Loving Him Off the Field (Santa Fe Bobcats #2)(29)

She blinked. “Why journalism?”

He nodded. Get her talking. Make her feel uncomfortable. “Yeah. What is it about a profession that requires you to dig into other people’s lives that interests you so much?”

She turned back to watch her teammates bowl, as if dismissing the mocking insult. “It’s not just digging into people’s lives. I’m not a tabloid reporter rifling through people’s trash or using a zoom lens to get pictures through a bedroom window. I want to write about the athletes who do a job I admire and find entertaining.” She shrugged. “I guess like someone who was fascinated by politics, they’d want to cover DC life, you know?”

“But why journalism?”

“My parents were both journalists.” Her smile wasn’t sad this time, but sweet. “I always admired them. She was with newspapers, and dad did the photojournalism thing. I’d rather be in front of the camera, if I can. More impact, more of a rush. More spontaneous.”

Sounded like hell to him. But she’d invoked the dead parents again, which meant it was off limits, as far as he was concerned. “Other hobbies?”

“Nothing much. Reading, I guess, though some might say that’s as much for work as it is for pleasure. Bowling is kind of it.” She grinned and bumped his shoulder with hers. “You guys take up a lot of my time. In fact, I’m going with you this weekend to San Francisco.”

His heart stopped for just a moment, then picked back up again. “Any particular reason?”

“My boss gave the okay, and I didn’t want to lose any extra days interviewing you.” Her smile faded a little. “Problem? I’m not going to stalk you or anything. I’ll stay with the media. No knocking on your door at three in the morning,” she promised, holding up her hand like a Boy Scout.

For one insane moment, he had the urge to ask her to take that promise back. You can knock on my door any time of the night you want. He was insane. She could not go on this trip. Emma was bringing Charlie to watch him. He’d planned to spend most of his time off with his son. “How about instead of traveling, I just bump the days back a few, so you aren’t missing any?”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head, then held up a finger when Ernie called her up again. “I wanna see what life on the road is like for Killian Reeves. You promised access on the days that were mine. So I’m taking them.” She stood and hurried to get her ball out of the round thing that held them . . . whatever it was called.

Damn it. Damn it. Emma and Charlie had been planning to meet him in San Francisco for the weekend. Now he had to call Emma and tell her to not come over. And she was going to rip him a new one . . . rightly so. Which was to say nothing about the disappointment he’d see in Charlie’s face during their weekly FaceTime date later that night.

Fuck.

This little freckled reporter was screwing with his mind, and his life, in too many ways to count.

*

He dreaded picking up the phone. Almost talked himself out of it. Delay it another day. But the reminder that Charlie would be in bed soon, and Emma needed to know sooner rather than later about the change in plans, had him nutting up and making the FaceTime call on his iPhone to Emma right at eight on the dot. After a few seconds of ringing, Charlie’s face appeared.

“Daddy!”

“Hey, how’s my favorite son?”

“Only son!” Charlie said with a giggle. His cherubic smile, all cheeks, hid a lot of mischief. “I made a panda out of clay in art class.”

That damn panda. He couldn’t help smiling. “Some things never change. I made a panda when I was in school, too.”

“The teacher is burning them, and then we get to paint it tomorrow.”

Burning them? “You mean firing them? Like in a kiln?”

“Yeah, yeah. That. And I’m gonna make mine blue, like your jersey.” His eyes were wide with the hope his dad would be impressed.

Killian’s heart clenched in his chest. “Sounds like the best-looking panda I’ve ever heard of. Can’t wait to see it.”

“I’ll bring it this weekend!” Charlie bounced, and the screen bounced with him, making Killian close his eyes a moment or risk getting motion sick. “And Mom says we can walk around and do stuffs in San Francisquo!”

“San Francisco,” he corrected automatically. “Bud, can I talk to your mom a minute? I’ll say goodnight when we’re through, ’kay?”

“Okay.” Not sensing the brewing trouble, he happily called for his mom, then handed her the phone with a quick, “Dad wants you,” before racing off to do who knew what.

Emma’s face appeared, looking tired but happy. “Hey, you. Good timing, he was seconds away from putting on his pajamas. You’ve delayed bedtime for a few minutes.”

He grimaced. “Sorry.”

“No problem.” Her easygoing nature made him send up another prayer to the gods she’d made the co-parenting thing so easy. “He’s thrilled about seeing you this weekend.”

“Yeah, about that.” He closed his eyes a moment, savoring the last few seconds of peace. “You guys can’t come.”

The silence was thick, and he lifted his eyelids to see Emma looking over the phone, staring off into the distance. Her voice was hollow when she asked, “Why?”