Loving Him Off the Field Page 7

  Bowling.

  Just her luck. The one sport she had no interest in reporting on, she was actually decent at. Just decent. But since bowling didn’t require a whole lot of aerobic activity, she was suffering the consequences of her little nature walk with Killian.

  She shifted slightly and hissed out a breath as the brick bit into the scrapes down her back.

  Suffering in more than one way.

  “Problems, Freckles?”

  She jumped away from the wall and turned to face Killian. “Is that name supposed to be patronizing?”

  “Do you find your freckles patronizing?” He shifted his gym bag on his shoulder and didn’t wait. “I guess today’s day one, huh?”

  “It is.” She fell in step with him, noting that he slowed down slightly to accommodate her shorter legs. She hid her smile. “You should feel lucky I gave you half the day off from my annoying questions.”

  “I’d feel luckier if you forgot the whole thing and moved on to interview someone else.” When she shook her head, he sighed. “Figured. So what, you’re just going to follow me around? Sit down and shine a bright light in my eyes to disorient me while asking me questions? How does this work?”

  She laughed as he reached the parking lot where his car was. “I think we can skip the interrogation techniques for now, as long as you don’t become a flight risk. But be aware, I’ve studied water boarding.” She raised a brow. “It’s not that difficult.”

  “So noted.” He popped his trunk and tossed his bag in, then opened the passenger door. “Get in.”

  “My car’s just over there. Are you heading home? I’ll meet you at—” Her words were cut off as his hand closed around her arm and half-pushed, half-yanked her into the car. “Oh, well, how gentlemanly of you, but—”

  “Just get in, Freckles.” He closed her door and got in his side. “The bucket of rust you call a vehicle scares the shit out of me. We’re going to the same place. I’ll drive you back later when I head to the gym.”

  She blinked. “You walked this morning, you had practice for hours, and you’re going to work out tonight?”

  “Yeah. Life sucks, doesn’t it?” He grinned, belying the sarcasm, and started the car with nary a cough or hesitation.

  Aileen held on for one covetous moment, wishing her car started like that. Poor Sybil. She immediately regretted the traitorous thoughts. Her car was loyal, hard-working . . . and paid off. No way could she start the circle of car payment hell all over again so soon.

  He drove in silence, not making any conversation. And she had a feeling he would just as soon push her out the car on the highway than listen to her start the interview now. So she sat back and enjoyed the smooth ride, free from shuddering and rattling upon hitting speeds of fifty-five or higher. And the surprising radio selection.

  “Top Forty kinda guy?”

  He shrugged one shoulder as he pulled into his apartment complex.

  “I would have guessed something more hard-hitting. More . . . metal,” she decided. He had such sharp edges to his personality, it seemed like a logical choice.

  “So sue me for liking Maroon 5.”

  “I’m assuming you mean the music, and not the deliciously sexy Adam Levine.” She sighed a little. “The man . . . is a god.”

  He snorted, then pulled into his parking space and shut off the car. “We go in quickly and quietly. No sudden moves, no loud sounds. Do not stop to talk, do not shuffle your feet, and do not drop your bag until we are inside.”

  His eyes were intense, as if daring her to argue with him. She had the oddest urge to press a kiss to his nose and make him lighten up a little. Instead, she ticked them off on her fingers. “Scream bloody murder, walk like an ape, bang on every door going in. Check.”

  “You’re such a pain in the ass,” he mumbled as he got out of the car. She didn’t wait for him to come open hers and scrambled to follow.

  How did he make that sound like an endearing observation rather than a negative personality trait? She was going nuts, that’s how.

  They managed to get into his apartment without the watchful Mrs. Reynolds poking her head out. Maybe his neighbor was napping. Aileen set her bag down and wandered around the dining area and kitchen, taking in the sparse furniture and decor. “Was all that stealth to keep your neighbor from seeing us?”

  “Maybe.” He walked past her in the tight galley-style kitchen, his shoulder brushing hers as he did. He opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, holding it high. “Want?”

  “Sure, thanks.” He handed her another and closed the fridge door, leaning against the countertop to guzzle half his bottle in one take.

  She struggled with the top to her bottle for a good thirty seconds before he sighed, took it from her, opened it, and handed it back.

  “I loosened it.”

  He shook his head and walked back by, heading for the living room. She followed slower, taking in the ambiance. True, she’d been in his apartment once before, but it hardly counted. She’d only seen the kitchen and dining area from her vantage point. And plus, she’d been busy . . .

  Heat flushed her face and she did a quick spin while taking a sip of water to cool herself down. She nodded at a few generic landscapes on the walls, as if judging their technique and composition.

  Do not think about kissing him. Do not think about kissing him. Be a freaking professional.

  “Why an apartment and not a house?”

  He sat on the couch in one corner, angling himself so he could prop his feet on the coffee table in front. “Why not?”

  “Privacy, for one. You wouldn’t have any Mrs. Reynolds-types watching your front door to see who comes and goes.” It occurred to her, she didn’t even know her own neighbors’ names.

  He was quiet, absorbing that thought while taking another drink. Then he simply said, “She’s not so bad,” as if he hadn’t just forced her to move around with the stealth of a Navy SEAL in training to avoid his neighbor hearing them slink in.

  “Okay, so then what?” She hesitated, then pointed at the other end of the couch. “Can I sit?” He gestured for her to have at it, so she did. “So if not the privacy from neighbors, then from fans or other not-so-well-meaning individuals. Your apartment complex isn’t even gated. Don’t you worry about rabid fans or crazy Bobcat haters finding you?”

  “As far as Bobcats go, I’m pretty low on the totem pole.” He said it so clearly, with no false humility, she knew he believed it. He honestly thought he was the next thing to a nobody. “I don’t have weird fan mail . . . that I know of. Maybe my agent weeds it out. I haven’t had anyone follow me back. A few people in the complex know I’m here, but they have been pretty decent about leaving me to myself. I don’t use the community workout equipment or swim in the community pool, and I don’t linger in the common areas. I’m in, I’m out. And until you,” he added with a hard glare, “no reporters have given me more than a few questions about my personal life.”

  She beamed. “So glad to be unique.”

  Her phone rang and she dug around in her tote for several seconds, blindly searching for the object shaped like the iPhone. Then Killian reached into his own cargo shorts pocket, pulled out his own iPhone, and silenced the ringer.

  “Oh. That was you?” She waited, but the ringing had stopped.

  “Yeah?”

  “We have the same ringtone.” She smirked. “Something in common. Watch out, or you’ll find out we’re more alike than you want.”

  “That’ll be the day,” he said darkly.

  She dug around her tote for a moment, pulling out her massive jumble of keys and setting them on the coffee table before continuing to dig for her phone. She heard Killian pick up the keys, but she didn’t look up. “Where the hell is my phone?”

  “It was my phone,” he reminded her, like she was an idiot who couldn’t keep up. The keys rattled in his hands.

  “No, I need mine. I have a recording app, so I can record this instead of writing . . . ah! There we
go.” Phone in hand, she looked up and found Killian rotating the ball of metal and plastic around in his hand, staring at it with a horrified look on his face. “What?”

  “This thing has to weigh at least three pounds. Why would you keep this much crap on your key ring?” He shook it, wincing at the clanging sound.

  She held out a hand, raising a brow when he ignored it to keep staring at the key ring. “I don’t play favorites with key chains. I like them.” She waited another few moments, then said quietly, “They were my mom’s, okay?”

  He must have heard the silent plea in the words, because he gently placed them in her hand without hesitation. “It’s probably a health hazard. All that weight in your bag that is being carried on one shoulder. You could develop a hump. Or a slump. Or whatever.”

  She rolled her eyes and let the keys et al. fall into her bag. Opening up her recording app, she set it on the couch cushion between them. Killian shifted so he was facing her, one leg now bent on the couch. She mirrored his pose. And did her best to ignore the fact that they were both short enough, the couch would easily accommodate their bodies, length-wise. “Why kicker?”

  He took another swallow of water before setting it down on the coffee table. No coaster. “I tried out for linebacker, but they said I was too big.”

  She sighed.

  “I enjoy kicking things.” He picked up the bottle, then set it down again without drinking. His eyes stayed on the table. “I played soccer up through high school, not football. Never played a day of football in my life until college. Wasn’t even a fan of the game, really.”

  “Yet you played four years in college.” She smiled a little at his glance. “Google, remember? I warned you I’d be looking.”

  “Yes, I did. I tried out for the soccer team, but I didn’t make the cut. However, the football coach had been meeting with the athletic director in the stands of the soccer field that day, saw me making goals from the longest distance, and asked if I’d ever thought of kicking a football instead of a soccer ball.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I laughed at him.” He shook his head in amusement. “It was so absurd. I just got cut from the soccer team, and here was the football coach asking me to try out for him. Not good enough for soccer, a game I’d played since I was four years old, but good enough for football? Something I’d barely even watched?”

  “So soccer was your passion, then.” He scowled at that, as if not caring for her choice of words. “Okay, not passion, maybe. First choice. Soccer was your thing.”

  “I knew I wasn’t going to play soccer professionally. It’s just not realistic. But yeah, I wanted to eke out four more years of good, solid competition before I hung up my cleats and moved on. I thought college graduation was the beginning of adulthood, when I’d stop playing games and start being serious about life. Instead . . .” He held up his hands in surrender. “Now I play games for a living. Ironic, right?”

  “Did you come to love football like you love soccer?”

  He seemed to consider that for a moment.

  He started to reach for his water again, then sat back without taking it and ran a hand through his hair. The mass, still damp from his shower, curled behind his ears and flopped in dark lines over his forehead. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  The simple question—one she hadn’t intended to trip him up with—seemed to throw him off. “Let’s move on. Did you have to try out for the team?”

  “Oh, yeah.” On steadier ground now, he grinned. “I sucked. Didn’t make a single shot through the upright that time. Thank God they had me try out alone . . . and probably for that exact reason,” he added, his voice trailing off. “Hmm. I didn’t think about it at the time. Anyway, I was sure I’d just wasted two hours of my time. And my leg was really fucking sore. Sorry, freaking.” He winced and stared at her phone, still sitting between them.

  She laughed. “This is just for my own memory, I’m not using this in any finished product. And curse words don’t offend me. Don’t worry about it. Sore leg? After years of playing soccer?”

  “Uses different muscles, different range of motion. Plus, I’m not always kicking a long distance. A good deal of soccer is running or sprinting, blocking with your body. So I left the field thinking I’d just wasted everyone’s time—mine most of all—when the coach called me and asked me to come to the first practice. Apparently I’d done something he thought he could work with.” He grabbed his water this time and uncapped it, but settled it on his knee instead of drinking. “And the rest is history.”

  She made a pffft sound. “Right. We’ll just skip over everything else and call the story done. Thanks so much for your time.”

  “Great. It’s been fun, Freckles.” He made like he was getting up, and she laughed. The man was funny, so funny, and she’d bet he didn’t even realize it. If she told him he was hilarious, he’d probably think she was joking.

  “Okay, so. We’ll back up farther than high school. Let’s talk family.”

  At that, the humor evaporated, sucked out of the air like a vacuum. “No.”

  Aileen settled back on the couch and crossed her arms. Waiting.

  She’d waited for this interview for weeks. Waited for this chance for years.

  She could wait another few minutes while he pulled his head out of his ass.

  * * *

  “Family’s off limits.” Killian fisted his free hand at his side, keeping it from shaking. The hand clutching his bottle of water tightened until the plastic made a cracking sound.

  Aileen blinked at him, lingering. Like she could just sit there all day and not consider it a waste. Damn it, Freckles.

  “No,” he said again, hoping she got the point and moved on to another question.

  “Parents?” she asked hopefully.

  “No.”

  “Oh, I see. You were hatched out of an egg.” When he didn’t smile, she narrowed her eyes. “You promised to let me interview you. This is day one. I’m following the rules.”

  “You also promised not to push.”

  “I . . .” He could almost see her mentally reviewing their walk on the trails, playing back their words. “Fine. What do you want to talk about? Is there anything on your mind you want to make sure I include?”

  He thought for a moment, but she shifted on the couch, winced and hissed through her teeth. She arched her back away from the arm and pulled at the back of her T-shirt.

  “What? What’s wrong?” He knelt down by her, still nearly eye to eye thanks to her short stature.

  She gave him a wry smile. “Bark burn.”

  “Bark . . .” Oh. He grimaced, then reached around and bent her over a little. Raising her shirt, inch by inch, he watched the pale skin of her back revealed until he saw the angry red scrapes. They started in the middle of her back and extended up behind the line of her simple gray cotton sports bra. He had to force himself not to lift the band of her bra to see how far they went.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, mentally wincing at the temper in his tone. “I would have stopped if it hurt.”

  “It didn’t hurt at the time,” she said. “I was a little busy concentrating on other things.”

  His fingers smoothed gently around the edges of the scrapes. “I’m sorry. Let’s put something on this.”

  “No, it’s fine.” She laughed, a little brittle, as if from nerves. “Just a scrape.”

  But he wasn’t about to hear no. He’d done this to her . . . him and his crazy, unleashed lust. This was what came from not controlling your emotions and intense hunger . . . people got hurt.

  “Come with me.” He let her shirt fall back down and took her elbows, guiding her up. She watched him with wary eyes, and he couldn’t blame her. They were adversaries, two people with cross-purposes. She was right to be suspicious.

  Killian led her through the master bedroom into the small master bath, which was thankfully clean from the cleaning service having visited that morning while he was in practice. H
e pushed the toilet lid down and pointed. “Sit.” She did, and he washed his hands at the sink before digging around under the counter for the first aid kit he kept. The few times Charlie had come to see him at his apartment made him intensely aware that he had to have simple first aid around. The kid was a walking disaster.

  He pulled out the peroxide, biting back a smile when her eyes widened.

  “No, thank you.” She stood, ready to bolt, but he just pushed on the uninjured part of her shoulder and watched her plop back down. “Seriously, that stuff stings, Killian. Don’t.”

  “You don’t know what that tree had crawling over it. It’s better to get it out of the way now, so it won’t get infected.”

  Her mouth twisted as she watched him soak a cotton ball over the sink. “What, you think I got some contagious tree disease?”

  “Just shut up and turn around.” Miraculously, she did, but not without a muttered curse. With her back to him, he could grin at her cute disgruntlement. “Lifting your shirt now.” He slid his hands under the soft fabric once more and raised it up. At the first touch of the cotton ball to her skin, she hissed and twisted.

  “In through the nose, out through the mouth,” he advised. He went as fast as he could, blowing on the bubbling liquid. When he reached the band of her bra, he hesitated. “How high up does this bark burn go?”

  “It’s fine,” she said quickly.

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she sighed. “Up to my shoulder blades.”

  “Damn it, Freckles,” he growled. Why hadn’t she stopped him when she’d felt the first scrape? He debated how to handle it, then gave in to the process. Call it penance. “Take off your shirt and bra.”

  She barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right. Just leave it with me and I’ll finish up.”

  “Your T-Rex arms can reach back here?” She slapped at him but didn’t turn around. “I’ll look the other way. You can keep your shirt against your front, just give me your back so I can finish up and we can move on.”