6. Sinclaire

"You aren't, not really." Tension spirals across his face.

"Liar," I say, the accusation sliding out of me on a breathless whisper.

His eyebrows shoot up. "Just because I'm frustrated, doesn't make it your fault," he murmurs in that thick, careful way of his. "But if you want a reason, we could talk about you hiding from your dad, for one."

I wish I could tell him the real reason I did that. "He doesn't want me underfoot."

He shakes his head. "All season?"

Ooof. "I had my reasons."

"You gonna ever tell me what those were? Because your internship ended in September."

"You knew that?" I push up on my toes so I'm at least a little taller against the wall.

As he nods his head, his gaze searching my face, I catch a whiff of the game. Sweat and dirt and beneath all that, the very warm scent of Trick's skin. Unmistakably him.

My heart is pounding. Maybe it's the scent of hard-fought victory. Maybe it's the darkness. The team is ten feet away, though.

We aren't alone, and we'll be interrupted any minute.

So this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to imagine that Trick might actually want to be alone with me like this for reasons other than protecting me and giving me lectures.

Even if I secretly like his concern for me, I'd like more adult attention, too, and I'm never going to get it, so I won't feel bad for having a vibrant fantasy zinging around my head as he braces one arm above me and leans in even closer.

"You don't have to be nervous," he mutters.

"I'm not nervous."

"Then is my texting game that bad?"

"I—"

"Did it ever occur to you that I'm just a big dumb jock who gets tongue-tied?"

I blink, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I know he has social anxiety. But he's known me my whole life. When I was little, he used to let me hang out and watch him do an entire batting practice, and we'd talk the entire time. And there was that one time the whole team flew to his ranch in Wyoming to ride horses. He was so good with me.

"It used to be easier." He grunts. "Anyway. Get out of here. I have to go in there and say something."

I grab the front of his t-shirt and yank—hard, not that it moves him. "Listen to me, Trick Lowry. You're a legend on this team. You don't need to say anything. You can just go in there and point to them, one by one, and they'll know what you mean."

He rears back a little, his arm sliding up the wall, and his lower body sways against mine.

I shiver at the accidental brush of contact, and his free hand immediately covers my upper arm and squeezes.

"You're cold."

"Nope," I say, hearing myself from at a distance. "Maybe that's just how I react when I'm pinned against the wall."

Both of us go quiet.

"Not that I know," I add in a rush. "This is my first time. I'm not the kind of girl who ever gets pinned up against anything."

"Don't tell me things like that." He pushes off the wall, and the look on his face shocks me. He looks tortured.

I try to correct myself. "Not that I want to be. By anyone else, I mean. I like it when you?—"

"Jesus." He presses back into me, covering my lips with his fingertips.

I shudder at the unexpected contact. "It's okay," I mumble against his hand.

His shadowed expression is so hard to read, but the tension in his body isn't a mystery at all. His hand slides away from covering my mouth and slaps against the wall.

I press my hands flat to his chest and smooth my fingers over him the way he once taught me to do with the horses on his ranch. A lifetime ago. Like them, he's a giant, gentle beast. Like them, he needs to know I'm not afraid.

Unlike them, he's not going to let me climb up and go for a ride.

There are limits to the analogy, much to my disappointment.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

He frowns. "Go back to the hotel, Sinclaire. It's gonna be a long, messy night, and you shouldn't see any of it."

I cross my arms over my chest, as if I can hold in the complicated feelings that threaten to spill out. "I'm not a kid. You don't need to protect me from all of that."

"Trust me, I'm well aware that you're not a child. And I'm only trying to protect you from myself."

* * *

His words are still ringing in my ears when I get back to the hotel the team is staying at and find the room I'm supposed to be staying in full of people.

"We're having a party!" my roommates say happily.

Good for them.

I grab my bag and head for the door.

Downstairs at the front desk, I show my ID to the clerk. "My dad has a room here. He's the manager of the team that just won the World Series, and he's not going to be back for a while. Like, hours. And my roommates…" The whole story, minus the devastating crush that will never be reciprocated, spills out.

It's a pretty sad tale, if you ask me.

The clerk is unmoved. "You can wait for your dad in the lounge reserved for the team, but I can't give you a room key to a room that your name isn't on. Not without his permission."

Since I've been raised from birth to understand not to make a scene in public, I nod miserably and accept the instructions to where I can go.

Luckily the lounge is, in fact, quiet, and a good place to have a little cry over my tendency to be a stupid little girl.

Then I start digging through boxes, hoping to find some protein bars or something, because I haven't had dinner yet, and I'm famished.

I come across something even better—a binder left behind by one of the travel coordinators.

And in it is a spare set of room keys.

I flip through, looking for my dad's, but then I see Trick's card, and my fingers stop. I trace the letters of his name.

Who would be less annoyed with me for stealing into their room to order some room service? My father, or the man who stormed away from me after saying, Trust me, I'm well aware that you're not a child. And I'm only trying to protect you from myself.

Even if Trick is horrified to find me in his space, he'll keep it a secret.

And he said himself that the party will rage for hours. He's not going to know I was ever there.

All I need is some food, and a place to charge my phone. I don't need to wait for the team's plane to fly home tomorrow. I can book myself on the first flight out in the morning, and take a cab to the airport in the middle of the night.

Decision made, I head to the floor where the team is staying. It's two floors up from the room I was on. Trying not to look creepy, I slowly walk down the hallway, discreetly tapping the card against all the doors on my right hand side. I get all the way to the end of the hall without it working to open any of them, but the first door on the other side lights up green.

Bingo.

I push the door open and slip inside feeling every inch the little burglar that I am. It's cool and quiet, and it smells like Trick.

Not how he smelled tonight. No sweat, no dirt.

But the other Trick, the one who gets ready to head out to the ballpark. The scent that washed over me the first time he sat in on one of my days shadowing the stats team. His aftershave and his body wash.

I flick the lights on. The bed has been made, and his suitcase is neatly packed and set to the side. It's nothing like the chaos downstairs.

I shrug my bag off and cross to the phone. Ignoring the tremor of nerves, I dial room service and order a pizza and a slice of cheesecake as confidently as I can manage.

Then I flop onto Trick's bed and ignore how it smells like him, too. The third and most elusive version of the man I am desperately in love with, who I will never get to know. The naked version of Trick with warm, taut skin I want to kiss all over.

A very bad, very tempting idea forms in my mind, and I glance over at my bag. In it is his jersey, handed to me by the equipment manager on my way out of the stadium.

I'll never know what it's like to actually be naked, skin to skin, with Trick. But I can wrap myself in him just this once.

Nobody will ever know, I tell myself as I strip out of my clothes.

This is my little secret.