Last Fall

by Alexis Anne

  “Pajamas and snack food.” I rolled to my back, my brain jumping to where I was at on my schedule. “It’s Friday so I usually write all morning then shower and change for my weekly sushi lunch.”

  “Hey, I know about that.”

  “Yes you do.” And it was going on record as my most embarrassing and favorite Friday lunch ever. “Then I take my booty shopping or to run errands or whatever else I need doing out in the real world before heading home, back into pajamas, and spend a wild evening writing with takeout and the occasional movie break.”

  “That sounds nice, actually.”

  “Takeout and movies or the pajamas and writing?”

  “All of it.” He pulled up my shirt and placed his hand on the bare skin of my stomach. “Would you consider doing pajamas, takeout, and writing at my place tonight?”

  My heart beat a little faster. “What do you mean?” I rolled onto my side again so I could see his eyes.

  “Instead of coming back here with your takeout, maybe you come to my place for dinner.” His hand cupped my hip. “I’ll go to my game and you can write in my bed in your pajamas. I have a very nice television for movie watching.”

  “What about Seth?”

  He shrugged. “He doesn’t usually sleep at our place when we have a long home game streak. And even if he does come home tonight I’ll make sure he understands.”

  Erik’s condo was much closer to the stadium than our house. I also hadn’t written much in the last few days and it wasn’t just because I was distracted. The creative energy in my space wasn’t working for me. Sometimes a change of scenery was all it took to get the words flowing again.

  Why not give Erik’s bed a shot?

  “What time?”

  He grinned. “Is four too early?”

  “No, that’s perfect.”

  He kissed me. “Then it’s a date. A second date, not that I’m counting.”

  As much as I wanted to stay just like this, I also wanted to get him home so he could sleep. “I guess we better face the music. June and Roman will have so many questions.” I dreaded stepping into the kitchen. I just wasn’t in the mood to explain what I barely understood.

  “I think we’re actually in the clear. I’m pretty sure they ate breakfast and left already.”

  I cheered inside. “That’s right! They’re at AAR today.” Roman ran a rehabilitation clinic for elite athletes and June helped with the training staff. Today was one of their full days at the clinic.

  Which meant we got another day to figure ourselves out before having to answer questions.

  Thank goodness.

  I dropped Erik off then headed back home to reset with a nice hot shower before heading to lunch. A lunch I was kind of excited to have alone. I had a lot to think about from reliving the memories of last night to planning for the night to come.

  So I should have known this would be the week Eve and Carrie decided to join me.

  “We got a table in the back,” Carrie said the minute I walked in the door. It was totally ambush style. No text warning. No hints. Just waiting for me at the door.

  This couldn’t be good.

  I followed her to the back corner. Eve had her nose buried in a menu. “It’s been a long time since you made it, Eve. It’s nice to see you.”

  She set the menu aside. “I know. I’ve been a terrible friend.”

  “There’s a game today.”

  “I have time for lunch.” She smiled sweetly up at me. Something I knew well. She always did that right before Max or Sam got a lecture.

  “You haven’t been a terrible friend,” I said taking the chair opposite her. “We’re still navigating this former boss and nanny relationship.”

  “You don’t have that problem with me,” Carrie said, snapping her chopsticks apart. “I just suck at being a friend.”

  “True.” I only said things like that to get a rise out of her.

  And sure enough, she slammed my soy dish down in front of me while she was much more careful with Eve’s.

  Carrie and Eve babbled about the players while we went through the process of ordering, getting our drinks, and then our soup. I barely noticed Carrie’s detailed rundown of a patient since she was speaking in code with Eve.

  It wasn’t until I had my first warm spoonful of soup that they turned their conversation my way.

  “So Zoe,” Eve drawled. “I happened to be on my way over to the school this morning when I noticed you leave the house.”

  Drats.

  Double drats. At least it was only Eve. “So? I leave the house occasionally. Look at me now.” I waved at my fabulous hair and makeup. I also wanted to point out that my shoes matched and my shirt was on correctly, but they wouldn’t understand the magnitude of that feat.

  “It was just that you weren’t alone and I was fascinated to see your companion leaving your house at that hour of the morning. An hour when I know he is usually still asleep since we have a night game today.”

  “Mmmm, yes.” I decided if she was going to be dramatic then I could play along. “You’re right I wasn’t alone.”

  Carrie rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. Give us the dirt already. How is Erik Cassidy in the sack?”

  “I don’t know.” I said it as simply and honestly as I could with the hope that they’d understand without too much meddling. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Then what led the man who has been head over heels for you to be in your house at that early hour?” Carrie narrowed her eyes.

  “I went to the hockey game yesterday to talk to his sister. They invited me to dinner. We had a really good time so I took him dancing.”

  “And then?” Carrie waved her hands for me to cough up the details.

  “And then I asked him to come home with me but we didn’t, you know, we just slept together in the same bed.”

  “That makes no sense at all,” Carrie sighed.

  Eve shook her head at Carrie. “You’re weird, you know that, right?” Then she looked at me. “This is good news though. Dancing? Spending time together?”

  I blushed a little thinking about how sweet Erik was this morning when he asked me to spend the night at his place tonight. “Yeah, it’s good.”

  She beamed. “I’m so happy for you both.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Carrie grumbled.

  “Not everyone is as sex-crazed as you and Wes,” Eve said.

  “It’s not that, sheesh. I mean, obviously we have a way about us, but that wasn’t what I meant at all. I get it,” she flicked her gaze my way, “you know how all this works. We have a dozen books that prove that. I’m not in any way questioning your choices when it comes to sexy times. You do you, Zoe.”

  “Well then what is confusing to you?” I knew way too much about her relationship with Wes so it was only natural that she’d be curious about mine. I was willing to accept that total privacy about my life with Erik wasn’t going to happen.

  She fiddled with her napkin. “It’s just after everything I went through, all the ways you pushed me to get real with Wes, I’m surprised you’re not seeing the obvious with Erik. The man is nuts about you.”

  “Trust me, after last night I have no more doubts about his sincerity. But that doesn’t make us magically ready to be a couple.” I shot her a very pointed look.

  She put up her hands. “No further explanation needed.”

  Our sushi arrived and as we set about eating, Eve smiled at me. “So, now that we have the questions out of the way. It’s time for details. What happened?”

  And because I really and truly no longer felt confused, I spent the next half hour giving them a rundown on my evening.

  Even the sexy parts.

  19

  ERIK

  Should I Pull Out the Pillows and Cookies?

  Waking up from my nap was like taking a sledgehammer to the skull, but having dinner with Zoe more than made up for it. I made my favorite pre-game dinner of Spaghetti Bolognese along with a pretty spectacular salad, i
f I do say so myself.

  I left her with dessert and an array of snacks to keep her fueled for her night of work. It was pretty incredible to leave knowing when I came home she’d be in my bed.

  When I got to the stadium I was not expecting a beat down.

  But Wes sure was ready to provide one.

  “I hear you slept with Zoe last night. Please tell me I don’t have to kill you.”

  How in the hell? “Why would you have to kill me?” I thought we were past this idiotic big brother routine.

  “Is everything good? You treat her right?”

  “For fucks sake. It is none of your business.” I threw my bag into my locker. “What do you think you know anyway?”

  “Eve saw you leave the house this morning.”

  Shit. It was definitely a complication having them next door. I didn’t even think about Jake or Eve seeing us because I was more worried about June and Roman.

  “I stayed over but I didn’t sleep with her. Yet. It’s happening though.” I stabbed him in the chest. “All of this is happening. She’s with me now so you can lay off. You are officially relieved of duty.”

  “I’m never off duty,” he scoffed. “What do you mean she’s with you now?”

  Was I going to have to write this down in small words he could understand? “I mean right now she’s in my bed writing. And after the game she’ll still be there. And tomorrow night it will be the same thing.”

  Whether it was my bed or hers, we were going to spend every night together. I couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping alone in a bed again until it was in a hotel on the road.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes!”

  I barely got the whole word out before I got a hug that crushed my ribs and forced all the air out of my lungs. “I’m so happy right now. Congrats, man.” I pounded his back kind of hoping to be able to breathe again, but he took it as an invitation to kill me faster. “Welcome to the family.”

  He finally let me go. After a few deep breaths I was able to speak again. “If being family with you means being hugged, I’ll take that trade offer more seriously.”

  “What?”

  Fuck. Shouldn’t have said that. “Nothing. It was a joke. Because being hugged by you is painful.”

  He didn’t buy it. “Who’s looking at you?”

  Well, there was no sense lying about it now. “Lowenstein put out a feeler. I shut it down. Well, actually Marie shut it down before she even spoke to me, but we were on the same page.”

  I was ninety-nine percent cool with it. Especially now that Zoe and I were more than a theory. There was no way I was leaving a team I loved and the woman I was pretty sure I was falling in love with for a chance to work with my dream manager. It wasn’t worth it. But it didn’t stop the twenty-year-old kid in me, the one who dreamed of playing ball for Lowenstein, from having a minor heart attack.

  Wes let out a low whistle. “No shit. Wow. You sure?”

  “Damn sure. Now, don’t we have a game we’re supposed to be getting ready for? Or should I pull out the pillows and cookies?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Wes left me alone after that. Actually, he was nicer than usual, which was weird. The game went by in a blur but we won pretty handily. Statistically it was our standard this season. We won most of our first games, lost the second, and won the third. We were trying like hell to figure out the game-two slump but so far nothing we tried made much of a difference. I think it came down to simple team rhythm and game two was our down rhythm. But hey, winning two out of three on the regular? Not too shabby.

  Probably why we were now looking like the favorites heading into the playoffs. I still couldn’t believe it.

  It was about as mind blowing as coming home to Zoe in yoga pants. “Is that what you usually write in?” I tossed my bag into the corner.

  She glanced around her laptop. “I call this uniform number two.”

  “Uniform?” I sat on the corner of the bed and got rid of my shoes. “Is that like my baseball uniform?”

  She set the laptop aside and pulled her knees up, watching me undress with a heck of a lot of intent. “Sort of. This one is the ‘I might need to be decent in public’ uniform. Yoga pants, t-shirt, flip-flops. Easy, comfortable, mostly appropriate even when I haven’t brushed my hair in two days.”

  She’d definitely brushed her hair recently. She had one of those fancy buns on the top of her head and she looked a hell of a lot more than decent. She looked damn good.

  “And your other uniform?”

  She grimaced. “That’s the ‘sweatpants, no-shower, I haven’t stopped writing in three days, I don’t know who I am anymore’ uniform.”

  “I bet you’re still sexy in sweats.”

  She shuddered. “You should know now, before we get any further into this . . . me on a deadline is not pretty. It’s actually quite gross.”

  “Maybe you just need someone who can make breaks and showers more interesting.”

  Her cheeks turned that pretty shade of pink. “Or maybe I’ll just reserve writing sprints of that intensity to when you’re on the road.”

  Planning for me to be gone? In this instance I didn’t mind. “My schedule is intense, Zo. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Mine is too. I think if we spend some time together and decide we want this to be a long-term thing, we’re going to have to have some serious conversations about schedules and expectations.” Her cheeks turned from pink to red, which wasn’t what I wanted at all.

  I touched her arm. “Darlin’. I thought you said you were going to,” what was the word she used? “Pants this?”

  She smiled. “You’re right. I just spent some time today thinking about how weird our schedules are and that in a really strange way, it might actually be a good thing.”

  Well, I liked the sound of that. “Stop thinking so much.” I stood up and pulled my shirt free of my pants. Her eyes followed all of my movements. “Are you done with work? Should I go make us some food and leave you be for a bit longer?”

  She shut the laptop. “I planned on quitting when you got home. By the way, thanks for inviting me over. Your space has really nice vibes. I wrote more today than I have all week.” She plugged the laptop in and set it on the edge of my dresser. “So yes, I’m done with work and ready to hang out with you.”

  “Was the bed comfortable? Is there anything I can get to make working here better? A chair? A desk?” I really liked seeing her things mixed with mine and if she was going to spend time here I wanted it to work for both of us, not just be convenient for me.

  “My office is mobile and I prefer writing in bed. They tell me it’s bad for my back, but it’s good for my paycheck so I go to yoga with June and hope it corrects most of my bad behavior.”

  Speaking of bad behavior. “Sit back. Scoot. Get comfortable.”

  I waited while she slid back then I went over and flicked on the lamp so I could kill the overhead light. It made the room feel a little more like a bedroom and less like a work zone.

  Then I started undressing.

  She grinned, but didn’t say anything.

  “You had some questions last night and I hope I answered them to your satisfaction.” I’d spent a good hour in the shower when I got home this morning acting out all the things I wished I had been able to do with Zoe. I had a feeling that shower and I were going to be very well acquainted for the foreseeable future.

  “You did.”

  I dropped my pants and stood in front of her in my boxers. “Anymore questions that you may have thought of today? I’m here, mostly naked, and ready to provide answers.”

  “You’re quite adorable.” She fought back a giggle.

  “Why thank you.” I performed a bow. “Now, questions?”

  She studied me slowly, taking me in inch by inch in a way she probably couldn’t last night. I was surprised by her first question. “You called yourself boring. Why?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? “I’m the serious guy.”

 
; “Serious and boring aren’t the same thing.”

  When you were the one constantly telling your friends to chill, your brothers to think before they leapt, it started to feel a heck of a lot like you were the killjoy in everyone’s life. “I don’t really have an answer for you. I’m not the wild one. I don’t do stunts. I don’t party all night.”

  “You also go dancing on a whim and stand naked for a woman to examine . . . for fun.”

  “Not for fun. This is very serious.”

  “Oh.”

  I turned slowly in a circle. “Ask me something else. Anything.”

  “Why do you live with Seth?”

  Another one I didn’t see coming. “Uh . . . well, because I keep waiting for the team to realize they could have a better second baseman and send me back down.”

  She scrunched up her face. “Um, yeah. That’s not going to happen.”

  “Marie keeps saying the same thing.”

  “Is it just because of the money or is it because you’re lonely?”

  Damn . . . “Both. When I got called up I was suddenly making enough to help put my sisters through college. Then they kept me and I was making even more. I helped Mom out, paid for everyone’s tuition. Then Jack got the coaching job with the Pythons and it wasn’t just me anymore. We bought Mom the house in the Keys. I know I can afford to buy my own place now, but I’m stuck in this habit of thinking I can’t.” And maybe in the end it was a good thing. Maybe I didn’t buy because I wasn’t ready. Maybe I was waiting for Zoe before I decided where my life was going next.

  “Okay, then if you were to buy a house and put down roots here, where would you look? What kind of home does Erik Cassidy dream of at night?”

  “Babe,” I laughed, “I can honestly say I don’t dream about houses. That’s the other reason I’m still living with numb nuts. I’m too comfortable to care enough to start the process.” But if things kept going this way with Zoe, I’d be looking in a heartbeat just to get some privacy. “What about you? I know you don’t plan on living with June and Roman forever.”

  “I don’t know,” she rolled to her side, propping her head up on her hand. “I care more about my writing space than anything. I need lots of bookshelves, a nice couch or chair, as few distractions as possible . . . ”