Play Along(27)

I relent, my voice soft. “I’ll take care of it for you.”

“I know.”

“And I’ll get it back to you as soon as all of this is over.”

He doesn’t respond to that.

“These are for you,” I say, reaching into my pocket and holding my palm open with both the black metal band and its silicone counterpart. “I know it’s not diamonds, but—”

“Shouldn’t you be getting on one knee or something?”

I shoot him a look. “Take the goddamn rings before I change my mind.”

His smile grows. “Did you get me both a metal and a rubber ring so I could wear something during my games?”

Okay, my cheeks are definitely pink. Why the hell did I do that?

I guess because Isaiah seems like the kind of partner who would wear a silicone ring during his games since he couldn’t wear the metal version. And as his supposed wife, I would know that.

“You don’t have to wear it while you play if it’s uncomfortable, I just thought it might sell the whole thing, especially since Remington is here at the home games.”

He slips the silicone band onto his left ring finger. “I was just going to get your name tattooed there since I couldn’t wear a ring while I was playing, but this will do.” He unlocks the door, holds it open, and says, “You better get back to work, Doc.”

As I’m walking out, I laugh to myself about the tattoo thing before realizing, I’m not entirely sure he was joking.



With Kai’s hand in mine, I work his muscles, giving extra attention to his adductor pollicis, which tends to tighten up in the early innings if he doesn’t get it worked out before his starts on the mound.

I use my thumb to dig in and pull out the tension.

I work on relaxing the lumbrical muscles between his fingers then flip his hand, palm up, and open the abductor muscle by his thumb.

My fingers glide over his tendons and smooth over his skin.

His hands are big and his muscles are overdeveloped, grown from years of needing to control the path of a baseball.

They feel like Isaiah’s.

A flash of a memory from our night in Vegas zips through my consciousness. I remember freely holding his hand, the tequila keeping me from overthinking.

I wish I could be that natural about physical touch all the time.

But everything about that physical contact was completely different than the kind here, when I’m in the training room.

I started working in sports medicine back in undergrad. Dean was on our university’s baseball team, and I remember finding him in the training room after one of his games.

The team doctors and trainers were working on the athletes’ bodies, running them through different types of post-game therapy and helping them cool down with stretches. I remember how nonchalant it was for the medical staff to touch the athletes they were working on.

At the time, touch was such a foreign concept to me that it was both shocking and intriguing to see an entire profession dedicated to using your own body to fix someone else’s.

I had never really been touched. I couldn’t tell you a single time I was hugged as a child. Never had someone hold my hand or cuddle next to me. At the time, I didn’t know that was abnormal, but once I got to college, I realized there was something wrong with me when my entire body would tense up because my new university friends would try to hug me in greeting.

The next semester, I started interning for Dean’s baseball team and changed my major to premed. I fell in love with the science of it all. How the human body was able to break down and recover. How you could build strength to avoid injury.

I learned that there’s something so amazing about using your own two hands to help heal someone else. Sure, physical contact outside of the confines of medicine is still unnatural for me, but I’m working on it.

“Are you going to make eye contact with me at some point, or . . .”

I continue to work on Kai’s hand as he sits on a training table. “Not if I can help it.”

He chuckles.

“Do you hate me?”

“Damn, Kennedy. I’ve never known you to be so dramatic.”

I drop his hand, finally looking up. Yes, up because even though he’s sitting and I’m standing, the Rhodes boys are ridiculously tall. “Do you think differently of me now?”

“Of course not.”

“I’m basically using your brother.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind. I’m fairly certain he’d volunteer for the job if given the opportunity.”

I’ll never understand Isaiah’s so-called crush on me. If he knew anything about me, his feelings would evaporate. Connor was offered the keys to my family’s company. All he had to do was be with me, and even he couldn’t.

Kai’s voice is low, for only us to hear. “This will, however, be a very different conversation if he gets hurt.”

“He can’t get hurt. It’s not personal. It’s a business arrangement. One that ends in six months.”

He taps his mom’s ring on my finger. “I’m not so sure he sees it that way.”

That’s my concern too. This ring feels far too real for what we’re doing.

A paper plate with a homemade sandwich drops onto the training table next to Kai. “Eat,” Isaiah says, directed at me.