked back after a quick high five with the man she’d called Ernie. He reminded him a little of his own Mrs. Reynolds. Older, probably in his seventies, and clearly nuts over Aileen, in a paternal sort of way. He’d shot Killian a single look while Aileen had bowled her first frame that said I’m watching you, buddy.

Killian didn’t mind. The guy was watching out for her. As he now knew her parents were gone, he was glad she had someone stepping into the role.

She bounced back to sit. The crappy chairs made it impossible for them to not touch with every shift or slight change of position. “You came on a good night. I’m actually not half-bad.”

“Two strikes out of two? What’s your half-bad look like?”

She laughed. “Not that. Sometimes I’m in the game, sometimes I’m worse than a toddler who needs the inflatable bumpers put in her lane. Just depends on how things are going, I guess.”

Something annoying, something annoying, something annoying . . . “Why journalism?”