I was sitting in my recliner with an ice pack on both knees and my balls, watching the highlights of other games played that day. I’d got clipped with way too many flyaway balls.
“It’s really not a good time, baby,” I spoke up from the living room. “My Rocky Mountain oysters are on ice.”
“I just got out of the shower, I’m naked!” she yelped from the bedroom. “Fine. I’ll just throw on one of your dress shirts.”
“No!” I cursed and winced as I scooped the ice packs off my knees and lap and stood to feel the throb of the game I just played. I glared in the direction of our bedroom as I made my way toward the door. “Don’t you dare touch my clothes. You got them all jacked up when we moved in.”
I heard her laugh from behind the door.
“What did I do, baby? Did the dark blues get mixed up with light?” She teased.
“I swear to God, when I don’t feel like I’m at death’s door, I’m going to red your ass.”
“You’ll have to catch me first, Tin Man!”
The doorbell sounded again, and I made a beeline for it realizing I didn’t have my wallet. I opened it as the guy stood there with a huge grin on his face, which I returned.
“Wow, I’m a huge fan, man.”
“Thanks,” I said sincerely. I grabbed a ball off the counter that I’d signed for the camp I was sponsoring and handed it to him as he passed me the pizza. “If you want it,” I added as he stared down at it like it was the golden ticket.
“Holy shit, man. Thank you!”
“Just give me a second,” I said as I spotted Erica’s wallet on the counter and opened it.
There were a hundred compartments and I had searched two before I pulled out the card. My heart thudded wildly in my chest as I stared down at the queen of hearts.
Her card.
The card that kept me from having a full deck for years.
I choked on emotion as I studied it. It was worn to a frazzle and bent at the edges, like she’d pulled it out plenty of times in the years we were apart.
I cleared my throat and unzipped the right part of her wallet, pulling out the cash. I turned and paid the guy, who spoke up as if he were waiting for the chance.
“I was sad I missed the game today, but I have to say this is pretty awesome. I think you guys will take it all again this season. That series was something to watch. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, man,” I said with a grin, my heart still thudding from the sight of that card as I handed him the cash. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, Ren. You made my day.”
A thought occurred to me, and I turned and stopped him. “You want to help make mine?”
“Sure, man, whatever you need.”
“Can you stick around a bit?” I asked with my heart thudding a mile a minute in my chest. “Stay right here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“Sure.”
Erica
“Ren, did you find the money?” I asked as I walked out of the bedroom and rounded the corner to get to the living room. The house wasn’t massive, but it was perfect for the two of us. I didn’t want to live in the museum Ren bought on his own. If we were starting a life together, it had to be something new. I left New York with a good résumé and was now PR for three Denver players, excluding my boyfriend. He had fired me as soon as he won the World Series. I wasn’t insulted in the least, because in truth, it wasn’t a good idea for us in the long haul. But I had managed to put a small dent in his bad boy reputation. We went public with our relationship a few months after his last game. It had all worked out for the best. I’d spent the last week unpacking our house and making room for Malcolm. He was coming to spend his spring break with us at Ren’s insistence. Ren refused to leave his Little Brother behind in Arizona and made every effort to remain a part of his life, despite his schedule. I was proud of the man he was. Proud to be by his side when he realized his dreams. My heart was full despite the fact that I still refused to have anything to do with my father. I spoke to my mother often, though she chose to stay with him, and on occasion my brothers would visit, and it was enough for me. I had everything I needed, and most of it was held in the love in Ren’s eyes when he looked at me. It was a far cry from my life in New York, a life I couldn’t miss because of the new one I shared with Ren, though I missed Rowe. She had taken my position in the firm and was thriving. Though we weren’t a part of each other’s every day, we were lifer’s, she and I. Alice had made my transition to Denver easy, making me feel right at home. And when April visited from Charleston, we always managed to venture out of the house, pissing our men off and making new memories. It was an adventure with those two to say the least.
I smiled as I passed the wall of pictures I’d just hung in the last year. Ren and I dressed as the Tin Man and Dorothy at a Halloween party. A picture of us in front of our new house with Davis. A picture of Ren and the guys the night they won the series. I straightened one of the frames as I moved toward the kitchen, the smell of pizza making my mouth water, and froze when I saw Ren down on one knee with the delivery driver behind him, a phone in his hand pointed directly at me. I let out a nervous laugh before I spoke. “What are you doing?” I saw the card in one of Ren’s hands and the small black box I’d found all those years ago in the other. My eyes instantly filled with tears.
“Ren?”
“No tricks,” he promised hoarsely. “And I’m showing you the only card that matters.”
I lost it then, my heart in my throat, my tears falling freely with his as he spoke. “You’re a ball of fire and the only woman alive who can make me feel so much without saying a word. I don’t want to go another minute of this life without knowing I’m going to spend the rest of it with you. Be mine, be my wife, stay my everything. Be my family and my best friend. Will you marry me?”
I nodded before I spoke. “Yes.”
Ren opened the box and slid the rock on my finger before he swept me into his arms. He kissed me deep before he swung me around our entryway. It was a spontaneous proposal, and I knew it because it was so very us. We both got swept up in the moment until we heard a throat clear. Ren broke from me reluctantly, and we both turned to the man smiling at our front door.
“Congratulations,” he said sweetly as he held out Ren’s phone. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old and was the only witness to the happiest moment of our lives. Ren thanked him again before he shut the door and gathered me back in his arms.
“I guess I’ll have to order pizza more often,” I murmured before placing a soft kiss on his lips. “I wonder what I’ll get next.”
“Anything you want,” he murmured back. “Because you just gave me everything.”
“Ren, let’s do it today. Let’s just go and do it right now.”
He raised his brows. “What?”
“You don’t have a game for two days.”
“Here?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a place with a full deck.”
Ren’s slow-building smile told me all I needed to know.
That night, in a little white chapel off the Vegas strip, I married a baseball player.
And the next day we made a little slugger.
THE END
If you enjoyed Ren and Erica’s story, get to know the rest of the gang of the Balls in Play Series.
Rafe and Alice
Anything but Minor
Andy and April
Major Love
Acknowledgments
THANK YOU
A huge shout of appreciation to those bloggers and readers who took the time to read this novella. I can’t thank you enough for your support.
Thank you to my ROCKSTARS, Bex Kettner, Donna Cooksley Sanderson, and Amy Mastin for working so hard on polishing this novella. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Thank you, Christy Baldwin, for catching all the fly balls that come your way. You make my crazy look good!
Thank you to my best friend, Erica, for keeping ou
r memories safe and reminding me of why I call you the best of friends. I love you.
Thank you to my amazing group the Asskickers. I have had so much fun with you this year and your support and friendships are priceless.
Finally, a huge thank you to the amazing ladies I had the privilege of writing this anthology with Mandi Beck, Sarah Ney, Meghan Quinn, L. J. Shen, Ella Fox, Kennedy Ryan, Emma Scott, Charleigh Rose, Adriana Locke and Rochelle Paige, I had a blast! And I’m so happy to call you friends!
About The Author
Kate Stewart lives in Charleston, S.C. with her husband, Nick, and her naughty beagle, Sadie. A native of Dallas, Kate moved to Charleston three weeks after her first visit, dropping her career of 8 years, and declaring it her creative muse. Kate pens messy, sexy, angst-filled contemporary romance as well as romantic comedy and erotic suspense because it’s what she loves as a reader. A lover of all things ‘80s and ’90s, especially John Hughes films and rap, she dabbles a little in photography, can knit a simple stitch scarf for necessity only and does a horrible job of playing the ukulele. Aside from running a mile without collapsing, traveling is the only other must on her bucket list. On occasion, she does very well at vodka.
Other titles available now by Kate
Room 212
Never Me
Loving the White Liar
The Fall
The Mind
The Heart
The Brave Line
Drive
Erotic Suspense
Sexual Awakenings
Excess
Predator and Prey
Camouflage
Crosshairs
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FULL COURT PRESS
Copyright 2017 Kennedy Ryan
MacKenzie Decker was a question Avery never got to ask, much less answer.
They met when she was a young reporter fueled by ambition, and the ink on Deck's first NBA contract was barely dry. Years later, they've climbed so high and lost so much, but one thing hasn't changed. The attraction that simmered between them in a locker room before is still there. With success like theirs, everything has been possible . . . except them.
But that was then.
The only question is...what about now?
1
Decker
I’m dripping wet and almost naked the first time I meet Avery Hughes.
It’s my second season in the NBA, and I’m used to conducting interviews at my locker wearing only a towel, a ring of microphones, recorders, and demanding reporters crowded around me. But this reporter, this night, from the first look, blindsides me.
We played a shit game.
Correction. For forty-five minutes of regulation, we played a stellar game. That last three minutes—that was some shit, and as the idiot who turned the ball over repeatedly in the closing plays, most of that shit rests squarely on my shoulders.
Post-game and post-shower, I lean against my locker, eyes stuck to the floor while I duck and dodge the flurry of questions flying around my head. I should have taken the fine for not making myself available to the press. That would have cost me less. This costs me my pride and the dregs of my patience.
“Can you walk us through that fourth quarter implosion, Deck?” a husky voice raises above the fray tightly encircling me. “Those last few minutes of the game were pretty brutal.”
My brows snap together at the rudeness, the audacity of this reporter. Sure, I’ve fielded tougher questions, but after this kind of game, a win that slipped through our fingers, and me responsible, I’m too raw and not in the mood for it.
“What kind of question . . .”
The half-formed demand withers on my lips when I meet the eyes behind the recorder thrust at me. They are the softest thing about her face. Her chin draws to a point, and her cheekbones flare out like a cat’s, rounding into sharp feline femininity. She looks down her keen little nose at me with a touch of disdain and condescension. Her lips are set in a flat, determined line, but that doesn’t make them less lush, less kissable. But still . . . the eyes are the softest thing in that face, darkest sable, surrounded by a fan of long, minky lashes. Those eyes lock with mine while she waits. They never lower to scrape over the bare brawn of my shoulders and chest. Don’t dip to my waist or the barely knotted towel hanging onto my hip. And definitely don’t slide over my legs, still dripping from my shower. Nope, she looks me right in and only in my eyes while she waits.
“Well, um . . .” I search for her name on the laminated media credential lanyard resting between a set of perky breasts. “Avery, we made some mistakes there at the end.”
She tilts her head and lifts her brows to the angle of “obviously” before scooting her mic an inch closer. Her scent, something fresh and wild, like the dark, textured curls rioting around her face, is a high note piercing through all the testosterone rife in the locker room.
“Great night overall. Bad few minutes,” I finally answer, crooking my mouth in a smile possible now that I’ve seen her. “Happens to the best of us on any given night.”
I shrug, watching her eyes finally drop to the flexing movement, before snapping back to my face.
Ahhh, made you look, pretty lady.
The dark eyes narrow and those kissable lips part like she already has the next question cocked and loaded, but another reporter butts in with something else. I answer a few more questions, getting impatient to dress and talk to Avery without the watchful eye of every major network. When our media rep shuts down the post-game press, reporters start filing out of the locker room. I consider letting it go. Letting her go. I’ve seen prettier girls, right? I can fuck a different chick in a different city every night. Matter of fact, it’s practically my civic duty on behalf of all my brethren who will never have the NBA all-access ass pass. Real talk, I’m already over that. Gorgeous, grasping and vapid. That pretty much describes every woman hanging out in the tunnel after a game. This girl—one look and one question tells me I can’t have my way with her. I never could resist a challenge, and when Avery turns to leave, giving me an uninterrupted view of a firm, round ass outlined in her tailored slacks, I know I won’t resist her either.
“Avery,” I call, holding onto my slipping towel with one hand and gently grabbing her elbow with the other. “Hold up a sec.”
She looks pointedly at my hand, so large against her slim arm, like it offends her, before looking back to my face. Some half naked, wet jock a foot taller and grabbing her probably isn’t making the best first impression.
“Sorry about that.” I drop her arm and flick my head toward my locker. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”
Reluctant curiosity settles on her face, and she takes the few steps back to my corner in the chaos of the locker room.
“I wanted to ask you—” I cut off my words when she thrusts her recorder in the space just above my mouth and below my nose. I push it away with a finger. “Uh . . . off the record.”
She lowers the recorder to her side, suppressing what I strongly suspect is a smirk.
“You want to tell me the real reason behind your collapse tonight?” The dark brows take flight over curious eyes and she leans one silk-clad shoulder into the locker door.
“No, I mean . . . I could, yeah. Maybe over a drink or dinner. Our flight doesn’t leave until the morning.”
Horrified realization unfurls on her face.
“Are you asking me out?” Her incredulous words ring through the room, and I look around a little self-consciously. It just isn’t done, approaching a reporter like this. In my defense, most reporters don’t have an ass like Avery’s.
“Yeah, for a drink or something,” I whisper, modeling the appropriate and discrete tone for this kind of conversation, hoping she’ll catch on. She seems like a bright girl, after all.
“I’m on your beat?” I lean into the locker door, too, crossing my arms over my chest. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“Well you’ll be seeing me from now on because I was just assigned.” Her gaze drops to my chest and I make my pectoral muscles jump. She rolls her eyes. “And I won’t compromise my professional objectivity with the ‘or something’ you probably have in mind.”
“One drink,” I urge, shifting against the door.
“My answer is still—” Her gasp chokes out the rest of her sentence when the precariously knotted towel slides right down my hip and plops at my feet. The sight of my dick, slightly erect and on the loose for all the world to see, leaches the air from the room for just a moment, the total quiet before a storm of laughter and good-natured cat calls.
“Oh, shit.” Ignoring my teammates’ snickers, I scramble to grab the towel from the floor, jerking it back around my waist to cover up my junk. I’ve been sharing showers and locker rooms since my dick was half this size, so I’m unfazed. Avery, though, looks like she swallowed her little recorder and it’s about to come back up with her dinner. Over the wolf whistles, a leftover reporter adds his misplaced mockery to the mix.
“Getting an exclusive, are you, Hughes, your first night on the job?” he asks with a leer. “An exposé? Deck would give me the scoop, too, if I had an ass like yours.”
What the hell? I’d heard comments like that all my life. Hell, maybe I’ve even thought them myself. This sport, this industry, is male-dominated, and we’re basically overpaid, overgrown adolescents, most of us, until we’ve been around for a while. Some of us longer than others. Hearing that shit with her standing right here, though, seeing the hurt and irritation spark in her eyes before she quells it, makes me want to knock the bitch-ass reporter’s glasses off his face. Laughter from a few others at his rude comment overtakes any hope I have of convincing her. I glare at the idiot already on his way out the door.
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