Page 65 of The Virgin Game Plan (Rules of Love 2)
As Sierra says thanks, I mutter, “You are so transparent,” to Chance, but I’m glad the guy seems happier again than he was in the dark days immediately following his split. I amble away with Grant, joining him, Crosby, and Gunnar on a black-and-white striped couch at a table in the corner.
Crosby knocks back some of his beer, then parks his elbows on the table. “Do you two Lizard Kings want to give us any tips on the team you just played, since we’re playing them next?”
“Lizard Kings? That’s what you’re calling us now?” Gunnar asks with a laugh. “Maybe we’ll call you the Kitty Cats? Wait. No. The House Cats. Hold on. I have a better one.” He takes a pregnant pause worthy of a stand-up comic. “The Mousers.”
“You might think that’s an insult, but barn cats are motherfucking killers, so thank you for the compliment,” Crosby says. “Now, what’s the name of your team, then? Geckos? Chameleons? Moray Eels?”
I lean back against the cushions. “And to think I abandoned a hot new word search for this abuse.”
Crosby winks. “Salamanders. That’s it. Anyway, give us the deets on the Aces. Whose bat is hot, whose bat is not?”
“Ah, so that’s why you invited me here tonight,” I add.
“You didn’t think it was just to see your face?” Crosby posits, his expression intensely serious.
I shake my head. “Nope. Never. Also, by the way, Daniel Craig was the best Bond.”
He mimes slamming a buzzer. “Wrong. Sean Connery.”
That ignites an epic argument between Grant, Gunnar, and Crosby not only on who’s the best Bond, but which flick was the best of all-time.
Casino Royale is the verdict.
Obviously.
It’s another hour I shave off the don’t think of Reese agenda.
As the clock ticks closer to midnight, Nadia sails in, derailing all of Crosby’s attention as he smothers her in kisses.
When she joins us, we catch up on her football team briefly before she and Crosby head to the bar to grab fresh drinks.
Gunnar yawns, saying he needs to take off.
“See you on the plane tomorrow,” I say, then I catch the tail end of a SportsCenter segment on tonight’s hot plays. Grant stares at the screen too, uttering a whoa when the shortstop for the Comets wins the honor of Play of the Night with a fierce vertical jump to nab a scorching line drive. He shoots airborne four or five feet, leaping over the sliding runner to glove the ball.
“Hot damn, that was a helluva play,” I say in admiration of the man’s epic fielding.
“Yeah. It sure was,” Grant says, his voice far away.
It’s not a tone I hear from him often.
He sounds almost lost in time.
I snap my gaze to him and find that he’s watching the replay as SportsCenter serves it up from multiple angles.
The volume is down, but the words flash across the screen in subtitles.
Declan Steele shows all of Major League Baseball why he’s following in Derek Jeter’s footsteps. Nearly a decade in the bigs, and the Comets shortstop is still at the top of his game.
“Top of his game indeed,” Grant repeats, and he’s somewhere else entirely.
I nod as the screen shifts to a slow-mo. “Damn. I’m going to have to pay for grub when I see him. Pretty sure I bet that he wouldn’t be Play of the Night so soon.”
“That so?” Grant still sounds like he’s in another world.
What’s that about?
I furrow my brow as a memory resurfaces. Several weeks ago, at the Sports Network Awards where Grant received a trophy for best sportsman, I chatted with Declan at the event. He was only supposed to be in town for a night, but he wound up staying longer than he’d planned. The morning he was taking off for New York, Crosby and I bumped into him a block or two away from Grant’s house. “Oh, right. When he was in town, I saw him at that coffee shop near your . . .”
My remark jolts Grant from his daydream before I can say house.
He snaps his gaze to me, intensity written in his eyes, almost like his irises are begging me to be quiet.
In a heartbeat, I connect the dots. I don’t know his romantic history, but I’d be willing to bet it involves Declan Steele. “Yeah,” Grant says, answering my unfinished question. “We got coffee.”
Pretty sure whatever happened with Grant and Declan wasn’t just coffee.
But it’s not my place to say. “Got it. That place has good joe.”
“The best.” Grant grabs his beer, knocks some back, and seems to reroute his thoughts. “What’s happening with Reese?”
Probably best to tread carefully here. “Has she said anything to you?”
“Is there anything to say?” he counters.
I sigh. “Look, you know the deal. I’m crazy about her, but it’d be risky as hell.”
A small smile tugs at his lips. “Crazy about her?”
