Page 25 of Play Me

“Speaking of hobbies,” I say, moving a bishop. “Do you do anything during the offseason that I should know about? Classes? Jobs? Endorsements? I just want to make sure to cover everything, and I know a lot of guys have side hustles after the season is over.”

Gray leans back, resting against the cushions and watches me. No scowl. No glares. No tight lips or clenched fists.

The tension that’s usually biting the air around us is nowhere to be found.

In its place is a quiet understanding. A truce .

It’s oddly relaxing to sit peacefully with Gray and have full-sentence conversations without snapping at each other.

I appreciate it but I also don’t quite trust it.

Because, if I trusted it, I think I might like it.

“Do I take classes?” he asks. “Nope. I should probably consider what I’m going to do after I retire from rugby, but I keep putting that off.

Side jobs? Not right now. Endorsements? Yes.

Actually, I have a few emails from a sports drink company that I just signed a deal with requesting deliverables—which I think are just videos they want me to take myself.

Maybe I could forward those to you, and you could handle them? ”

I grab my clipboard from my bag and unfasten my pen from the top. “If you could get that to me tonight, I can reach out to them tomorrow morning.” I write a note to myself at the top of the page. “Any other deals I should know about?”

He shakes his head. “I mean, I do have more. There’s one with a burger franchise that my agent hates that I took, and another with a sportswear company. But both of those are at the end of their terms, and I don’t owe them anything unless we negotiate an extension.”

“Keep me in the loop.”

“Yes, boss.”

My eyes lift to his to find them waiting on me.

I sink back against the sofa, mirroring his posture. His grin pulls at mine. I don’t want to slip and give him anything that breaks the strictly professional agreement we’ve created because we’re finally on semi-solid ground. Yet the longer I look at him, the harder it is not to smile back.

“There you go. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asks, winking at me.

My cheeks flush.

He gets up and grabs his water bottle, then heads back to the kitchen. The silence isn’t awkward—just noticeable. I scramble to fill it with something. Anything.

“Do you want me to look into some side hustles for you?” I ask, reaching for my drink. “I know a guy who helps athletes set up camps and programs. I think he takes twenty percent of the proceeds, but it’s still profitable.”

“Are you hungry?”

I blink twice, staring at the television ahead of me. Am I hungry? “What?”

“A snack. Want one?”

He really is like trying to corral a toddler . “No. I’m good. Thanks, though.”

“No problem.”

I stand and then make my way to the kitchen, where I find Gray at the counter, peeling an orange.

“Any thoughts on me reaching out to the guy about the camps?” I ask again.

“Let’s keep that in mind, but it’s not something I want to do right now.” He pops a piece of fruit into his mouth. “I don’t know where I’ll be this offseason. If I’m around here, I think I’ll probably head home and spend some time with my brother.”

I climb onto a barstool while he peels another orange across from me.

I pretend to make notes on my clipboard when I'm really trying to imagine Gray with his family and what home means to him. It’s hard to envision and impossible to guess which version of him they get, or if there are more versions of this man I haven’t uncovered yet.

He offers me a slice of the fruit. “There were no peanuts involved in the cutting of this orange.”

I laugh and take the proffered piece, surprised but also touched that he remembered. Even Gianna sometimes forgets about my allergy.

Our fingertips brush against each other as I take the section.

His heavy, calloused pads sliding against mine sends a charge shooting through my veins.

Despite the intensity, it’s a quiet shock—one that’s personal and intimate.

I hold my breath a moment longer than necessary and soak in the lingering heat of the contact burrowing into my memory.

As my heart starts to pound, my brain takes over.

You’re not a robot. He’s a good-looking man, and it’s been a fortnight since you’ve had physical contact with the male species. Relax.

He clears his throat and grabs a towel from the drawer I piled them in the other night. Then he swipes up the juice that’s been dripping onto the countertop from the piece of fruit in my hand. That I didn’t notice was happening.

“I’m sorry,” I say, leaning back and refusing to look at him just in case he can read minds. “I didn’t realize it was dripping.”

“It’s no big deal.”

I quickly eat the orange slice, then drag my clipboard in front of me again, becoming engrossed in my notes. “What about groceries? Do you want to make a list of the things you like or want me to have delivered?”

“Nah.” He tosses the towel next to the sink. “You did a good job on it this week, even if I was afraid that you poisoned me.”

“I thought about it.” I hide a smile, going over the list of questions I wrote down before I left home. “Do you have any doctors or specialists that you see regularly that are not with the team?”

“Nope. Well, I do see a therapist from time to time.”

I cross that question off the list. “Well, that would be at the Royals facility, so I don’t need to make a separate entry for them.”

He hesitates, causing me to look up.

“I meant a mental health expert,” he says, licking a drop of juice from his bottom lip. His eyes are the clearest, most unguarded they’ve been since I’ve known him. “But I’ll handle those appointments. I kind of just make them when I need them.”

Oh .

We watch each other carefully, both of us searching the other’s gaze. I think he’s gauging my response to his admission. I’m just hoping this isn’t what will make him switch into cold Gray mode again.

I clutch my pen, listening to each breath that fills my lungs.

Gray doesn’t look away or frown. He stands in front of me and lets me see …

him . It’s almost as if he’s reassuring me that he’s holding true to his promise to make this work between us, and that he wants me to know it.

That he’s giving me this one super-personal bit of information as a token of faith.

“Does that surprise you?” he asks, his voice gravelly.

I place my pen on the clipboard and take a breath. “Honestly? Yeah. It does. I mean, a lot of people, men specifically, it seems, have a hard time talking about mental health.” I give him a half grin. “But I think it’s great you have someone to talk to, and I appreciate you telling me that.”

He holds a slice of orange in the air, and I put my palm out.

“You’re probably thinking that if I’d see my therapist more, I’d be less of a dickhead, huh?” he asks, grinning.

I laugh as the tightness in my chest releases. “They’re a therapist, not a magician.”

Gray pops another slice of fruit into his mouth, and his jaw moves as he chews. He eats slowly. Intentionally. It’s as if he’s unbothered with me in his space and is living his best confident, alpha life.

I shiver. “That’s all the questions that I had for you.” I climb off the stool, my skin tingling from the thoughts splashing around in my head—thoughts that have absolutely no business being in my brain. “I better get going.”

“Did you get everything you needed from me?”

Oh, the comments Gianna would make right now.

I eat the piece of orange in one bite and then pick up my bag.

“I expected to leave here with a couple of answers and a giant headache. So unless you do your famous one-eighty on me, I’ll leave with the answers and no headache. And I’m not mad about that.”

His chuckle is low and deep. He leads me to the door and pulls it open.

“What’s that all about?” I ask.

“It’s hard for me to think that you’re not mad about something,” he says, leaning against the doorframe.

I laugh, stopping beside him. “I’m not out of here yet. You still have time to piss me off.”

Fresh air flows into the house, picking up notes of Gray’s cologne and swirling them around me.

The way he looks my way —curiously, but also without the hatred I’m used to—stirs a soft sense of vulnerability inside me.

A warmth climbs up my neck and colors my cheeks, and I know he notices. How could he not?

He starts to speak but stops himself and then starts again. “This coming week is a bye week.”

I nod, my tongue too thick to allow words to form.

“I’m probably going to head back to Sugar Creek for the weekend.”

Where’s that water when I need it? “Okay. Do you need me to make your reservations at a hotel or something?”

He smiles. Not a grin and not a smirk. An ear-to-ear smile that is unlike any I’ve seen from him yet.

“There’s not a hotel in Sugar Creek,” he says with another chuckle. “I’ll stay with my brother at the ranch.”

The ranch? I shake my head and hold up a finger, suddenly sparked back to life.

“Whoa. Hold up a second,” I say. “Your brother has a ranch?”

“Yup. I grew up there. It’s been in our family for over one hundred years.”

I laugh freely, imagining Gray with a cowboy hat and boots. It’s so different from this Gray—the sweatpants-and-T-shirt-wearing athlete in front of me. It’s nearly impossible to see. “ You were a cowboy?”

He snorts. “Hardly. I got out of as much of that as I could. Thank God that Hartley, my brother, loved that shit. It saved me hours of work.”

“Gray the cowboy,” I tease as I step onto his small porch. His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Did you have stirrups and the whole bit?”

“Bye, Astrid.”

“What about holsters like in the old movies?” I say, wrinkling my nose.

His dimples sink deep into his cheeks as he shakes his head and starts to close the door.

“Are there pictures?” I ask, giggling and moving so I can see him as the door closes. “Give me one good yeehaw!”

I hear him groan as the lock clicks in place.

Gray as a cowboy. I laugh all the way to the car.