“No. Absolutely not. Casual was my idea. I have a full-blown career waiting for me to get back to in a few weeks.”
She pops her shoulders as if this is the simplest of solutions. “Then keep it casual. Stop overthinking it. Ace is a big boy, and you’ve made it clear what this is for you. Have fun and enjoy the frustratingly good sex while you’re still here, and when the time comes for you to leave, you get back to your life.”
Wow. How utterly simple. It’s the exact advice I would give myself if I were thinking straight.
“Besides, we don’t let men get in the way of careers we love,” she continues.
“You’re right.” I give a single, confident nod. “Damn, I should’ve gotten a girlfriend years ago.”
“That advice was easy. I would give my left kidney for frustratingly good sex right about now.”
“Well, Kai does have a brother.”
She barks a laugh, falling back onto the massage table behind her. “Don’t even go there.”
“Isaiah is cute and very much into you.”
“He’s into everyone. And besides, that’s an easy way to get fired. I sure as hell am not risking my career for a night with one of the players, least of all Isaiah.”
“But you can be friends with them, right? You just can’t date them?”
“Yeah. Casual relationships between staff and players are cause for termination, but a few years ago, a player’s wife was hired on as a team photographer. That was allowed because of how serious their relationship was.”
“Am I considered staff? If people find out—”
Kennedy waves me off. “Trust me, Miller, everyone already knows.”
“What?” I laugh in disbelief. “How?”
“Because he looks like the old Ace again, the one that had a smile plastered on his face and was just happy and grateful to be playing baseball. That’s the version I met last season before he found out about Max and convinced himself he was doing a shit job raising him. But I can promise you, there’s not a person here that doesn’t know why he’s walking around on cloud nine today.”
Checking her watch, she hops off the table and continues setting up the training room. “Besides, you’re Monty’s daughter. You can do whatever the hell you want, and no one is going to try to say otherwise.”
My phone dings in my pocket.
Baseball Daddy: Hey, you around? Would you mind coming to get Max? I gotta get ready.
Sliding off the table, I swing my arms around Kennedy from behind. “Thanks, friend.”
She chuckles. “You’re welcome, friend.”
I find Kai and Max outside of the visitors’ clubhouse. Kai is already stripped down to his compression shorts, ready to go get stretched and taped, contacts in and messy brown hair pushed back from his fingers that keep running through the waves.
His smile is the first one to bloom when he catches me walking down the hall towards them, but when Max sees me, his facial expression lifts and mirrors his dad.
My lungs clutch at the sight. This is what I’m confused about. Why does the image of those two make my heart scream mine?
I jog down the hall, bending down when I get close, and giving Max space to run into my open arms.
“Ah, I got you!” I pretend to wrestle with him, tickling him to hear his laugh before I pick him up in my arms. I gesture towards Kai. “Give your dad some good luck.”
“Dadda!”
Kai runs a hand over his son’s head, brushing his unruly hair out of the way to place a kiss on his forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Be good for Miller tonight. I love you.”
Max falls onto my shoulder and I watch as Kai tracks the movement, a soft smile on his lips as his eyes bounce between us. Then he tucks my hair behind my ear, and I can see him contemplating bringing his lips to my forehead the way he did to his son.
The three of us could not look more like a family, standing so close with him touching me this way, longingly. Lovingly.
I clear my throat and take a step back to break the moment.
We’ve always touched. It’s been easy, like another language between us, but now things are different. Everything seems to have meaning behind it when it can’t.
I give him a thumbs-up. “Good luck out there.”
Yes. Very casual. Nice work, me.
“Did you just give me a thumbs-up?”
I do it again as if it’s not the lamest thing I’ve ever done. “Yep.”
“I was literally inside of you less than twenty-four hours ago and you’re giving me a thumbs-up?”