She shimmies her hips. “It’ll be more than a month, so I’ll pretty much be like a virgin again.”
I laugh, cup her cheek, and kiss her mouth. “I love you, Wild Woman.”
“I love you too, All-Star.”
Three hours later I’m at the airport, duffel checked. I walk to the gate where the team plane is parked.
Lily Whiting, the reporter from the Sports Network waits, press pass around her neck. She’s here to interview some of the team before we head to spring training.
Good. I’ve got something I need to say on camera. When Lily strides over to me and asks if I’m ready, I say yes.
Her camera guy mics me up, then Lily asks me a few questions about the upcoming season. As Chance and Grant wait a few feet away, arms crossed, watching intently, I tell her the things I want to work on, what the team needs to do to win, what I’m most looking forward to. Then I make good on my promise.
“And mostly what I’m looking forward to, Lily, is working with Chance Ashford and Grant Blackwood,” I say, gesturing to my teammates. “Have I mentioned that those guys are absolutely the most talented players in all of baseball? And so is Holden Kingsley of the San Francisco Dragons. They’re the best. They’re better than me,” I say, since those were the terms of the pact. The one that I broke. The one I’m damn glad I broke.
Lily gives me a curious stare. “Those are things you don’t hear very often from athletes about other players, especially their rivals.”
I meet the eyes of my friends, who are slack-jawed but clearly amused.
“True. But sometimes when you know the truth, you’ve just got to say it aloud. And they are the absolute best.” I grin, grateful to be giving this confession because of what it means. What I have because of it.
She turns to the camera. “And there you have it.”
I thank her and head onto the team plane with my guys. Grant claps me on the back as we walk down the Jetway. “So, we’re the best?”
Chance cuts in. “He said it. He must mean it.”
“Of course I mean it,” I say as we step into the galley.
Grant shoots me a skeptical look. “Or maybe you’re just madly in love.”
I toss a glance at my teammates, shrugging, smiling, owning it. “There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. I absolutely am.”
Soon the plane takes off. I glance at my feet and tense when I realize I forgot to pick out a pair of lucky socks for today. I’m wearing basic, ordinary dress socks with my suit pants.
But then I relax because that’s okay. Because socks don’t make the luck. You make your own by finding what you love and making sure you’re not too superstitious to let it get away.
I send a text to the woman I adore.
Crosby: Just so you know, I’m not crediting the corgi butts for the way I feel for you. It’s you. I am crazy in love with you. Also, your butt is cuter than any corgi’s.
Epilogue
Nadia
About A Month Later
Here’s the other issue I have with dating sites.
Nowhere do they mention that long-distance love affairs are worse than dental exams.
Okay, fine. There are a few benefits. The first time you have Skype sex is crazy hot.
And okay, the second, third, fourth, and fifth times are incendiary too. I have a family of little darlings and big darlings, and Crosby likes watching me use them all. Maybe I’m shameless, or maybe I just know what I like, but this show-and-tell does the trick for me along with his words as he urges me on, as he talks dirty to me and sends me over the bunny-hopping cliff.
Plus, in his hotel room on the other end of the camera, my boyfriend looks smoking hot when he takes his thick cock in his hand, slides his fist up and down, and gets himself all the way off, telling me the things he wants to do to me when he returns to San Francisco.
I haven’t visited him in Arizona. The timing hasn’t lined up. My work schedule prepping for the next season has been insane, but Matthew and I hired the GM we wanted, and Kim is doing a fantastic job.
One evening over a late dinner, my English friend and I toast to how we’re slowly but surely winning new fans before the season even starts, thanks in part to Kim’s masterful chess play with athletes and the deals she’s inked for a new rising star tight end and a fantastic defensive lineman, among others.
“Admit it, we’re brilliant for hiring her,” I say, lifting my wineglass.
“We are the most brilliant,” Matthew quips.
“And we’re going to deliver a Super Bowl win, and then just imagine—you won’t have to take wine-and-painting classes to meet new women,” I say, before taking a drink of the chardonnay. “They’ll fling themselves at the Hawks CEO.”
He cracks up, then sets down his glass of red, his expression suddenly serious. “Maybe I won’t have to wait till then to meet someone new.”
My eyes widen. “So, does that mean Phoebe’s history officially?” I knew it was ending, winding down every day, it seemed. But I hadn’t yet heard that his relationship was on the chopping block.
“Don’t look so happy. But yes. Earlier this week she said she’d had enough, but truth be told, I had too. She hated my job. She wanted me to quit.” He sounds matter-of-fact, but I know it’s not easy.
I narrow my eyes, huffing. “I’ll never let you go.”
“You better not. Because I don’t want to go.”
“Good. I’ll just have to make it my mission to find you a fantastic new woman in this city.”
“You really think I should start dating again?” He sounds skeptical.
