Chapter 2

[Vee]

"I just need a minute," I state, pointing to the bathroom while Ross helps himself to the coaster covered glasses on the dresser. With my back to him, I rustle through my suitcase, conscious that I'm standing in a hotel room with Ross Davis sans underwear.

"Need help with your dress?"

I freeze with a clean pair of comfy underwear and folded jeans at my chest.

"Uh . . ." I turn to face him.

Ross stands with both hands raised in the air, emphasizing his innocence. "I just noticed the zipper is only partially undone and thought . . ."

He isn't wrong. I do need help. "I was trying to do the contortionist thing." I lift one arm, showing him how I bend it over my shoulder, attempting to unzip my dress.

What the heck am I doing?

Lowering my arm, I clutch the clothing to my chest again. "Anyway, I'm not as flexible as I used to be."

Somehow that sounds as dirty as him asking if he can help with my dress. I clear my throat, and he inches closer. Unconsciously, I step back, and he lifts both his hands again.

"Just offering my services." There isn't a drop of seduction or innuendo in his rugged voice. He looks beat down, and he doesn't need the ridiculousness of me imagining he's making an advance.

Why would he do that? He's Ross Freakin' Davis. Hot manager of a major league baseball team who can get any woman he wants, and he has. According to the snippets I've seen online, his latest conquest is Chandler Bressler, a reality TV diva, roughly fifteen years younger than him.

We lock eyes a second before I slowly turn and give him my back .

"Thank you," I whisper over my shoulder as his fingers come to the zipper and he smoothly lowers it. I ignore the chill rippling down my spine and the tingle between my thighs. Don't even think about the pulse thrumming at my bare core.

Holding the front of my dress pressed to my chest along with my change of clothes, I head to the bathroom with the back of my bra exposed. I don't give Ross another glance. I couldn't stand to witness him turning away from me while I walk away from him.

Which is as bizarre a thought as this entire evening so far.

Once inside the bathroom again, I decide against slipping into my jeans.

He's casually dressed. I'll dress comfortably.

I put on my plaid flannel pajama shorts and a graphic T-shirt which I'd left hanging on the back of the bathroom door.

Stepping back into the main room, Ross has taken a seat on the edge of the king-sized bed. A glass of amber liquid awaits me on the nightstand between the bed and an over-stuffed chair with a matching ottoman. Picking up the container, I take a seat on the ottoman and face him.

"What should we drink to?"

"Not losing," he huffs, before lifting his glass without clinking against mine and draining it.

I sniff the alcohol in my glass and risk a sip. Instantly, I sputter on the sharpness and struggle with the burn scorching down my throat. Holy hellfire, it's been a long time since I've drank the strong stuff.

Glancing up, I catch Ross watching me.

Can there be anyone less impressive than me? I nearly peed myself, had a hot flash, panicked about plummeting, and now I'm gagging on alcohol while dressed like a college co-ed, age advanced by twenty-five years.

"I'm Ross Davis, by the way." He tilts his head. "But somehow I think you know that."

"I do," I admit but remind myself of a few things that tamp down the stalker-effect. He came to my door. He asked to enter said room.

"And you are?"

"Verona Huxley. My friends call me Vee." I smile, like we are old acquaintances when we are not.

Ross observes me as he takes another sip of his drink, eyes watching me over the rim of his glass. He starts at my bare toes, which I dig into the lush carpeting, and he travels up my exposed legs, lingering on my knees a second. Then his gaze leaps to my hair, before dropping to my chin, mouth, nose and eyes. His slow perusal is so intense. Not sexual, just focused. His gaze is almost tangible, sending goosebumps over my skin.

"Why do you look familiar?"

The question startles me, and I realize he isn't checking me out so much as trying to figure out who I am. If he knows me, how does he know me. But there is no way I am familiar to him.

"Maybe because we just shared ten minutes together in an elevator."

His thick strained chuckle sounds like sandpaper on wood. "Why does that sound dirty?"

I sit up straighter. Not a suggestive hint filled my voice. I wouldn't know how to seduce a man like him. While I've been on a slew of dates over the years, sexually enticing were two words I would not pair together to describe myself. Then again, neither were the men I'd swiped on.

"Let me have a look at your social media." Ross doesn't appear to have a phone and the command implies he wants mine.

"What?" I scoff. "Why?"

"I swear I know you."

"I'm certain you do not."

Ross Davis and I are not likely to round the same social circles nor have our paths crossed in any manner other than I'm a baseball fan and he was once a well-known player.

My phone is plugged into the base of the lamp on the opposite nightstand. Earlier, I'd left the dead device behind to charge when I met friends in the lobby bar. Ross sets down his drink and shifts on the bed, suddenly lunging across the wide berth of the mattress and extending his long arm for my phone.

"No," I canter, scampering after him, reaching for the back of his sweatshirt and missing. Instead, I catch the back of his leg using it for leverage to climb up on the bed and partially over his broad body as if I can get to my phone before him. His arms are longer. Once he has the device in his hands, he shifts, forcing me to fall to his side while he flops to his back and holds up my phone.

"Use your own phone," I argue, irritated by his intrusiveness.

"Nope. Coaching makes me a strategist. I always look for the straightest path forward. And right now, that's to open your apps, not search mine." He rolls his head to look at me. "Passcode?"

Is he serious? "So invasive," I mumble.

Our eyes meet. Blue to blue, we're a matching set, yet we couldn't be more opposite. Think book nerd and popular jock in high school.

"Fine." I grumble out the six-digit code, knowing he'll never remember it nor hold my phone in his hands again.

Once the device is unlocked, he easily finds my Instagram, scrolls through the images, and pinches his brow.

"You really like books." Curiosity fills his voice.

I reach for my phone, but he rolls to his left side, body-blocking me and forcing me to drape over him a second while he holds the device out of my grasp.

I hitch my shoulder. "I like books." The truth is more complicated than that, but he doesn't need to know my life's work.

Ross pauses to glance at me again, reading my tee.

Cool Girls Read Hot Books .

Without a comment, he turns back to my phone and continues to scroll. My heart hammers the longer he searches. Then he taps over to the reels and my stomach drops. There aren't many saved videos, but there's one I'd rather he didn't see. His roaming thumb stills, and he presses on the screen.

"Put Me in Coach" screeches into the room and gives away exactly what he's watching .

A thirty-second blip on the jumbotron at Anchor Field of a woman dancing. Arms raised. Hips swaying. Exaggerated movements which express enthusiasm and suggest one too many margaritas. There's no way Ross watched the screen during that game or recalls a video from years ago.

However, the video hit social media and went viral.

Ross quickly turns his head; eyes searching my face once again. "I knew you looked familiar."

"How would you remember thirty-seconds from eight years ago?"

Yep, that embarrassing moment captured on film and shared across the internet was me.

Wiggling. Jiggling. Shaking my then-thirty-something groove thing.

Slightly ashamed by the antics on the video, I tug the phone from his grasp and collapse on my back, holding the device so the screen faces me.

The video replays, splashing the image of me dancing in the bleachers of Anchor Field, rhythmically waving my arms and over-enthusiastically rocking my hips, when the girl beside me holds up a posterboard with a giant arrow pointed at me that read:

Hey-hey Ross Davis. Date our mom .

The video captures me turning toward my then teenage daughter and jumping up and down as she holds the poster beyond my reach. She's six inches taller than me.

"She was grounded for a month after that stunt," I mutter, knowing not only was the poster humiliating, but the timing was insensitive.

"How many children do you have?" His voice lowers.

My attention returns to him. "Two girls." Although I'm aware of his marital status and family dynamics I still ask, "You?"

He scoffs and hikes himself upright, scooting to the edge of the bed. "Two boys. But I bet you knew that, too."

I sit up as well, but don't move from the middle of the mattress. With his back to me, I hold my breath, assuming he's about to leave. To my shock, he pours himself another drink .

For some reason, the need to defend myself and my daughter arises although that video was innocent enough. "My girls love baseball, and they'd been pushing me to date, but I wasn't ready." I swallow around the lump in my throat, around a word still difficult to say after all this time, but one Ross might relate to as well.

"I'm a widow."

Ross shifts, lifting a bent knee to rest on the mattress while his other leg hangs off the side, foot braced on the floor. He eyes me suspiciously, but I'm quick to remind myself he asked to enter my room, not the other way around.

"Me too. Widower. But you probably know that about me, too."

"I only know what the media shared." Shame fills my tone. The confession feels intrusive and wrong. "Your boys are adorable." Your wife was, too .

"Show me your social media," I add, still a bit defensive. "It's going to tell me exactly what I'm spitting back at you."

Maybe I follow him, but that doesn't single me out as a stalker. The point of a public profile is to put yourself out there. Making your status or stature or sensitivities accessible.

"I also know you date Chandler Bressler." Where the heck is she tonight?

" Dated. We broke up." He lifts his glass and swallows the entire pour once again.

I'm not interested in watching him get drunk, nor do I intend to be a rebound for him. Safe in believing I wouldn't be, I'm still not willing to be part of his pity party.

Nevertheless, I say, "I'm sorry." They each have high profile lifestyles, albeit she's fifteen years younger than him. He's another forty-something man chasing after a much younger woman, and I wonder what the issue is. Sure, she's beautiful, and has youth on her side, but is he trying to reclaim a part of himself by being with her? The question leaves me a little disappointed .

"Don't you have other people waiting on you?" What is he doing here with me? "Other coaches? Players, maybe, whom you can drown your sorrows with?"

"Am I drowning?" He glances up, eyes flaring the brightest blue I've ever seen.

"You look like a man who can hardly tread water."

Silence falls between us before he huffs and reaches for the bottle.

I scoot forward and catch his forearm. "If you want to drink your night away, I can't stop you, but I don't think alcohol is the answer."

He glances at my slim, short fingers on his forearm. "Want to know a secret?"

I release his arm, and he watches my hand retreat.

"I needed that win."

"What do you mean?"

He sighs and sets down the empty glass, shifting to prop himself against the headboard. His head tips back. His eyes momentarily close. "They're going to fire me."

"The Flash?"

He doesn't look at me. "Failure to perform."

"How did you fail?"

His head pops forward, eyes flashing like lightning. "I just lost the fucking Series."

"Your team lost the Series, on a double play that couldn't have been predicted. Most plays can't. A bat hits a ball and there's a bit of hope and a large prayer it goes where you intend. But the object of the game is for the opponent to try and catch that ball. And tonight, someone did."

"He sure fucking did." Ross's sandpaper voice rises.

I don't flinch but my skin pebbles. He isn't frightening. He's sadly angry or angrily sad but, most of all, from the set of his shoulders and the cinch of his brows, he looks defeated. Plus, his eyes are stormy, his mouth tight.

"I'm sorry," he mutters, placing his hand on my forearm and absentmindedly rubbing up and down the hairs standing erect on my skin .

Twisting, he grabs the bottle on the stand, and one-handedly pours himself another sliver.

"Want to know a secret about me?" Leveling the playing field might ease some of the tension around him.

He finishes his pour but doesn't drink. He simply holds the glass in his hand. His eyes brighten a smidge. Intrigued. Possibly eager to know something about me.

"I'm an author." He doesn't need to know I'm currently struggling with writer's block. Or that I'm on a deadline that looms closer every day. Or that I haven't published in over six months.

He stares blankly at me which is exactly the reaction I expected. People don't know how to respond to such a declaration.

"What do you write?" he asks.

While again a typical response, Ross tips up his chin, his voice full of intrigue, and I'm thrown off by the genuine curiosity in his tone. His eyes are focused again on me, not glazing over as some people's do.

"I write romance." Here I brace myself for a detached huh and wait on the inevitable question of whether I write something similar to Fifty Shades of Grey , as if that book is the only example of romance on the market. God bless the author.

"Anything I've heard of?"

"Do you read romance?" I tilt my head. Color me purple if he does .

"No."

I laugh. "Then no. It would be nothing you've heard of."

He sets down his newest glass of alcohol, without taking a sip, and gazes at me. "Tell me more about what you write." With his legs stretched outward, he crosses his ankles and clasps his hands in his lap like he's settling in to listen.

I only told him this piece of me because he told me his secret. I anticipated that being the end of our truth sharing session, but Ross continues to surprise me. I can't get a read on this unpredictable man. And I'm not certain what details to share about my career.

"Come on. Tell me. Give me the ten-second explanation."

"Like an elevator pitch? "

He nods toward the hallway and a soft chuckle leaves his lips. "Is that what they call it? Feels appropriate."

I swallow before I begin. "Currently, I'm toying with writing about a woman who enjoys two men. At once."

Ross reaches for his glass again and gulps down the contents, then sets the empty container on the nightstand with a heavy thunk . "Is that what you want?"

" My character wants two men."

"At the same time?"

"Something like that."

"And you want two men to share you."

I clear my throat. " My character wants two men to love her."

"Love?" He scoffs. "You're not talking about love."

"Okay, maybe not," I defend. "Maybe she just wants pleasure. Maybe she wants to feel desired . . . by two men at the same time. Maybe she wants to feel so irresistible that she can't make a choice and doesn't have to. They both want her, and they are willing to share her."

"And that's what you write . . . because that's what you want." An accusation rests in his rugged tone, one almost patronizing and pitying.

I don't need his judgement. I didn't follow him to his room. I didn't invite him over to mine.

Plus, I only said I was toying with the idea, not actually certain I would write such a thing. Not that I'm against a polyamorous story, I'm just not convinced I could write it.

Regardless, Ross Davis might be pretty on the outside but maybe he's just as shallow, bitter, and judgmental as any other man voicing an opinion about what woman should or should not want. If I wanted two men at once, who is he to say different? And how dare he judge me when he doesn't know me. We aren't talking about me. We're talking about a fictional character. Maybe some women want two men at once, but in reality, I could hardly handle one when I had him.

"And what do you want in life, Ross?"

"I want to manage Chicago. "

His honesty stumps me. His answer doesn't compare to the judgment he was placing on me.

"Not that the Flash guys aren't great men and my coaching staff exceptional, but I want to go home."

Rawness exists in his wish. A yearning for something more.

"Then go home, Ross." My voice softens but it's also a command. He needs to leave my room. He needs to get on a plane, petition Chicago for a coaching position, or however that works, and do what makes him happy.

Frustrated and concerned, I exhale. "What are you even doing in my room?"

His eyes widen, meeting mine with a dullness I unfortunately recognize. A withering look of exhaustion. A hollow haze of loneliness. "I just want to talk."

My shoulders fall and I reach out for his hand, wrapping my fingers around the edge of his.

"Then talk."