Page 103 of Vegas Heat: The Expansion Team Complete Series

Top Gun was pretty good, but Troy slept through most of it, and I just started some James Bond movie when Joanie appears in the doorway. She’s quiet so as not to wake the sleeping Troy, and she smiles at me as she sits nearby.

“Thanks for staying with him,” she whispers. “Did I miss anything?”

I shake my head. “Not a thing. And I haven’t had a break in the last few weeks, either. It wasn’t hard to sit back and enjoy a movie.”

“If you two would stop jibber-jabbering, maybe a guy could get some rest,” Troy mutters from the bed.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” I say, the word out of my mouth before I realize that’s his daughter’s nickname.

He glares at me.

“Is he always this grumpy when he wakes up?”

She nods. “Unfortunately, yes. But I usually have my ways of dealing with it.”

“Can’t get the old ticker moving too fast yet, Joanie,” I warn, and she giggles while Troy continues to glare.

“Well, I’ll be on my way,” I say as I stand and stretch. “I hear the interns may need some help.”

“They do. They’re in the swag closet now planning a Heat float,” Joanie says.

“Thanks for sticking around,” Troy says gruffly.

I nod as I offer him a fist bump. “Hey, you just keep getting better. I’ll always stick around, man.”

He nods his thanks, and I head out. I decide to surprise Gabby at the stadium, and I find her, Justin, and Chloe working hard in the swag closet. They appear to be organizing and taking inventory of supplies, and they have a whole system down where Justin opens the boxes, Chloe unpacks them, Gabby inventories them, and Justin finds shelf space for them.

I jump in by helping break down the empty boxes, and the process moves pretty quickly. They grab the items they want to give away during the parade, and Gabby sends a text out to the interns to let them know they’re moving over to Justin’s place to work on the float.

“Can I do anything?” I ask.

Gabby nods. “Get started on signed stuff from the players. We want to gift at least one item to every business who volunteers a float.”

I nod. “You got it.” I glance around the swag room and find a variety of things I can have players sign, and then I head to the clubhouse while Gabby and the interns gather up what they need for the Heat float.

I find Danny and Rush in the weight room with Nick, AJ, and a few guys who must’ve rushed right over after the draft. Overall the tone in here is one of enthusiasm and excitement, like we’re a group of men ready to spend all our time together over the next several months working toward a common goal.

I talk to the handful of new guys about the housing options. I know very little about the accommodations the team provides since I opted to buy my own place, but not everyone has that option, and not everyone on the team has the same paycheck I have.

I realize how lucky I am not for the first time.

I hand out a few items and some sharpies I found in the swag closet, and the guys start signing. I force in a quick workout, drop the signed items in Joanie’s office, and head to dinner with Danny.

Dinner goes late as we talk about the draft picks much longer than I was expecting, and it’s nearly eleven by the time I’m getting in my truck to head home. I call Gabby while I’m on my way.

“Hey,” she answers, her voice warm like honey.

“Hey yourself. Are you still working on the float?”

“I’m just heading home, actually. It all came together beautifully and Justin’s taking over in the morning so I won’t have to miss class.”

“I know it’s late, but I’m on my way home if you’d like to stop by,” I offer.

“Mr. Noah…is this a booty call ?” Her voice is filled with shock, but I know she’s just teasing me.

“Hey, a guy’s gotta fit it in when a guy can fit it in, you know what I’m saying?”

She laughs, but the sound sobers quickly. “That’s how it’s going to be, isn’t it?” she asks.

I clear my throat. “I mean…I can’t sugarcoat it. Yes, it’s going to be squeezing in time when we can. Having to do it on the sly will complicate things, but it’s you and me. We’ll manage. Thanksgiving, Christmas…then it all starts. Spring training is voluntary but since it’s a brand-new team, we’ll all be there. We’ll want to start running drills long before that, too, so even like I told your dad earlier, we get through the holidays and it all begins January one.”

“Get through the holidays,” she murmurs. “How am I supposed to get through the holidays when I have to pretend?”

I sigh. “I wish I had the answer to that.”

We haven’t talked about Thanksgiving even though it isn’t far off. I sent plane tickets to my family, and they’re coming for the long weekend. I haven’t thought as far ahead as Christmas yet.

But she’s right. I don’t want to pretend anymore, either. We both braced ourselves for today to be the brunt of it, and then her father had to go and have a fucking heart attack.

I don’t want to pretend, and I also don’t want to spend these important moments without her. But we’re back to square one where we don’t have a choice.

We pull into my driveway at the same time, and it’s a relief to be home with her here. It’s the one place where we don’t have to pretend, where we can be ourselves, where we can do whatever we want however many times we want as loudly as we want.

She follows me through the garage and into the laundry room, and the moment the door closes behind us and seals us into privacy, I pull her into my arms.

She wraps her arms around me, too, and she clings to me. We simply stand there in the laundry room holding tightly to one another—something she needed after the long twenty-four hours of worrying about her father, and something I needed after the long twenty-four hours of worrying about both her and my best friend.

And in this moment, whatever secrets or lies or fears lie ahead of us, I truly feel that as long as we find our way back into each other’s arms, it’ll all turn out okay.

It’s not until much later I discover how very, very wrong I was.