I’m even more grateful that I’m meeting Declan at his apartment rather than at a bar or restaurant. There’s no way I could have a private conversation with him in public right now.
There’s no way I want to either.
When I arrive at his building, those nerves dock in me again.
I stare up at the sky, drawing a deep, fueling breath before I walk into the unknown, hoping like hell I can make it out alive.
Without getting burned.
Without getting hurt or losing everything I’ve built for the last seven months.
“Hi, I’m here to see Mr. Steele,” I say to the doorman. “I’m—”
The goateed man in the maroon uniform waves me through. “Come in. He’s waiting for you. He’s on the eleventh floor.”
Pride flickers in me, knowing I am on some sort of list Declan gave the building.
Maybe he even gave it to them a week ago, then counted down the hours till now. That’s exactly what it’s been like for me.
I’ve been waiting for him.
Once I reach his floor, I take off my jacket and sling it over my arm as I look around the hallway, take it all in. A sleek and modern building with gray walls lined with modern art prints. He walks this hall every day. Sees these frames every night.
This is where he’s been since he left spring training.
I glance at the walls, then the carpets. Have other men walked down this hall to his place? Has he been with anyone? How would I even ask him? Hey, Deck, how’s New York been treating you? Gotten any dick lately?
I clench my jaw. My chest thrashes with jealousy. All at once, images pummel me—his life, his nights, his dates.
I stop, inhale deeply, try to talk back to the storm of emotions raging in me.
I don’t know what his life’s been like. I don’t know a thing about what he’s been up to since he split with me. All I have to go on are two phone calls and a few minutes in the bathroom at a pool hall when he told me he studied English lit in college.
That means I’ll need to stay in control of the conversation. Keep it light and easy.
I can do that, even though my skin tingles the closer I get to his place. My pulse beats a little faster.
My body is a dog on a leash, tugging me along.
The dog wants what’s on the other side of the door.
Must stay cool.
When I reach the corner apartment, I lift my hand to knock, but Declan’s already opening the door, and he’s waiting—jacket off. Tie loosened. Eyes only for me.
Like he was in Arizona.
The difference, though, is he’s not only looking at me with hunger, but with hope too. And I’ve no idea what the hell I’m going to do with it.
Or how I’m ever going to stay cool with him.
16
Declan
I rehearsed.
Practiced in front of the mirror and all.
Given my speckled history with public speaking, I didn’t want to leave a word to chance.
I recited all the words.
And I also recited the nine short lines of Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice over and over today.
I did it this morning.
I did it this afternoon.
I did it when the doorman buzzed to tell me that my visitor was on his way up . . .
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
But as soon as the door closes, everything I planned to say falls from my mind. So do the other seven lines of that poem I’ve known by heart since I was a freshman.
Who could blame me?
Grant Blackwood is in my home. My heart lunges at him. My brain is like mushy peas.
“Come in,” I say, even though he’s already here.
Hey words, nice time to vacate my head.
After he sets his suit jacket on a chair near the door, he takes off his shoes. Mine are off too. Then, the sexy catcher strides across the hardwood floors, looking around as he tugs at his teal blue tie, the perfect color for those eyes. “Nice pad,” he says as he loosens the neckwear a bit.
“Yeah, it’s got a good view.”
Not of hyacinths.
His gaze drifts to the floor-to-ceiling windows, and he points at the view of the New York night. “Is that . . . the East River?”
I smile and nod. “Yes, it is. How many times have you been in New York?”
With that grin that drove me wild in March, he holds up two fingers. “Second time here.”
“That so? The series the other month was your first?”
He wiggles a brow. “I was a New York virgin in September.”
“And now you’re not,” I say as he makes his way to the windows, stopping in front of them.
“Now I’m not,” he says a little heavily as he stares out the window. “But when I was younger, New York was on the list of places I always wanted to go.”