Chapter 3

Trevor

I have lost my mind.

All I meant to do was apologize for being a dick, and now, I'm trapped in a car with Meg, who brought gummy bears, while I cruise all over Copper Valley looking for a Christmas tree farm that's open until midnight.

"We're in a damn city," I mutter as we pass one more closed lot. "How are they going to sell the crappy trees to drunk people leaving the bars if they're not open?"

Meg shakes the bag of gummy bears in my direction.

I grab a handful and toss them all back.

No idea how she knew I loved them, or why she had a bulk-size bag hidden in her room, but I'm slowly finding my happy place and feeling more like myself. My old self.

The self who liked his life and himself and knew he made a difference on his team and for his teammates, and who believed he'd find his place again when his baseball career was over.

The self I liked to be.

I can feel him in there.

Even with all the annoying Christmas lights all over the city.

"I really don't need a tree," she says.

The fuck she doesn't.

I might dislike Christmas for my own reasons, but she loves it and she's miserable because her family abandoned her this year. Not like I can ever avoid Christmas, and it honestly hurts me more to think of giving someone else a grumpy Christmas than it does to just deal. So she brings in a damn tree. Won't change my life that much.

It'll make her happy.

And unfortunately, I know exactly where there are likely to be Christmas trees this time of night.

Wordlessly, I point my car back toward the heart of Copper Valley and the fanciest hotels.

"If we have to do this, I could settle for a Christmas coat rack instead of a tree. Or a lamp post. Oh! I know! I want a Christmas stoplight. Steal me a Christmas stoplight, Trevor."

"Those things are heavy."

"Because you're old, I shall not make any comments about your physical abilities."

I growl.

She laughs. "Too easy."

"And now I see why Jude didn't want you living with him."

"Oooh, snap. Nice one. Even though I couldn't nanny for the quadzeuslets from Australia and you know it." She snags the bag of gummy bears before I can reach in for another handful and props them on her opposite knee, out of my reach. "What else do you have? C'mon. Zing me."

Nothing.

I have nothing, because I don't like being that asshole.

Usually, I avoid people when I feel my asshole showing.

"Aww, you can do it, Mr. Terrible Taste in Bathroom Wallpaper. Surely, you have some kind of insult you can fling at me."

"I don't have wallpaper in my bathrooms."

"Exactly."

She sounds extremely pleased with herself.

"At least I have more than one color in my wardrobe," I say.

She laughs. "Okay, Mr. Shades of Gray."

"I am not all—fuck."

She's right.

I have every shade of gray between white and black.

Even my Fireballs shirts are white, gray, or black with the logo stitched on as the only burst of color.

And she's not in her usual red tonight. And even when she wears a red shirt, she'll pair it with black or white pants, or she'll accentuate with gold or silver, and why do I know so much about her wardrobe when I feel like I've barely seen her since she moved in a few weeks ago?

Because you're only pretending you don't see her, and we're getting fucking tired of it, my dick answers for me.

"Shut up and give me more gummy bears," I order. I'm talking to Meg, but I might as well be talking to my dick too.

Meg's still laughing as she holds the bag where I can reach it. "I don't understand your fascination with gummy bears when MMs are clearly the superior candy."

I pull over. "That's it. Get out."

She cracks up again.

"Totally serious. Get out. This is it."

"Over MMs?"

"No. There's your tree."

I point.

She follows my finger, chokes on another laugh, and then just as abruptly stops. "Wait. You're serious."

"We're getting you a damn tree. That one's homeless now."

"That is not a tree."

"Meg, if there is one thing I know in my life, it's what a Christmas tree looks like when it's been tossed in a dumpster after a corporate party. That is a lonely, sad, pathetic, broken, used and discarded Christmas tree."

"Oh my god, you seriously know how to get me." She flings open the car door and hops out, still clad in those footie pajamas, though she's added house slippers to her feet. She leaves the gummy bears on her seat and walks straight to the dumpster where a live Christmas tree is poking over the top.

"Let me know when you're on the way home with it," I call through the open door. "I'll leave a space by my trash cans."

For a split second, she believes me. And Meg caught off-guard, spinning on her pajamaed feet with her hair all tied up, making that squeak of surprised protest?

It's beautiful.

And for the first time in what feels like forever, I sit in the driver's seat and crack myself up while she stares at me.

"Kidding," I call to her.

She doesn't answer.

Hell.

Did I push too far?

I rub my eyes, and then my cheeks, and I glance at her.

She's lit from behind by the lone light over the back door outside the fancy downtown hotel's staff exit, making her dark messy bun glow from behind and her white snowman pajama bodysuit look like a snowman ghost. My car's interior light is illuminating her just enough for me to see her biting her lip while she stares hard at me.

Are her eyes extra dark, or is that a trick of the night?

Trick, I decide.

She wants to jump us, my dick declares.

He's all in.

And reminding him that Meg is my best friend's little sister and completely off-limits—just as I've been doing for years—doesn't help.

You don't fling with your best friend's little sister. Date? Fine, if you're serious. Fling? No.

"I'm not leaving you here," I tell her. "It was a joke."

"I know."

"I thought you liked jokes."

"I thought—never mind. Are we getting this tree or what? Poor tree. It's so sad and lonely. It was promised such grand things, and now it's here in a dumpster."

I climb out of my car and circle it. "You thought what?"

She goes up on her tiptoes, grabs the garland-wrapped tree by the top, and tugs it with a grunt. "Oof. This one's heavy."

"You thought what?" I press.

I want to know.

I want to know what she thinks about me.

"I thought you didn't like jokes, okay? With me, I mean. You joke with Jude all the time. Anytime you were on TV in the bullpen, you were joking with your teammates. But you don't joke with me. And it's fine. You don't have to joke with me. I'm not one of the guys and you're always polite. You're just doing me a favor, and I know you have a lot of things to work through with your shoulder and all. I'm nothing. I get it. I just—it surprised me. Can we please get this tree?"

Now I'm staring at her. "You're not nothing."

"I know I'm not nothing. But I get that I'm nothing to you. And that's fine. Like I said. You caught me off-guard. It's fine. Thank you for taking me to a dumpster to get a tree. That's very kind."

I stare at her a minute longer while she tries to tug on the tree again.

I made her feel like she's nothing, and then I snarled at her for trying to find some normalcy in a year when Jude made it clear she'd be lonely at the holidays.

And stuck with me.

I just didn't realize how big she does the holidays.

Generally, I fake holiday cheer when my friends ask me to do something and I'm game for hanging out. Otherwise, I do my best to avoid people this time of year instead of infecting them with my irritation over the whole holiday period. Meg's caught in the crosshairs of my bad mood, and it's not her fault. I need to do better.

I nudge her out of the way, feeling soft curves and getting a whiff of her cookie-scented shampoo, but it's not irritating the way it was earlier.

It's hot, idiot, my dick says.

You're in time-out, or I'm making you watch gingerbread porn, I tell it.

Thank fuck, that works.

"You're too short to have leverage. Here." I reach with my left arm—my pitching arm—and my shoulder reminds me why I'm not supposed to do that yet.

"Trevor. Do not hurt yourself for a Christmas tree."

"I'm fine." I reach up with my right arm, and nope.

I don't have leverage either.

So instead, I put one knee forward and pat my thigh. "C'mon. I'll give you a boost so you can grab it."

She quirks a brow at me. "You're going to toss me into that dumpster, aren't you?"

"If I do, you'll just be swimming in discarded Christmas ornaments and fruitcake, and what's more holiday spirit than that?"

There's a pause, and then she busts out laughing, but quickly slaps her hand over her mouth. "Sorry. We should really be quiet, shouldn't we? Is dumpster diving legal?"

"It's trash, Meg. You can't steal what someone else threw away, because they've already given it away."

"I can't risk my job—oh. Wait. Right. Zeus and Joey would bail me out for this, wouldn't they?"

I snort. "They'd give you a raise."

She giggles.

And then she puts one hand on my shoulder, one foot on my thigh, and she boosts herself up, her breast brushing my face, and sweet baby reindeer, how have I managed to ever convince myself before today that I could look at Meg and not see a sexy, attractive, hot-as-fuck woman?

She wobbles.

I grab her hips, my thumbs right on her ass.

And then I start to sweat.

It's twenty-five degrees out here. Flurries suddenly swirl around us. I forgot my jacket.

And grabbing Meg's hips and ass is making me sweat.

"Oooh, this poor thing," she says. "It's missing half the branches on one side. Excellent choice, Trevor. I—ergh—approve."

She tugs.

I adjust my stance and grip her hips tighter. Her ass is right in my face, and good god, does she have a nice ass. Firm and round, like two glorious peaches that I want to?—

"Oh, it's stuck under another tree." She leans over and shuffles something inside the dumpster.

If I hold her any tighter, I'm gonna leave a mark.

She leans deeper in. "Just…a little…more…"

"Meg—"

"Almost—"

"Meg—" I'm losing my grip, and?—

A door bangs behind us. "Hey! What are you doing?" someone barks.

Meg shrieks.

And dives.

She fucking dives, slipping right out of my grip and going headfirst into the dumpster.