Page 10

Harper

Moon.

That nickname nearly sent me to my knees when I heard it. Then he walked away like he hadn’t left me speechless.

The hallway outside of the team’s locker room was empty, which I was thankful for, as I paced back and forth.

It wouldn’t be out of the blue for a reporter to be lingering, waiting for a comment.

But how would I play it off when someone caught me leaving the stadium with Jamil Edman? And one drink couldn’t hurt, could it?

“Are you ready?” I whirled around to find Jamil standing in the doorway to the locker room, now dressed in a pair of jeans and a black crewneck, that same Chicago Bobcats hat pulled low over his eyes.

“Where are we going to stay away from prying eyes?”

“I have a place,” Jamil told me as he pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “Are you okay with leaving your car here?”

“I actually walked,” I told him. “The network got me an apartment just down the street so I could be close. It was a sudden reassignment.”

“You don’t mind if I drive?” I was touched that he cared to even check with me.

“Not at all.” I motioned for him to lead the way.

Jamil took off at a leisurely pace. It was the same relaxed pace he had back in Florida, except this time I noticed the way his eyes cut around corners, as if he were scared someone would jump out to ask something of him.

“What do you mean by a ‘sudden reassignment’?” he asked me.

There was still a chill to the air when we emerged from the stadium out into the player parking lot and the smell of rain was setting in.

“I was originally assigned to the DC Capitols.” Jamil nodded, remembering I had told him I was from Washington DC. “But this position had an unexpected vacancy, and it was important for the network to prioritize filling it.”

“Maybe that’s a stroke of luck.” Jamil stopped in front of a black sedan and opened the passenger door for me.

I caught his eye as I slid into the awaiting seat. “Maybe,” I agreed.

As soon as he was in the driver’s seat, he turned to look at me. “So, Harper Nelson, field reporter for SC News, do you line dance?”

Jamil had a wicked gleam in his eyes.

“Should I get out while I still have the chance?” I asked, joking .?.?. mostly.

His only response was to give me a wink and tell me, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

That wink had the bottom of my stomach dropping out. This was the same man that kissed nearly every inch of my body and told me how perfect I was at least a dozen times during the night we spent together. And he had the audacity to wink at me?

“How long have you been in Chicago?” He was driving us west out of the city. Tall buildings slowly gave way to open land and cornfields.

“I got in the morning of the first game of the last series.” It had taken nearly the entire weekend to pack my life up into three suitcases.

Most of the stuff in my apartment had to be boxed up and shipped out to meet me here.

Plus, my parents insisted on one more family dinner Sunday night before I was busy for nearly the remainder of the year. I brought a bottle of whiskey with me.

Jamil’s shoulders fell. “And I’m the asshole that asked you out for a drink. You must be tired. Do you want me to bring you back to your apartment?”

I shook my head furiously. “Absolutely not. I’m used to traveling. A long day on the road is nothing.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m positive,” I told him as I reached over to put my hand on top of the one he had resting on his leg. His eyes flickered down then back up to the road and I thought I saw a bit of color in his cheeks.

Jamil cleared his throat before changing the subject. “Do you ever get tired of the travel?”

“Do you?”

He wasn’t expecting me to throw his question back at him, but the lives we both lived weren’t any different. He was on the road just as much as I was.

He spoke so quietly. I almost missed his response. “Sometimes.”

Every word I had died on my tongue. My heart clenched when I saw his internal struggle so clearly displayed all over his face.

“We’re here,” he told me before I could reply.

We pulled in front of what looked like a rundown barn with neon signs hung outside a door. I could make out the sound of music from within the car.

Gone was any trace of the pain I just saw on Jamil’s face as he tipped his head in the direction of the entrance. “Come on.”

Together we walked toward the entrance, the music growing louder the closer we got.

By the time Jamil placed his hand on the door to push it open, I could make out the lyrics to a famous country song and the sound of excited hollers from the patrons inside.

This was the second time I found myself in a secluded bar with Jamil Edman, but this time he wasn’t trying to fade into the background.

He seemed to feed off the energy in the room, glancing excitedly toward the dance floor where people were doing an intricate line dance that I knew would have my uncoordinated feet tripping over themselves.

The walls were covered in old road signs and the only lighting in the entire place was the neon signs and the lights that were strung across the dance floor.

Some of the tables were old wire spools with various mismatched chairs around each one.

The bar looked like it was made from old pallets and galvanized metal.

It wasn’t the kind of place I thought I would ever find someone like Jamil in.

But he moved through the crowd to the bar in the back as if he were right at home.

“How’d you find this place?” I asked him once we found an empty spot near the end.

Jamil waved down the bartender. “You know Adam Steel, right?”

I nodded as Jamil asked the bartender for a rum and soda and a beer.

“After we won the World Series, he brought me and Tommy here as his last hurrah before he was officially retired. The guy never went out with us, not even in the off-season, but he agreed to one night. We told him he could pick the place, and this is where he took us. Not a single person recognized us, and we came here the day after we won.” Jamil accepted the drinks from the bartender before handing me mine.

“I loved it immediately. It’s like my own little getaway now. ”

“You come here by yourself?”

Jamil shook his head. “No, I always have someone with me. Most of the time it’s Tommy.”

I took a sip of my drink, relishing in it after a long day. “But tonight, you brought me.”

“Tonight, I brought you,” he replied. “I find you good company.”

“Let’s see if you still think that after you get me out on that dance floor,” I told him. Jamil wiggled his brows playfully before he downed his drink and held a hand out to me. I was unable to keep a smile off my face with how infectious his was. How full of life he was.

I downed the rest of my drink and slammed the glass on the bar, feeling invigorated as I put my hand in his and let Jamil pull me out onto the dance floor.

Everyone had some kind of boot-denim combo and were all doing the same dance without any sort of prompt, but none of them batted an eye as Jamil and I found an empty spot for us to follow along.

“Do you know this dance?” I asked as Jamil attempted to follow the people around us. He moved gracefully, even as he was blatantly wrong with half of the steps.

“No idea,” he shouted over the music. “Does quantity over quality apply in this situation?”

“I don’t think so,” I told him as I attempted to follow along and ended upside-stepping right into him.

Jamil’s arm wrapped around my waist to try and steady us. “Careful or you’ll take us both out.”

My body reacted the same way it did in Florida when his fingers splayed out over my stomach—hot and needy. This was dangerous what we were doing. Now that I knew what Jamil tasted like, what he felt like, my liquid courage threshold was significantly lower.

Once I was back on two feet, Jamil’s hand disappeared, and I mourned the loss of it. Completely oblivious to the fact that I was now frozen like a statue, Jamil hollered with the crowd as he spun ninety degrees.

There was something intimate about watching him in this moment. This was the Jamil Edman the world had fallen in love with, but they were slowly leeching away the very essence that they loved about him.

If I didn’t put some space between us soon, there was no telling what I would do—professionalism be damned.

“Maybe it’s best we get off the dance floor then, so I don’t hurt you and you have to explain this to your coach.”

There was a flash of disappointment in his eyes, and I tried to ignore the pang in my chest as we walked over to an open table in a secluded corner where only the neon lights reached. Jamil disappeared to the bar to grab us another drink, giving me enough space to think properly.

“So why did you want to be a field reporter?” he asked once he returned with two glasses of water for us, relief filling me. Maybe I’d be able to hold off any further bad decisions tonight.

“Because I love chasing after a good story and being the one to highlight it for the world.” I wrapped my hands around the water glass and stared down into it. It had been months since I’d thought about why I started this career, and it made my heart clench.

Was I really doing anything important?

“Getting to cover the Chicago Cougars must be a big step up.”

My shoulders dropped with the breath I blew out of my nose. “It’s not where I had hoped to be.”

Jamil stayed quiet and patiently waited for me to elaborate.

“I’ve been with the network for four years and I had hoped that I would have done well enough to earn a host spot on one of the daytime shows.

But here I am, still living out of hotels for most of the year, flying to wherever they want me to be.

” Suddenly the floodgates opened. I hadn’t spoken about this to anyone before.

My lifestyle didn’t leave room for many friendships.

Or any relationships at all, really. Never having time to prioritize someone else made it difficult to sustain a relationship with them.

“I never get the kind of stories that would make the executives notice me and I’m beginning to wonder if I just need to move on. Maybe this was never meant to be.”

Jamil leaned back in his chair, and I tried to pretend I didn’t see the swath of skin that was exposed just below the hem of his sweatshirt when he laced his fingers behind his head. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as someone who would ever throw the towel in.”

My eyebrows pulled together as I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m not. Hence why I am still here.”

When he flashed me one of those smiles that had nearly brought me to my knees back in Florida, it felt more like a challenge. “Then what are you going to do about it?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I have a plan. I worked on it last night. If I can cover some big interviews over this season, then my boss would have no choice but to recognize my worth. It’s the how I get those interviews that I’m stumped on.”

“Sometimes you just have to be creative, Moon.” That smile made it exceptionally difficult to be angry at him.

Especially when he called me that nickname.

The ghost of his fingers burned a trail across the tattoo on my chest. “What if I could get you feature stories with some professional athletes to bring you more attention?”

My pulse slowed.

Was he being serious?

Maybe it was the fact that everyone in my industry never did anything from the goodness of their hearts that my first instinct was skepticism. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it would help you?” Jamil’s gaze was sincere and a small voice in my head told me to believe him, but I couldn’t. Not yet.

“Why would you do that, though? Why would you help me? You don’t even really know me.”

Jamil rubbed at the back of his neck as he debated on what to share next. “I think this is actually mutually beneficial.”

I stared at him, wondering if I should be regretting coming here with him.

“If you cover stories on different athletes and they get good coverage, maybe it will take some of the heat off of me.” Jamil looked sheepish as he finally admitted to what he was thinking.

When I still didn’t make a move to reply to his rather weak reasoning, Jamil pressed on.

“My life has quickly become not mine anymore in the past six months. There’s always someone expecting something of me.

Expecting me to smile, expecting me to sign autographs, expecting me to stop and talk when all I want to do is go home for peace and quiet, expecting me to say yes to another deal.

There’s always something. So maybe if someone else had some light shined on them, the media would leave me alone for just a bit.

Until something else happens that reminds them I’m still here. ”

It was obvious that Jamil was tired of everything that came with being a famous professional athlete besides playing the sport, but I hadn’t realized that it was affecting him this much.

With his help, I was sure to knock off the steps of my plan by the end of the season.

Successfully interviewing other athletes was exactly the kind of thing that would solidify my prowess for the network.

It could showcase my talent for in-depth interviews that were longer than the few seconds I normally got on the sidelines as a field reporter.

But was I playing a dangerous game partnering and working with Jamil Edman? Can I control my feelings around him? Would it be so bad if I didn’t?

My brain told me no as I stuck a hand out for him to shake, but my heart squeezed the moment his skin touched mine.