Page 10 of Framing the Pitch (Red Dirt Romance #1)

By the time I come out of the locker room, showered and ready to stuff my face with a post-practice meal, the hubbub of having Trace Davenport at our practice has died down.

Most of my teammates have already left, heading out to other jobs or whatever other plans they have for the remainder of their day, leaving Trace to wait for me in the bright hallway of our facilities with Megan, our social media manager.

She’s swiping through pictures on her camera, and Trace is smiling, pointing at things on the small screen.

“Ooh, post that one,” he says to her as I wheel my bag up to where the two of them are standing.

“What one?” I interject, coming to stand next to Trace.

He glances up and casually slides his arm over my shoulders, like he would any other day, but I lean into his touch a little and raise my free hand to interlock our fingers at my shoulder.

A little hand holding goes a long way, especially when everyone who sees us is going to jump to their own conclusions.

Megan tilts her camera toward me to show off the high-quality photo of Trace talking to Coach Golding. She must have taken it while the team was cleaning up the dugout because it’s a clean shot with zero other players.

“Oh, that is a good one,” I say with a smile.

“And you’re good if I tag you in the post, Trace?” Megan asks, glancing up from her camera, her cheeks a little pink and a barely disguised awestruck look on her face.

“Absolutely. Tag me in whatever you want. I’ll be around tomorrow and for the games this weekend. If you send me a few, I can put them up on my account, too.”

Megan’s eyes snap up to Trace’s. “Oh my gosh, that would be amazing!”

Trace’s smile is charming, and while he’s had hours of training for speaking with professionals, I know the charm is genuine because he’s this way all the time, whether it’s with a good friend or someone he barely knows.

Megan gushes a few more thank you s before Trace pulls out his phone and has her send a few of the pictures from today. With a final thanks, Megan moves down the hallway and ducks into one of the offices that’s situated closer to the exit than the locker room.

Trace barely has to tip his head down to look at me. “You ready to go?”

I nod and step forward, forcing Trace to begin walking with me. After a few awkward steps, Trace drops his arm from my shoulders but slides his hand into mine to keep us tethered.

“So, where are you taking me to dinner tonight?” I ask, rolling my bag behind me. In one smooth move, Trace reaches his free arm behind his back and grabs my bag’s handle, slipping it out of my hand.

“It’s no fun if you know all of my surprises,” Trace says, glancing down at me with a smile .

When it comes to food, I am willing to stoop low. I jut my lip out and tilt my head down, looking up at Trace with the best puppy dog eyes I can muster.

Trace laughs, and it sounds the same as it always does.

I don’t know why I thought pretending to be his girlfriend would make the Earth quit spinning on its axis.

This walk down the hallway and to my car feels exactly the same as it would without our little arrangement.

The only difference is that my hand is in Trace’s and not swinging freely at my side.

When we get to my car, Trace easily lifts my huge bag into the trunk before jogging to the driver side door.

Like he has a hundred times before, he pulls it open and waits for me to get in.

But instead of closing it and me rolling down the window to finish our conversation, he stands there with one hand on top of the car and one on the door.

It feels almost like a standoff. What do we do now?

“You need a ride to my place?” I ask, looking up at him.

Trace shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve got to run over to my rental and check in.” He tips his chin up and looks across the way, prompting me to turn and find his white truck a few rows over.

“You drove down this morning?” Surprise fills my voice.

It’s a four-hour drive from Dallas to San Antonio on a good day.

For a last-minute trip like this, I fully expected Trace to have grabbed a flight last night and rented a car or something.

The presence of his personal truck means he left his place earlier than any athlete in their offseason should be awake to get to my midmorning practice.

“Yeah,” he says. Short and succinct with no inflection to indicate he’s bothered by it.

It’s just a yeah like of course, you big dummy .

“Duke and I met last night to talk about…this.” He gestures between the two of us.

“I posted last night, but I didn’t want to do anything official until we had a chance to talk. ”

“What did you post?” Suddenly, Lennox’s observation about what everyone’s been talking about makes more sense.

“Oh, it was nothing. Just some cheesy line about ‘my girl.’” Trace’s lips curve upward.

So unhelpful . I hold out my hand, waiting for him to pass over his phone. Without question, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me. I tap the screen, inputting his access code—2929—before navigating to the photo sharing app.

A few taps later, I’m staring at a picture of me. Well, of my left hand. It’s spread wide across Trace’s knee above a background of gray concrete.

“When did you take this?” I ask, turning the phone to him.

“At the game last week.”

My eyebrows furrow. “I don’t remember you taking it.

” I turn the phone back to me and bring it to my face to examine the details.

My nails were painted in Alabama crimson, and my pale glove hand was like a beacon against Trace’s tan leg.

My hand was squeezing Trace’s thigh, not just resting on it.

The picture doesn’t give any more clues—neither my leg nor my shoe is in the shot—and I can see why it was such a mystery to everyone.

Especially with the caption, It’s so cute when my girl gets more excited watching her own sport than she does watching my games.

“It was during the seventh inning. You were focused on the game, and I thought it would be something funny to show you later. And since it was the only recent picture I have of you, it was either this or the chicken suit.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” I look up, forgetting the phone in my hand. Eight years later, and that photo of me in a chicken suit during my freshman Halloween game still haunts me.

Trace winks at me as he plucks his phone out of my hands. He leans into my car, bringing his head closer to mine, cutting off my train of thought. It’s replaced by a new one: If he were a guy I was actually dating, I’d lean up for a quick kiss before saying goodbye. But this isn’t just some guy.

It’s Trace .

He leans his body a little closer, drops his head toward mine until our noses are almost touching.

“I’ll meet you at your place later,” he says, his face so close I can see the darker flecks of chocolate in his golden brown eyes.

In all the years we’ve been friends, we’ve been close.

But never this close. A feeling I’ve ignored for so long begins bubbling to life in my stomach, and it’s slippery enough that I can’t grab hold of it and shove it away.

Even though his hat is pulled low over his forehead, his eyes sparkle with an inner light, and for a split second, his gaze turns a little more molten than I’ve ever seen it—at least aimed in my direction.

And then, a moment later, it’s gone, replaced by his usual playful sparkle, and he darts forward, pressing the lightest kiss to the end of my nose.

I laugh. Because what else is there to do? Admit out loud that there was…something…there for a fraction of a second that might not be platonic friendship?

Ridiculous.

“See you later,” I say lamely as he pulls away and shuts my door. I wait for him to take a step away from my car before I leave the parking lot, desperately trying to keep that dumb box shut in the back of my mind.