Page 32

I let myself in since Troy told me to, and the house is quiet. Everyone’s surely home, but in a mansion of this size, I suppose it’s easy to find a quiet corner to hide in.

I think about what that could have meant for Gabby and me if I wasn’t being a martyr, as my mother suggested. Is that what I’m doing?

No.

If the situation was reversed and I had a twenty-one-year-old daughter, well, I would’ve been quite the young father…but I wouldn’t want a teammate screwing around with her, much less a player in a position subordinate to my own. And certainly not someone I opened my house to, someone I paid big money to get to town, someone I’m building an entire team around.

It’s a lot of responsibility, and rule one in any situation where a teammate or manager is concerned is respect.

It’s that damn sense of responsibility rearing its ugly and unwanted head, and I’m powerless to prevent it from forcing me to do the right thing. Even if it doesn’t feel like the right thing.

I swing by the kitchen to grab some ice water and I spot Troy at the counter tapping away on his laptop.

“Question for you,” I say without preamble as I help myself to some water from the refrigerator dispenser.

“Fire away,” Troy says, closing his laptop lid.

I like how he gives me his undivided attention. Everything the man does is important, but he has a knack for making whoever he’s talking to feel like they’re deserving of his time.

“Do you have a sponsorship for any kids’ play areas yet?”

He shrugs. “That would fall under community relations and marketing. I can introduce you to Joanie, the head of marketing, at the stadium today and she can offer you more information, but from what I know, she’s still searching for the right fit for a kids’ sponsorship.”

Joanie . Why is that name familiar? I feel like he mentioned his better half once and that was her name. Does his girlfriend work for the Heat?

I lean against the counter. “What do you think about a play area with a circuit for kids sponsored by StrongFitKids?”

“Sponsored by StrongFitKids? Or sponsored by Cooper Noah?” he asks.

I lift a shoulder. “Does it matter?”

He presses his lips together. “Not at all. I think it’s a fantastic idea and I’m sure Joanie would love to hear more. Let me text her to let her know we’ll be stopping by.”

“Great. And I know these sponsorships are generally handled by the corporate world, but I’d love to be as involved as I can be in everything from design through launch, barring the times when I need to be down on the field, obviously. This organization has meant a lot to me in my retirement, so I want to give back as much as I can.”

“Noted, and I’ll be sure to let Joanie know you have final approval at every level,” he says.

“Thanks, man. Can I have my colleague Kaylee meet us there as well?”

He nods. “Send me her information and I’ll be sure to get credentials to security.”

I tap around on my phone and send him the details.

“Joanie is free at two o’clock,” he says as my text to him comes through with Kaylee’s information.

“Great. I’ll text Kaylee and let her know.”

“I’ll be ready to leave in about ten minutes,” he says.

I nod and bolt from the kitchen—mainly because ten minutes is plenty of time for Gabby to make an appearance and fuck more with my brain, but also because I want to change my shirt before we head out.

A heavy weight settles onto my chest as I walk the stairs up to my room. Gabby’s door is open when I walk past it, and I can’t help when my eyes move in her direction. Naturally she’s sitting on her bed with her laptop propped on her legs, and she glances up when she sees me paused in the hallway outside her room.

“Hey,” she says softly.

“Hi.”

She closes her laptop and sets it beside her. “Can we talk?”

I blow out a breath. “Now’s not a good time.” I glance down the hallway even though Troy is on the other side of the house right now.

“Well when can I make an appointment to get on your busy schedule?” she asks, her tone both full of impatience and annoyance with a side of brat.

I lean on her doorway and close my eyes for a beat, trying to keep calm. When she talks to me like that…hell, when she looks at me like that, I want nothing more than to turn that frown upside down, so to speak. By shoving my cock in her, of course.

But clearly that’s off the table, so I think the better call here is avoidance.

I rub my palms together up and down as I try to figure out what to say.

Up palm, down palm, time to get calm. Breathe real deep and take the leap.

“I don’t know what we have left to talk about, Gabby,” I finally say, trying my hardest to keep my tone neutral despite the waves of emotion plowing into me. I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t want to look at her and know that I can’t have her again.

“Oh, okay. So that’s how old people do this, then?” she asks, the side of brattiness taking the lead in her tone. “They just bow out at the first sign of a problem?”

I know what she’s doing. She’s forcing this conversation now even though I said it’s not a good time. And it’s not. I’m meeting Troy in a few minutes to head to the stadium. But maybe she’s right. Maybe if I just get this over with, I can focus on baseball.

And it’s not just that. She’s pitting our ages against us, and I don’t like it. But I guess it’s what I’m doing, too, in forcing this thing to end. Our ages are, after all, a big part of the reason why we can’t be together. If Troy was a little older, and she was a lot older, then maybe he’d understand. Or maybe if I was closer to her age, he’d be okay with it.

But this is different. Troy and I have a previous relationship. We’re friends. Good friends, and he’s depending on me. I can’t fuck this up.

“A, I’m not old. Don’t use our ages against me when we both agreed it didn’t matter. And B, that’s not what I’m doing. It’s complicated, and I’m just trying to do the right thing,” I say. I rub my palms up and down a little more, trying to create some sort of warmth and friction to force a calmness that isn’t coming.

“It didn’t matter.” She leaps to her feet and shoves an angry finger in my direction. “You’re the one making it matter now. You’re the one who thinks it suddenly can’t work.”

“It can’t, and it has nothing to do with our ages. It’s because your dad is a good friend of mine, and I made a commitment to him.”

“That’s harsh,” she says, hurt in her tone. “So he wins since you and me never made any sort of commitment?”

“That’s not what I meant.” I blow out a frustrated breath as I run a hand along my jaw. “Nobody wins here. I was brought in because your father trusts me to create a brotherhood. How can I do that when I’m lying to him?”

“Why do we have to lie, then? Why can’t we just be honest?” she asks.

“Because we can’t. You’ve told me how protective he is of you. You’re the one who said he’s making up for missing your entire life. You know how he is. He will not understand this no matter how we present it to him.”

She glances away from me, and I can see in her eyes that she knows exactly what I mean. “So where do we go from here?”

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t see that there’s anywhere we can go from here.” My voice is low and apologetic, and she closes her eyes as if I physically struck her. And it feels like I physically struck her even though I’d never actually hit anybody. The words coming out of my mouth feel all wrong and jacked up.

“What about the job we talked about with your San Diego company?” she finally asks, clamoring to find a final link between the two of us.

“We never had anything official set up, so I guess Kaylee will just have to find someone else.”

She presses her lips together and nods. “Fine. I need to go.” She heads toward her closet, and I take that as my signal.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her back, and then I head to my room, not sure how I’m going to get through the next month living in the room next door when fighting this is the very last thing I want to do.