Knox (Sexy Bastard #3) (16 page)

I
get back
to my temporary digs half expecting them to be empty. But Shelby’s still there, huddled under blankets with the TV on.
Thank god.

“Hey, Shelbs,” I say, sheepish, as I close the door gently behind me.

She doesn’t move her eyes from the TV screen, even though it’s some Spanish soap opera playing, so I know she’s not even actually watching it.

“I’m assuming you didn’t find the time to break the news to Jackson.”

I wait a beat before answering. Shelby’s clearly pissed, and I don’t blame her. I tried to hurry things up at the bar, only spending less than forty-five minutes with her brother, trying to shorten all of his work stories and hardly contributing anything to the conversation myself. But I felt like the world’s biggest jackass the entire time. I swallow hard, considering for a moment before I answer. “I didn’t think it was a good idea to break the news while you were down here.”

Her eyes narrow, but she still doesn’t look at me. “Knox, there’s never going to be a perfect moment. It’s going to be a shitty conversation. We both know that.”

She has a point. But somehow opening with
Hey, welcome to Orlando, oh yeah I’m in the middle of fucking your sister just now, one second
seems like a pretty bad way to introduce him to the idea of me and Shelby together. “I know.” I sit down beside her and touch her arm. She doesn’t react. “I’m just worried about how he’s going to take it.”

“So am I, obviously. But it’s only going to get worse the longer we put it off.”

That’s my cue to let Shelby know I’m taking this thing with her seriously. Because I do. I want this to work. But I’m so wracked with anxiety about how this night went down that I just go silent instead. If I tell Jackson now, he’ll know she was here, and he’ll know I was lying to him the entire time we hung out at the bar.

As opposed to what, telling him at home, so he’ll know you were lying to him for months straight?

“Seriously, Knox. We need to tell him.” She finally turns from the TV to look at me, and the hurt expression in her eyes tears at my gut.

I nod. “I know.”

“So when are we going to?”

“Let’s talk about it when I get back to Atlanta,” I say, because I just can’t wrap my head around a way to do this over the phone, or while they’re both down here, and who knows when I’ll see Jackson in person again after tonight?

This appears to be the wrong answer.

Shelby gets to her feet and grabs her tote bag from the floor.

“What are you doing?” I stand beside her, and watch her stuff her wallet into the bag too.

“There’s an evening flight to Atlanta,” she says. “If I leave now, they might be able to bump me up onto that flight, instead of the one tomorrow.”

“C’mon, Shelbs. What are you going to do if they don’t have space, sleep on the airport floor?” She shrugs. “Besides,” I add, “I thought you took tomorrow off.” My hands hang at my sides. I feel helpless right now. I want to reach for her, but I don’t think she’d reciprocate.

When she glances at me one last time, tears glint along the edges of her eyes. “Yeah, well, I don’t want to spend another vacation day on a waste of time.”

Ouch
. The blow hits home. I don’t really have any response to that. I drop back onto the bed and watch her storm out of the door.

Just like that, our weekend comes crashing to an end.

I don’t sleep that night. Training tomorrow afternoon is going to suck extra hard. But I can’t drift off, imagining her huddled on an airport floor somewhere, cold and alone. I send an early morning text to make sure she got in okay. No response. I’m almost tempted to text Savannah or one of the other girls, ask them to check in on her. But then I’d have to explain why I’m asking about Shelby, and why I knew she was out of the house. Lies upon lies.

I guess I can understand why she’s getting sick of this.

I
arrive
at the stadium in a foul mood. Always a great way to prime the muscles for optimum performance.

I nod to Derrick and Hunter on my way into the facility, then head out to the field for pitching drills with Mitch after a quick warm-up.

Drills, drills, more drills, and a whole bunch of practice games is what training season is all about. It’s less a matter of physical conditioning than it is of getting the players in the zone. So much of the game is mental. It’s about being able to perform the same movement in the exact same way every time, repeating the curve of a perfect pitch hundreds of times in a row. Tweaking that pitch to calibrate your speed and arc to the weaknesses of the person on the diamond.

Brute strength won’t get you there. And neither will worrying about a woman.

I throw my eighth outside pitch in a row, and Coach blows the whistle to stop the drill, scowling at me as he barks new instructions. I’m hardly even listening to those.

This is exactly the kind of shit they warn rookies about. The complications females can bring into your life—and onto the field if you’re not careful.

I start cursing aloud after the tenth pitch I flub, a weak-armed foul ball that would
send me back to the minors if the Braves hadn’t just traded me for a pretty penny. My shoulder crackles like a roll of bubble wrap with every pitch.

Now I’m the one getting angry. Shelby got us into this mess by lying to me the first night we met.

Easy enough for her to say that we should come clean—it’s not like Jackson is going to disown the only living member of his immediate family. But friends come and go. And I have a pretty good idea of who would bear the brunt of the blame in this scenario.

Anger, at least, turns out to work better on the mound than guilt. I throw the next one blistering down the center, and the batter swings a wide miss. Coach mutters something almost halfway to a compliment, and I force a blank expression onto my face as I wind up the next throw.

Focus, Knox.

C
innamon roll 911
?

I text Ruby our emergency code for an early morning breakfast meet-up at Della’s Coffee and Donuts. After getting in at 2 a.m. on the very last flight out of Orlando, I crashed without even bothering to take off my jeans. Four sleepless hours of tossing and turning later, I’m not ready to face the office.

Knox’s unanswered text is still flashing on my phone. Finally, hours after he texted, when he’s probably gone at practice already, I reply in one word.
Home
. After all, pissed as I am at the guy, he doesn’t deserve to think I died in a ditch or something leaving his place last night. Then I delete the whole chain of texts, and shut my phone off.

I’m off to a session with my favorite redheaded therapist. The prescription? A serious dose of caffeine, cinnamon, and sticky sweet icing, and a shoulder to cry on.

I settle into a booth with a cup of the tasteless, murky brown liquid Della calls coffee. The rolls are totally worth it, so none of the customers complain.

“Halt!” Ruby waltzes in, her scarlet mane wilder than usual. She’s got a double latte in each hand. An espresso intervention. My friend is a genius.

“You’re bright-eyed and bushy tailed,” I say suspiciously. Ruby’s not usually a morning person. But I swear she looks like she just stepped out of a four-star spa.

“Haven’t had a sip of coffee yet!”

“Seriously, it’s really early, and you’re practically glowing.”

She plops down in the booth with a grin, her bouncy energy so different from my morose vibe. “Must be the result of another weekend of hardcore training with Chet.”

“Hopefully it’s nothing a couple of giant cinnamon rolls can’t undo,” I grumble, heading up to the counter.

Maybe Ruby’s got this whole thing figured out. An uncomplicated relationship with someone she’s never planning on bringing home.

What I’d give to be able to bring home the wrong guy to my family. But I’ve only got one family member left, and now I’m neck-deep in drama that would probably make him consider disowning me if he knew the extent of it.

I know I started the drama—after all, I’m the one who decided to throw caution to the wind on New Year’s. But Knox is adding to it now by refusing to man up and talk about what we’re going to do. And Jackson contributes to the whole situation by acting so overbearing that I can’t help lashing out at him, like a teenager reigned in too tightly by well-meaning parents.

Only Jackson isn’t my parent. And I’m no longer a teenager. Which is why I’m pretty eager to stop sneaking around like a fifteen-year-old who’s secretly dating the senior year MVP.

We dive into our chewy, sticky sugar bombs while I bring Ruby up to speed on this weekend’s events.

“Holy smokes, Shelby. That is all kinds of a hot mess.”

“When Jackson knocked on that door I thought I was going to die of a heart attack. Then I just thought we were going to die in general, once we opened it and faced him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“We didn’t die, no. We didn’t deal with our shit, either.” I drop my head onto my arms. “Knox locked me in a goddamn closet, Ruby.”

“You mentioned that, yes.” She takes a long time chewing her next mouthful of cinnamon goodness. “But I mean, what did you expect him to do?” she asks once she’s swallowed.

I groan into the tabletop. “I don’t know . . . just finally fucking deal with this lying once and for all, I guess?”

She purses her lips and nods. “Did you guys agree to do that?”

“Yes! No. Kind of. We agreed we need to tell Jackson at some point, yeah.”

“But you haven’t figured out when?”

“Knox says he’s going to tell him once he’s back from training. But the way he keeps putting it off, making excuses all the time. . .” I trail off, not wanting to speak my fears aloud.

Ruby can read them straight off my face anyway. “You’re worried he’s not serious?”

I nod, welling up despite myself. Why else would he stuff me into his closet like a dirty little secret? If he was planning to tell Jackson eventually, that was his golden opportunity. He threw it—and me—into the darkness instead.

“Shelb, I don’t think Knox would have let things get this far if he weren’t looking for something serious. Especially not with you. He knows how much shit Jackson would give him if he fucked around on you, yet he’s still sticking to it. That’s got to mean something.”

I chew on my lip. “I guess. Or he’s just in a dry spell right now and needed a quick fix.”

She snorts so hard it makes her choke, and she has to wash her mouth out with a dash of espresso. “Honey, please. Have you looked at Knox lately? Major hottie. And a pro athlete to boot. You of all people know there’s no shortage of available females around when you’re a major league baseball player. Why would he hang onto such a complicated situation if he weren’t feeling something beyond just horny?”

Ruby’s got a point. If Knox just wanted to get laid, he could easily scoop up some future reality TV star from one of the local clubs. Why would he risk such an important personal and professional relationship for a taste of some forbidden fruit?

Granted, it’s a really fucking delicious piece of fruit, but still.

“Knox is a smart guy. He wouldn’t risk his share at Altitude and the Library and all the other clubs just to hit that fine ass of yours,” she points out, reading my mind yet again.

It makes sense, but something still feels off. A gut feeling I can’t shake. Even if he does take me seriously, he’s still putting my brother’s feelings before mine. Treating me, yet again, like Little Shelby. The little sister you have to protect, stuff into the closet to hide, whatever. He doesn’t trust me enough to face this situation head-on, even when I told him that’s what I want.

So fine. If Knox isn’t going to tell Jackson about us, maybe I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.

I order one more roll for the road, hug Ruby goodbye, and head for the office, a newfound purpose in my step.

U
nfortunately the first
person I see is Karl, hanging around in the hall outside my office.

“What’s up?” he asks me almost immediately, throwing me off-guard. What does he want now?

“Nothing. You?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

H
e’s uncharacteristically
non-hung-over-looking right now, too. No booze cruise for him this weekend, I guess.

He hesitates, then folds his hands behind his back. “Can I pick your brain for a second?”

Getting weirder by the minute. Karl asking for my advice has got to be a first.

I wave him into my office, where he paces back and forth in front of my door so many times it’s starting to make me dizzy.

“What’s going on, Karl?” I finally blurt.

“Bad news on the Dale Hunter front.”

It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes.
Why am I not surprised?

“Eddie Reese, the owner of the arcade shop, came back to me directly—he says he needs a second payment, for double the original hush fee.”

There’s a giant “I told you so” practically rolling off of my tongue. But Karl’s left foot is twitching like crazy and it’s clear he’s totally tweaking. Much as I want to rub this in his face, I need to set aside the petty feelings and face the problem directly right now.

I take a deep breath. “Have you gone to Tim yet?”

“He’s unreachable—on a plane to Italy.”

Shit.
I forgot about Tim’s annual, don’t bother-me-unless-someone’s-dead family vacation. I wonder if this counts as dead. We’ll be dead, if we don’t spin this the right way.

On the other hand, with all the boys who messed this situation up last time out of town, I finally have a chance to handle this the way I knew we needed to all along.

“Karl. Sit down,” I bark. To my shock, he obeys, dropping like a stone into my spare chair. “Right. We’re going to handle this the way we should have from the beginning. Do you have Dale’s schedule handy? Any idea where he is right now?”

A couple taps on his phone and Karl’s ready. “He has an appointment with the physio at 11. Nothing on the schedule for two hours after that, until lunch with his wife.”

“Perfect. Meet me outside the player facilities at 11:15.”

D
ale does not look too excited
to see us.

“Problems?” He swings his towel around his gargantuan neck. The full, reddish blond beard he’s grown recently gives him the look of an overgrown lumberjack. Or, if the media gets their hands on this story, the look of a hard-drinking troublemaker who’s too far gone to shave.

Yeah, I’d definitely say you’ve got problems, Dale
. “Right this way,” is all I say out loud, politely steering him toward the nearest empty meeting room, while Karl trails after us with a nervous expression on his face. Clearly I’ll have to do the heavy lifting this talk.

“The guy with the security tape we paid off to stop blackmailing you is asking for more,” I say bluntly. No point cushioning this blow.

Dale curses, puts his head in his hands, goes silent for a while, then rubs his face. “Karl, what’s our next move?”

Karl opens his mouth, looks at me and thinks better of it. That in and of itself might be the only gratifying thing about this situation. The way this take-charge jerk, who screwed up the whole operation in the first place, is now looking to me for help.

“I mean, how much is this guy gonna get away with? I’ve got two kids to put through college.” Dale is staring down at the conference table with a gloomy, glassy eyed look.

“That’s exactly what we’re worried about, Dale. There’s no guarantee this will be the last time Eddie hits you up. And even if you do pay, there’s nothing to stop him from turning around and selling the story to TMZ anyway. Blackmail is illegal; it’s not like we could sue him for not upholding the terms of the deal.”

“You’re not making me feel a whole lot better, Shelby.”

Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you drunkenly crashed your Maserati into a tree, Dale.
“My job isn’t to make you feel better, Dale. It’s to fix this.”

He stares at me with a pleading expression. “Look, I know I fucked up. But you guys told me we could take care of this.”

That might be the case. But I was definitely
not
part of that discussion. And now that Tim’s out of range and I’m running the show, maybe there’s a chance to get things back on track.

“We need to reevaluate the plan.”

Unbelievably, this is the moment when Karl decides to cut in. “Not necessarily, Shelby . . . ”

Are you freaking kidding me?
Mr. Pacing All Over My Office Freaking Out
now
suddenly has a brilliant idea? That is the last time I ever go easy on this asshole. “What do you mean, Karl?” I ask through barely un-gritted teeth. “You heard Dale. He can’t just keep paying this guy off forever.”

“Maybe he doesn’t need to keep paying him. Maybe Dale and I can pay Eddie a visit. Make it clear to Eddie that our initial payment was a one-time thing—and that he needs to hand over his footage, stat.”

“Yeah, man. I like the sound of that. Get that small-time operator out of our faces.” Dale cracks his knuckles.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.
“Do you guys really think this guy’s going to go away just because you ask him nicely? Pretty please with sprinkles on top?”

They stare at me blankly.

“Or are you proposing we ask not-nicely, and add yet more crimes to the list of things we’re covering up?” I add with a glare at Karl.

“Well, what’s your big idea, Shelby?” Dale crosses his arms over his massive torso, glowering at me like I’m somehow responsible for everything.

“My idea is to get ahead of this thing instead of chasing it from behind.”

“A PSA,” Karl interrupts. “She wants you to come clean, do the rehab thing, play the contrite poster boy.”

Dale picks up his sports drink and slams the bottle back down on the table before shoving to his feet to pace the room.

“No way. Fuck that noise. I’m not going to rehab—I’m not even a drinker. It was just a fucking party, man.”

“It’s okay, Dale. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Karl is in full appeaser mode.

God forbid we should upset one of our top players. But worrying about an upset player is totally shortsighted when you consider the mountain of trouble that could be waiting for us on the other side of this thing. Legal trouble, PR trouble—hell, if he gets hit hard enough by the DA, he could wind up suspended completely.

“This is going to end badly, Dale. Trust me. It’s gone far enough downhill as it is. We need to take some deep breaths and look at the big picture.”

That doesn’t go over well. Dale smashes his fist down on the table. “Here’s the big picture. I’m not taking time off from playing—and I’m
not
embarrassing my family in public.”

“Let’s all calm down. We can still proceed with the plan. We don’t have to pay anybody anything.” Karl looks up at me with a look that’s half-defiant, half-pleading. He really thinks we can just make this go away somehow, magically.

What a shit storm this has turned out to be. Sadly I’m pretty sure there’s going to be more foul weather ahead.