by Amy Noelle
“Nice place.”
“Thanks. Want a tour?”
I didn’t, really, but I’d always felt a home reflected its owner, so I agreed. He led me into a gourmet kitchen that I itched to mess up. The navy granite looked like it had never been used and the stainless steel appliances gleamed.
“Either you don’t use this kitchen or you have a hell of a cleaning service.”
Brad laughed, and I tensed as he moved up close behind me. “Both, actually. I tend to eat at the clubhouse or get takeout.”
I moved a step away and traced my fingers over the shiny countertop. “It’s a shame. This kitchen is fabulous.”
“So I’m told.” Oh yeah? By who? “This is the dining room, also mostly unused.” It was another museum-quality room, with a long, cherry wood table and chairs.
“Guest bathroom and bedroom.” They were nice, clean and manly, with dark woods and more dark granite.
“This is my room.” He stepped aside and I peeked in. I couldn’t tell the difference between his room and the guest room, though the bed was bigger. I tried not to think about why that was.
“Very nice. When did you learn to make the bed?” Damn it, why had that slipped out? It had been my one chore, since Brad had figured we were just going to mess it up again later that night. He’d been right about that.
He laughed and leaned closer. I backed into the doorjamb and he grinned down at me. “I always knew how, I just preferred to let you do it.” I huffed and pushed him aside, heading back to the living room and away from that big bed that I did not at all want to mess up with him.
The windows opened to an incredible view of the city that I stopped to admire. “It’s beautiful.”
“The view was why I took this place.” I turned and enjoyed my own view of his broad shoulders and form-fitting jeans. “That and the proximity to the stadium.”
“It’s a great place, but it doesn’t feel like you.”
“What do I feel like?”
Now there was a loaded question. And now he was laughing at me again. Dick. “You know what I mean. There are no family pictures, no trophies, nothing that says Brad Reynolds lives here. It could be anybody’s place.”
He stopped laughing, and it was like a shade came down over his face. “Maybe that’s the way I wanted it.”
“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“That’s what you’re here to find out, right? Shall we get started?”
Right. I wasn’t here to find the boy I’d lost. He was gone. I needed to remember that.
“Sure.” I sank into the fancy black chair that wasn’t remotely comfortable and wasn’t remotely him, but I didn’t say a word. He sat on the couch and looked as stiff and uncomfortable as I felt.
“So what do you want to talk about?” he asked as I rummaged through my bag and pulled out my recorder and notebook. I turned on the recorder and set it on the coffee table that didn’t even have a magazine on it.
“How about we start at the beginning? Tell me about growing up.” It felt weird to ask, since I knew a lot of his life story. Or at least I thought I did.
“How about we start in the middle, with college?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Of course he wasn’t going to make it easy on me. “Because that’s a stupid starting point and I’d rather learn something new.”
“Nothing to learn, really. I was born March fifth, 1986, to David and Abby Reynolds. Abby took off when I was still in diapers. David raised me. Here I am.”
His words were clipped and hard. “Brad, you do realize I’m here because you asked me to be, right? This wasn’t my idea. So suck it up or your story will be three paragraphs on my blog.”
“You have a blog?” He leaned forward and smiled. “What do you post there?”
I sighed. “Of course I do, but we’re not here to talk about me.”
“Aren’t we?”
His smile was challenging, but I ignored it. “No. If I was writing a book about myself, here is the last place I would be. Can we get back to you?”
“If you insist.” He waved his hand. “Ask away.”
“What’s your first baseball memory?”
He blinked a few times before sitting back. “I must have been about three. Alabama is a football state, but Dad always loved baseball the most, and he took me to some high school game. I remember we had to travel for a while to get there. He picked me up and carried me into the stands and we watched. There was this player, number fifteen. He stood out among the rest, and my dad told me he was the reason we came. It was Carlos Ramos.”
I knew that name. He’d pitched for a decade before a bad shoulder had sent him into retirement.
“He was awesome. In that game, he pitched a no-hitter and hit two homers and a double. As a three-year-old, I didn’t have much of an attention span, but for those few hours I was captivated. I guess that was the start of my own obsession.”
There was something beautiful in watching him talk about the game. There always had been. And right then he reminded me more of the boy I once knew than the man I read gossip articles about.
“Of course I already had a tiny glove, and a bat, and hats and jerseys, thanks to my dad. I’m pretty sure every picture of me from the time I was born until high school graduation had me in some sort of baseball gear.”
“I’d love to see those.” Maybe we could include some pictures in the book.
He looked sad for a moment before looking away. “I don’t know where they are.”
“Well, your dad probably has them.”
“My dad’s dead.” His voice was flat.
My heart dropped. Brad and his dad had always been close. Despite the immense pressure to perform, he’d loved his father, and Mr. Reynolds had adored him.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well, how in the hell would you?” He turned to face me and the anger I saw made me shrink back in my seat. “Forget it. He’s been gone a long time and everything’s been put into storage. It’s not important anyway.”
It was, but I could tell I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him right then. “Tell me about your first game.”
He shook his head and blew out a breath. “Little League or T-ball?”
“Whichever you like.”
“Well, T-ball was like you’d expect. I was four and my teammates were the same age. We ran the wrong way, hit the ball backward, and threw the ball away more often than getting it to the base. Typical stuff.” He sounded happier, which had been my goal.
“And Little League?”
He smiled again. “I was the best on my team.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t say that to be a jerk, it’s just the way it was. Dad and I spent hours at the batting cages and even more hours in the backyard playing catch. He’d hit me grounders that went all over the place and expect me to get the ball no matter where he hit it. He even built a pitcher’s mound. Most of the kids on my team had little to no experience, so I guess I stood out from the first day.”
“And you pitched?”
“Pitched, played third on games I didn’t pitch, and batted, of course.”
Some of these were things we’d already talked about, but I wanted his take again. “When did you give up pitching and decide strictly to play third base?”
“College. I could have continued to do both but it was time to focus, and pitching wasn’t my first love.” The way he looked at me made me nervous again. I shifted.
“But you were good enough to pitch on a major-league level?”
“So they said.” He shrugged again. “I wouldn’t have been the best pitcher in the league. Nowhere close.”
There it was. “So you have to be the best.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “I definitely like to be the best at all I do.”
I felt my cheeks heating in response to where his mind had clearly gone, straight to the gutter. Set myself up for that one. Idiot. “So you’re competitive.”
; “I like to win, be it in baseball, or pickup basketball, or board games.”
No shit. He totally cheated at Monopoly. “You’re a pain to play with.”
“I don’t think playing with me ever resulted in any pain for you, Dani. Pure pleasure, maybe.” He looked so damn proud of himself. He had good reason to be.
“I’d say you won every time, then. I was lucky if I scored at all.”
He leaned forward again and got right in my face. “That’s bullshit. Attempt to print anything of the kind and—”
“I have no intention of writing about your sex life, with me or without me.” Against my better judgment, I reached out and touched his shoulder to push him back. He didn’t budge.
He looked at me for several long seconds before he moved back to his spot on the couch. “Why not? Isn’t that part of the appeal? I was told they loved the idea of my ex writing about me.”
“Well, I mean, yeah, your romantic life is part of it, but I don’t think there need to be any details about . . .” Fuck, what did I say? “Certain things.”
His sense of humor restored, he laughed at me again. “Certain things? I don’t remember you having a problem discussing sex with me. Or having it with me, for that matter.”
I sighed and straightened in my chair. He was being difficult on purpose. “That was another time and another place.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll have to pick up this discussion another time and place.” He glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting with my agent. What time shall I pick you up tonight?”
No, tonight I was going to call Bec and yell at her for getting me into this mess. “For what?”
“There’s a charity dinner for the American Cancer Society. I’m a donor and I need to be there.”
“And I need to be there because?”
“Because that’s part of my story, isn’t it? What I spend my time and money on? If that doesn’t hook you, Pam will be there.” He grinned.
My mouth hung open. “Pam as in Pamela Baxter?” Blond, beautiful, award-winning actress Pamela Baxter? Constant arm candy for one Bradley Reynolds?
“The one and only. She’s looking forward to meeting you. And I figure she can counteract any sexual lies you might want to tell about me.” There was that maddening smirk again. I wanted to smack him silly.
“I’m not going to tell any lies,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Maybe not, but she was on your list to talk to, right? Two birds, one stone.” He looked proud of himself, and I relented. What was I going to wear? Something that would knock the smug right out of him, that was what. I had free time all of a sudden, and I was going to have to use it on finding a dress. I couldn’t meet Pamela Baxter in what I was wearing, for crying out loud. Not that I could outshine her anyway, but still. It was a matter of principle.
I gathered up my recorder, slipped it and my notepad into my bag, and followed him to the front door. He opened it for me.
“It’s a date, then. I’ll pick you up at six?”
“You’re pretty thrilled with yourself, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “We haven’t been on a date in over seven years, Red. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Stop calling me Red. And you should know to be careful what you wish for. Putting two exes in one room can be dangerous.”
“She’s not my ex.” He pinned me against the wall and my heart kicked up several betraying notches. “She’s just someone I fuck from time to time.” And before I could respond, he reached down and opened the door. “See you at six.”
I stumbled into the hallway and his laughter rang behind me as he closed the door.
Chapter 6
“I hate you.”
“Is that any way to talk to your best friend, agent, and financial handler?”
Despite myself, I smiled at Bec’s familiar voice. “Do you have any idea what I’m going through over here?”
“Duh, that’s what I called to find out. Gimme the dirt.”
“There is no dirt. He’s a prick and I’m stuck with him for the foreseeable future.” And he was coming to pick me up for what he deemed a date. But it wasn’t. It was a business dinner, plain and simple.
“Yes, you are, so you need to take the stick out of your ass and have a little fun. He may be a prick, but I bet he’s a fun one. Tell me about him.”
Fun? Hardly. At least I’d yet to see that side of him, unless it included him laughing at me. Then again, Bec would probably enjoy that. “He’s . . . complex, I guess.”
“Complex how?”
I sighed and sat back against the headboard. I had a few hours before he’d be here, and my killer new dress was hanging in the closet. “There are moments when it seems like he’s going to open up and tell me something I don’t already know, but then he closes off and it’s back to innuendo and deflection. It’s frustrating.”
“Are you getting anything you can use?”
“Sure, basic background stuff. I’ve got a couple of lines to tug on. His parents are both sore spots, but I’ll get more out of him there eventually, if he’ll let me in.”
“Have you let him in?”
My mind flashed to how I’d felt when he’d had me backed up against the wall by his front door. If I was being honest, I’d wanted to devour him then and there. But that wasn’t what I was here for, and I’d been there and done that and gotten burned for the effort. No thank you.
“I don’t have to let him in. I’m the writer. He’s the subject. He needs to let me in.”
Bec heaved her own sigh. “He’s not going to open up to you if you don’t open up to him. And don’t attempt to spew anything about impartiality at me. We both know you’re anything but impartial when it comes to writing about these guys. You’re friends with each and every one of them.”
“I won’t ever be friends with Brad Reynolds.”
“No, because you’re stubborn and won’t admit you want him.”
“I do not.” Even I could hear the lie in my voice.
“Ha! I knew it! You want him!”
“Is he attractive? Yes. Is there something still there between us? Maybe. But am I going to act on it? No.”
“Why not? You could do him in the name of research. Compare the sex moves then and now.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not here to write a romance novel, I’m here to write a biography. There’s already going to be more of me in this book than I’m comfortable with. I’m hardly going to write about our sexcapades, then or now.”
“So you admit there might be some now?”
I let out a frustrated scream. “No, there will be none now. Do you know what I’m doing tonight?”
“No, but I’m dying to find out!”
“I’m going to some charity dinner with him and meeting Pamela Baxter.”
“Oooh, the ex meeting the ex! Exciting.”
Patience, Dani. Do not bite your friend’s head off. “As he so crudely informed me, she’s not his ex. She’s just someone he fucks now and then. And yes, he did use present tense.” Just the thought of him with her was making me see red, and it pissed me off that I cared.
“Well, that does make things a little awkward, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” What if he took me to the dinner but left with her?
“But you’d already planned on talking with her, so it’s no big deal, is it?”
No. It wouldn’t be, because I wouldn’t let it. “I’d have preferred a one-on-one setting to some fancy charity dinner, but I’ll manage well enough.”
“Yes, you will. Dani, you knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but you can do it.”
“I can and I will. I just didn’t expect to . . .” I didn’t want to finish the thought.
“Expect to what?”
“Be drawn to him. I was well over him before I came here, and being around him, even for short periods of time, has been awful. Those moments when I can see the old Brad, or the hurt that he’s locked away, I want to reach out to him. Then there are times
when I want to slap him, or kiss him, or both. And it’s only been two days!”
Bec, evil person that she was, laughed. “I’ve never heard you like this. Where’s the controlled Dani who didn’t let even her fiancé get under her skin?”
That was a good question. Maybe being around Brad was bringing out the girl I’d once been as well. Nobody got to me like he did. “I don’t know, but I need to get her back, fast.”
“I rather like this new you. She’s kind of fun.”
“You just like laughing at me because you’re a mean person. As my best friend, you’re supposed to support and encourage me.”
She giggled again. “I am supporting and encouraging you to sleep with that hot piece of man meat.”
“Man meat? You have issues.”
“No, you do, and trust me when I tell you they can be resolved with one hot, sweaty bout of sex with your ex. Maybe you just need to get him out of your system.”
“How can I get him out of my system if I let him in my system? You freak.”
“Only in the sheets.” She cackled like a deranged witch.
“More places than that, apparently,” I muttered. “Was this whole book just an attempt to pimp me out to Brad?”
She stopped laughing. “Do you honestly think that of me?”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. “No, but—”
“There are no buts. He wanted you for this book and I thought it would be good for you. Did it cross my mind that you might reignite the old flame? Of course it did. Put any man and woman with history in a room together and something could explode. But whether or not that happens, what I wanted, what I still want, is for you to be happy. And you haven’t been, before or after your breakup with Jason.”
“I was perfectly content.”
“Which is not the same as happy.”
“Well, I’m certainly not happy now.”