Time Out

since middle school.

But it was more than that. He couldn’t believe how much she’d come to mean to him. So damn much…

He pulled up to her place and stroked a strand of hair from her face. She let out a low purr of pleasure and stretched. “How come I always fall asleep in your truck?” she murmured.

“It’s a mystery.” But it wasn’t. Even he knew why. Because no matter how much sexual tension there was between them, there was still an ease, a very natural one.

He walked with her up the path to her town house. At the door, she cupped his face in her hands, and stroked his jaw gently. “I love what you did,” she told him. “Buying that land, getting plans drawn for the rec center. You’re helping so many people, Mark. You’re changing lives.” Her thumb ran over his bottom lip, making it tingle before she leaned in and brushed her mouth over his in a sweet, far too short kiss. “You’ve changed my life, too.”

He started to deny this but she stopped him. “You did,” she said very softly. “You don’t even realize how much. I’ve always let Mr. Wrong work for me because it gave me something to do-fix him. Which was merely a way to avoid the truth that I myself was the real fixer-upper.”

“Rainey, no. You’re perfect.”

“No, I’m not.” She ran her fingers over his lips, gently shushing him. “I’m flawed, and far from perfect. I pick men that aren’t right for me and then try to scare them off.”

“You’re not that scary.”

“Give me some time,” she quipped.

“I still won’t find you scary.”

“That’s because you’ll be gone,” she reminded him. “Back to your whirlwind life.”

“I get to Santa Rey occasionally.”

She smiled but there was something different in her gaze now, something sad. “Good night, Mark.”

“Rainey.” He couldn’t explain his sudden panic, but it was like he’d missed something. “Why do I feel like you really mean goodbye?”

“It used to be,” she said with a terrifying quietness, “that I’d take any scrap bit of affection from you I could get. That was the sixteen-year-old in me, the pathetic, loser sixteen-year-old who didn’t respect or love herself. I realize that it didn’t start out all that different this time either. I mean, I played a good game, but we both know my crush is still in painful existence.” She shook her head. “The bad news is that it’s grown even past that.” Again, she leaned in and brushed her lips to his, clinging for a minute. He could feel her tremor and tried to tighten his grip on her, but she wriggled loose, closing her eyes when he pressed his mouth to her forehead. “Tonight was amazing. I’ll never forget it. Or you.”

“Rainey-”

“I love you, Mark,” she whispered, and then slid out of his embrace and inside, leaving him standing there wondering what the fuck had just happened.

THE NEXT DAY dawned bright and sunny. Perfect game weather. The Santa Barbara rec center teams had arrived by bus. The girls played first. Rainey sat with Lena, watching from the sidelines as Mark coached the teens in a tight game. The stands were filled. The entire town had turned out, it seemed, and a good number of people had come from Santa Barbara too. The mood of the crowd was fun and boisterous.

In between plays, Rainey told Lena the whole story of the night before, leaving out a whole bunch of what had happened in the trailer, much to Lena’s annoyance.

“A real friend would give details,” Lena said. “Like size, stamina…”

“Hey. Can we focus on the real problem here?”

“Yeah, I’m not seeing the real problem,” Lena said. “Mark’s rescued you from crappy dates, pretty much single-handedly saved your job, and he’s been there whenever you’ve needed him, for whatever you’ve needed. What a complete ass, huh?”

“Look, I know he’s been there.” Always, no matter what she needed. “But he doesn’t want a relationship. Nothing changes that fact.”

Casey, James and Rick had been sitting with the boys but they came over and joined the two of them for a few minutes. “So what are we talking about?” Rick asked.

“Nothing,” Rainey said.

“How perfect Mark is for her,” Lena said.

“Aw,” Casey said, disappointed. “That’s not news.”

“If they’re so perfect for each other, then why does he look like shit?” James asked. “I don’t think he’s slept.”

“Mark never looks like hell,” Lena said reverently. “Unless you mean hot as hell.”

“Sitting right here,” Rick said to Lena.

Lena smiled and kissed him. “The hotness runs in the family.”

Rainey hadn’t slept either. She looked at Mark standing just outside the dugout, but if he was tired, hurting, unhappy, he gave no sign of it as he coached the girls through a three-run inning. At the break, he left the dugout and walked to the stands, ignoring everyone to stop in front of Rainey. He wore a pair of beat-up Nikes and a pair of threadbare jeans, soft and loose on his hips, still managing to define the best body she’d ever had the pleasure of tasting. His T-shirt was sweat-dampened and sticking to the hard muscles of his arms and chest. It’d been given to him by the girls, and was bedazzled and fabric painted with a big COACH on the front.

He should have looked ridiculous. Instead, with his expensive sunglasses and all the testosterone he wore like aftershave, he looked…

Perfect.

“Hey,” he said, sliding off his glasses, his gaze intense as it ran over her.

She became incredibly aware that the entire Santa Rey side of the stands had gone silent, trying to catch their conversation. “Hey.”

“I want to talk to you after the game,” he said. “You busy?”

She did her best to look cool in front of their avid audience and shook her head. “Nope. Not busy.”

“Good.” He strode back to the game, and she might or might not have been staring at his very fine ass when Lena nudged her in the side with her elbow.

“Do you think ‘talk’ is a euphemism for-”

Rainey stood up. “Going to the snack bar.”

IT WAS A time-out and Mark stood in the dugout talking to the girls.

Or rather, the girls were talking to him.

“We can tell you’re having a bad day, Coach,” Pepper said. “Did you get dumped?”

“This is a time-out,” he said. “We are going to discuss the game.”

“Aw. You did.” Pepper put her hand on his shoulder. “What’d you do? Because Rainey’s a really great person, you know? Probably if you just said you were sorry, she’d take you back.”

Mark shook his head. Never once in his entire professional career had he had a time-out like this one. In his world, his players lived and breathed for his words and never questioned him. “We’re in the dugout,” he said. “In the middle of a very important game.” The press was there, which had been Mark’s intention all along. But he found he could care less about the press. It was about these girls. “We’re talking about the game.”

“That’s not as much fun,” Kendra said. “I bet if you tell us what you screwed up, we could tell you how to fix it.”

“How do you know he screwed up?” Cindy asked.

“Please,” Sharee said. “Rainey wouldn’t have screwed up. She never screws anything up. She’s on top of things, always.”

Mark scrubbed his hands over his face. How the hell had this gotten so out of control? He couldn’t even wrangle in a handful of teenage girls.

Oh, who the hell was he kidding. He’d lost control weeks ago, his first day back in Santa Rey. They wanted to know what he’d screwed up, and he had no way to tell them that he’d screwed up a damn long time ago.

She loved him. She saw right through him and still loved his sorry ass. The words had slipped out of her mouth