Page 5

Chapter five

Rhett

My eyes close as I lean against the wall of my elevator. It’s almost midnight and I’m tired. More tired than a porch swing after a tornado. Six days, two cities, eight games. Those doubleheaders were early on, thank fuck, but my body is still hurting. I know there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow when I head to the stadium to see the trainers, but right now, all I want is a hot shower and my bed.

I stagger off the elevator and down the hall to my apartment, trying to be as quiet as possible when I unlock the door. Who knows whether Ruthie is sleeping better than she did those first couple nights, but either way, I don’t want to wake up the dog or Evie.

Just thinking about seeing her has some of the tension melting from my shoulders, then tightening right back up again as my conscience kicks my own ass.

I push the door open and stop. She left a light on for me in the kitchen. It’s dimmed, but the warm glow is something I haven’t had welcoming me home in years. In the low light, I look around, expecting to see signs of puppy mayhem, but the apartment is clean. I wouldn’t know I had a temporary roommate or a dog living here if it weren’t for a few subtle signs, like her much smaller shoes at the door, a dog leash hanging off the handle of the coat closet, and two mugs set out by the coffee maker instead of one. That last thing makes a smile rise, unbidden. She’s thoughtful. The light, the mug, those are things no one has ever done for me.

Hell, my own mama never set out a mug for me, although she did wait up more than once when I’d been out late.

Setting my bag down, I move farther into the apartment, and my gaze lands on a piece of paper on the kitchen counter. I pick it up and curse.

The flowy handwriting must be Evie’s.

But my eyes are dry and bleary from travel, and my brain is not functioning anywhere near as well as it could if I wasn’t so damn exhausted.

Yeah. That’s what I try to tell myself when the letters dance around on the page, the lines and loops making no sense to me. It’s got nothing to do with me having wires crossed the wrong way in my brain, and everything to do with me being tired.

I’ve used that line before.

Still holding that damn note, I pick up my bag again and make my way to my bedroom. Inside, I drop everything, including the note, to the floor. Then I strip off my clothes, for once not caring that I’m leaving a messy trail behind me, and move to the bathroom. I need a fucking shower and a solid eight hours of sleep.

I shower quickly, then pull on a pair of boxers before crawling beneath my clean sheets. Fuck yeah, there’s nothing better than the first night in your own bed after a set of away games. Hotels ain’t got nothing on my thread count.

But the sleep I desperately need won’t come. Instead, I find myself tossing and turning, ears tuned for any sound from the apartment.

This is ridiculous.

I’ve slept in the same house as Evie before, many times, in fact. Yami and I were instant friends when we were first signed to the same team back East in Buffalo. And with his family living relatively close by, just across the border in the Toronto area, we’d go there for a visit when we could. I’ve never once struggled to fall asleep simply from knowing that Evie’s in the same building as me.

Then again, I haven’t spent the night in the same house as her for a few years. Four, to be exact. Not since the time I went back to Yami’s parents’ house with him and she tried to kiss me.

Fuck, I wanted that kiss. Even then, just barely out of her teen years, she was a stunning young woman. And there was something about her that drew me in. But my conscience wouldn’t let me. She was still in university, still living at home, and I was in the early years of my career, freshly traded to the Tridents, a team across the country. To say nothing of her being my best friend’s baby sister.

I had to push her away then. Would I do the same now?

I should. For Yami’s sake, I should.

Stifling a groan of frustration, I roll out of bed and drop to the floor, working my way through a set of push-ups and sit-ups to try and remind my body of just how goddamn tired we are.

I freeze when I hear a door open and then soft footsteps. Guess I’m not the only one having a hard time sleeping .

Several minutes pass before I hear them return. There’s no chance in all of creation that I’ll fall asleep knowing they’re outside, so I don’t even try. But when the quiet click of the guest room door shutting eventually reaches my ears, I let myself fall back against my pillow, my eyes finally falling shut.

We get a rest day after traveling like we did yesterday, so my usual early alarm is turned off. Not that I would have needed it, seeing as my clock registers it’s not even 8 am when excited puppy barks rouse me from sleep.

I hear the front door open and close. Guess I might as well get up myself. Throwing off the covers, I grab a pair of shorts and tidy up the mess of my clothes and travel bag that I left last night when I was too tired to do anything.

A piece of paper flutters out from under the sweats I was wearing last night.

Damn. The note.

I snatch it up and flatten it out on my bed, squinting down to see if I can read it. But dyslexia isn’t magically fixed by a few hours of sleep.

With a curse, I pick up my phone and open the app that will hopefully be able to convert Evie’s handwriting into speech. It works better with printing, but it’s my only chance. I never was able to make my brain understand cursive.

Thank fuck, the app works, and I can make out the note.

Welcome home, Rhett.

I went to the store and grabbed a few things, please help yourself if you come in hungry tonight. If I remember correctly, you should have tomorrow morning free. I’d like to make you some breakfast as a thank you for letting me stay.

Oh, and Ruthie has a trick to show you.

Sleep well,

Evie

Damn. Why does she have to be so sweet, so considerate, so…off-limits. The second the electronic voice of my phone finishes reading Evie’s note, there’s the chime of an incoming message.

A different voice, the one I have programmed to read my messages aloud automatically starts talking, reading Yami’s text. Guilt floods me, as if he can somehow sense that I was thinking about his sister just now.

YAMI: Hey bro, you better be awake. I’m on my way over. Evie said she’s making our grandmother’s recipe for tamagoyaki and I’ll eat them all if you’re not up.

I pull on a shirt, brush my teeth, and jam a Tridents hat on my head backward before going out into the living room just as the front door opens and Ruthie comes bounding across the floor. Her paws lose traction and she slides into my legs, tumbling over herself, making both Evie and I burst out laughing.

“Well now, little lady, I see we gotta work on some coordination,” I say, reaching down to pet the gangly rascal. “Those legs are too darn big for you, aren’t they.”

“She’ll grow into them. I think she’s got a lot of Great Dane in her,” Evie offers up, still standing by the door .

I smile up at her. “I think you’re right. My mama had a dog that looked like Miss Ruthie here, and she was half Great Dane, half hound. Those big ears and long legs are a dead giveaway.”

Evie walks in and goes to the kitchen, flipping on the coffee maker and busying herself with something or other. “Coffee will be ready soon, and I hope it’s okay that I invited Kai over for breakfast. Well, he sort of invited himself. As soon as he heard I was making tamagoyaki.”

I move to the kitchen counter and lean against it, folding my arms over my chest. “Evie, it’s fine. This is your home for now. Of course you can invite people over. Besides, even if you weren’t making those little rolled omelets he’s obsessed with, Yami shows up here most off days, no matter what. He says my sauna is better than the stadium one.”

“You have a sauna?” She turns, eyes wide. “Wait. Is there a pool?”

I nod, tamping down my grin at her excitement. Fuck, she’s cute. “The same key fob that opens the front door will open the door to the fitness facilities. Use it whenever you want.”

She beams, and it’s like staring into the sun. All that, over a pool.

“Thank you, I definitely will.” Some of her happiness fades as she glances over at the laptop I now see sitting on the coffee table. “I’ll use it as my reward for putting in some time on the job hunt.”

The coffee machine beeps that it’s ready, and I move over to it and start to pour. She’s next to me, not so close that we’re touching, but close enough.

I slide one mug over to her before dumping in the spoonful of sugar I add to mine, then I make my way out of the kitchen to a safer distance.

“What kinda job are you lookin’ for?”

Some of that smile returns as she doctors up her own coffee, then moves to lean against the counter opposite me.

“My degree is in special education, with a focus on early literacy. I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a kid.” She looks at me, indecision over how much to say clear in her expression, so I decide to tell her what I know.

“Your brother mentioned you have asthma.” I take a sip of coffee, and she continues.

“Yeah. I’m basically fine now, but it was really bad when I was younger. I had plenty of time to read when I couldn’t go to school. It was an escape for me. A way to forget about all the treatments and tests. Plus, I really enjoy working with young kids, and after spending a few years volunteering at my local library, I knew I wanted to combine those two things. Did you know that even today, many schools use an outdated literacy program that doesn’t take into account different learning styles and abilities? There are so many kids out there who struggle in school for no reason other than the fact that the way teachers have to teach doesn’t meet their needs.”

Ah, fuck.

Hearing Evie speak about her passion, her goals, and what she wants to do for kids that are struggling the way I struggled?

Fuck if it doesn’t make her even more attractive than before.

If there had been someone like Evangeline Yamaki around in Tennessee when I was growing up, maybe I wouldn’t have had to do whatever was necessary just to scrape by and get my diploma. Maybe I wouldn’t be a twenty-eight-year-old man who still can barely read. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like a fucking dumbass any time Yami has to lean over and whisper whatever shit Coach scrawls onto the whiteboard at strategy sessions.

Maybe I wouldn’t feel like the only thing I could ever hope to offer a woman like Evie is a charming smile and a good time.

When she deserves so much more.