The Hot Corner

by Amy Noelle

  Me.

  But still.

  “You’ve gotten better every year without my being here, and plenty of people picked you to be the MVP in their preseason predictions.”

  He smiled. “And maybe I could have done it alone, but I’m really glad I don’t have to.”

  On that we could agree. “Me, too.”

  Brad kissed me lightly before releasing me and taking my hand. “We need to get going.”

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked as we walked down the hallway.

  “Yeah. We’re going to my house.”

  I shot him a look. “Is it actually your house, or is it a house belonging to another leggy model that I may or may not need to smack around?”

  He chuckled as he opened the door. “It’s my house, I swear.” Brad pressed the button for the elevator and squeezed my hand. “I’ve never taken anybody there. You’re the first.”

  A warmth stole through me. I loved that he wanted to share his home with me. “I’m honored.”

  “Good. Let’s go home, shall we?”

  Home. I loved the sound of that.

  Chapter 24

  “So where is this house of yours?” I asked as Brad drove. We were getting closer to the ocean—I could smell the salt in the air.

  “Malibu.”

  “On the beach?” I asked, barely containing the excitement in my voice.

  He glanced over at me and grinned. “Yes, on the beach. I bought it a little over a year ago.”

  I resisted bouncing in my plush leather seat, but only barely. “Why don’t you stay there?”

  “During the season, it’s just easier to be in LA. Less of a commute, closer to come home and crash after a night game, you know?” He shrugged. “So I either rent a place or sublet, like I am now.”

  “So that’s why the place didn’t look like yours.” It was just another hotel for him.

  “Well, the office is the only room I truly spend time in when I’m not sleeping, so it’s the only one I have stuff in. At least it was.” His smirk said it all. The place looked plenty lived-in now.

  “I hope Karina doesn’t think I’m a slob and a bad influence.”

  He chuckled as he turned left. “I think she’s more focused on your other attributes.” I slapped his arm, and he laughed harder. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been jealous of a girl touching you.”

  “Welcome to the club,” I muttered.

  He just shook his head and turned into a driveway.

  “Holy shit!” I shouted.

  Brad laughed, but I ignored him, staring at the big white house. This was a mansion. On the water. With two big pillars holding the upper floors off the ground, and two garages below.

  I was out the door before Brad could come around and open it. “Is this for real?”

  “I take it you approve?” He stood with his hands in his jean pockets, sunglasses over his eyes, and a serious look on his face.

  “What?” I asked, coming back to him even though every part of me was dying to get inside. The waves were crashing behind the house, and I wanted to see the view.

  He brushed a finger over my cheek. “I’ve never brought anyone here before, and I guess I was afraid you wouldn’t like it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? It’s on the beach! You could have a tent here and I’d be perfectly happy.”

  He laughed and tugged me into his arms. “So that’s how I can get you to go camping again? Stick a tent on the beach?”

  I’d endure it for him, but I’d rather have the house. “Couldn’t we just build a bonfire on the beach and sit there for a while before heading inside to the bed?”

  He laughed and kissed my cheek. “I can do you one better than that. Come on.” He held my hand as we walked up the stairs. He unlocked the door and stepped aside so I could enter. “Ladies first.”

  I didn’t have the words for the sight that awaited me. My eyes were drawn to two walls of windows, clear glass with the sun shining through and the ocean looking like it came right up to the floor. I gasped and walked over, bracing my hands on the wooden beams on either side of a window, barely resisting pressing my nose against the glass.

  “This is amazing,” I breathed. I could practically feel the water washing over my toes. “How do you live anywhere but here?” I felt Brad behind me and leaned into him as we both looked out at the waves crashing on the shore.

  “I come back whenever I have time off,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “It’s a great escape for me. It’s a big house, and when I’m here it doesn’t feel like there’s anybody within miles of me.”

  I could see that. While he did have neighbors, they were hardly close by, and the beaches must have been private because I didn’t see anyone out there.

  “That sounds lonely.”

  His arms flexed around me. “Sometimes. Other times it’s just a place to come and clear my head. I can always get in the car and head back to the city if I want company.”

  “Why haven’t you ever brought company here?”

  “Never wanted to. This is my place, the place where I come to just be me, not Bradley Reynolds, superstar.” I turned in his arms. He took off his sunglasses and fixed his green gaze on me. “You know the real me,” he said, answering my next question without my asking. “And you need him for the book, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  He silenced me with a kiss.

  “Let me give you the tour, and then we’ll get to it.”

  This was his show and I wasn’t going to argue with him. As much as I wanted him to open up to me completely, a part of me was terrified, because then I’d have to open up to him. All the answers were coming, and I had to be brave enough to face them. I wasn’t sure if I was.

  “Fireplace,” he said and pointed.

  I looked to my left and let out a little moan at the marble fireplace with the big wooden mantle over it. Here was the first sign that I was indeed in Bradley Reynolds’ place, because on the mantle was a picture of him as a kid, maybe five years old, wearing his baseball uniform and a gap-toothed smile and holding a metal bat tightly in his hands. His father was behind him, an arm around his shoulder, wearing an identical smile, so proud of his son.

  “That was the first day of Little League,” he murmured, his eyes on the same picture. “I managed to hit the ball back to the pitcher, who couldn’t field it, so I got a single on my first at-bat.” He smiled. “Dad made them switch balls so he could keep it.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  Brad nodded. “Yeah. Dad put it in one of those collector cases and got a gold plate for it, commemorating my first hit and the date. He kept it all these years.” He shook his head. “It’s in the library.”

  “You have a library?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I do read, you know. Of course I have a library.” He took my hand and led me down the hallway of gorgeous wood floors. “The guest bathroom.” He nodded to a side door.

  I didn’t contain my squeal. “Oh my God! Look at this clawfoot tub!” I wanted to take a bath, and light a fire in the fireplace, and sunbathe, and basically just live here forever. It was like he’d plucked my dream house right out of my head and put it here in the perfect spot.

  “Feel free.” Brad was leering at me, so I pushed him aside to continue down the hallway.

  “How many bedrooms do you have?”

  “Six, though I turned one into an office and one into a library, so we’re down to four.”

  We?

  I shook it off and sighed when I saw the library. Dark mahogany shelves filled with books, some hardcover, some paperback, old and new. A cushy leather sofa, a couple of recliners and lamps and, yes, another fireplace.

  “I could live in here.” The words slipped out before I really thought about it, and I glanced over to see Brad smiling at me.

  “That could be arranged,” he murmured.

  I bit my lip. Technically we were already living together, but that was in a condo he didn’t o
wn, and this was . . . everything.

  “Come on. Let me show you the master bedroom.”

  “You just want to get me near a bed,” I said, loath to leave the library but anxious to see what the bedroom was like. I should have known it’d be even better. There was another fireplace, this one in white marble with a big flat-screen television above it. The bed was draped in a fluffy white comforter and the floors were hardwood, but it was the view that called to me. One whole side of the room was a gigantic wall of glass, and it curved around the bed in an L shape. A small balcony looked out upon miles of water.

  “How do you even get out of bed when you stay here?”

  Brad laughed as he opened the door to the balcony. “Some days I don’t. Others I make myself get up so I can come out to this.” Salt. Sea spray misting over my face. Perfection.

  “I love it.”

  Brad grinned and brought my knuckles to his lips to kiss them lightly. “I hoped you would. Want to go upstairs?” He pointed at the metal staircase and I headed that way, gasping when I got to the top and found a roof deck with a pool, lounge chairs, and yeah, an outdoor fireplace. This place was heaven on Earth, and Brad owned it. I was so happy for him.

  “What do you think about camping here?” he asked, laughing as I threw myself in a lounge chair facing the fireplace and looking out at the water.

  “This is precisely the kind of camping that works for me. No bears are getting up here.”

  He laughed, dropped onto a chair beside me, and tilted his face back, the sun beating down on him.

  “I’m gonna need—”

  “Sunscreen,” he said, reaching into a built-in cabinet next to him and handing me a bottle.

  “You think of everything.”

  He glanced at me through hooded eyes. “I think of you.”

  My heart beat faster, and I concentrated on putting the lotion on my arms and face. “Thank you.”

  “Can’t have you burning,” he said, taking the bottle from me and setting it back in the cabinet.

  “I meant thank you for bringing me here. For sharing it with me. It’s an amazing house.”

  “It’s like we always talked about.”

  I blinked. Surely he didn’t remember that.

  “You wanted a house on the beach with an entire wall of glass in the bedroom, remember?” Of course I did. “And fireplaces in every main room you’d be spending time in, like the bedroom and the living room and the library. A private pool. A bathtub with a view, which you might want to check out in the master bedroom.”

  “I can’t believe you remember that.”

  His eyes burned into mine. “I remember everything.” He shrugged. “I can’t say that when I was looking for this place I actively thought of what you wanted. I mean, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, and I certainly didn’t think I’d ever have you here. But somehow or other I found the same house you’d always wanted, and I guess I wanted it for myself.” He touched my cheek. “And now you’re here, and it finally feels completely right. Maybe I knew somewhere deep down that we’d be here together one day.”

  I threw myself into his arms and we kissed, and before I knew it we were naked and making love in the deckchair.

  “Now that’s what I call breaking in a home,” he murmured as we caught our breath, and I laughed. He kissed me gently before handing me my clothes. “Not that I want you to cover up, but it’s either this or I’m going to have to put sunscreen on every inch of your body.”

  That wasn’t exactly a bad image, but I’d kind of forgotten myself, and the neighbors likely had roof decks of their own, so perhaps being completely naked wasn’t a good idea. We both got dressed and resettled together in a chair. I nestled into Brad’s arms and started to doze off, the combination of sun, the sound of the ocean, and the feel of Brad wrapped around me lulling me into perfect peace.

  “He didn’t tell me he was sick.”

  I moved closer and ran my fingers through the back of his hair.

  “Do you remember how pissed off I was when he said he wasn’t coming to the CWS?”

  My heart stopped. I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t about to say his father died right after we broke up.

  “Yeah, I remember,” I said, managing to push past the lump that was forming in my throat.

  “He said he couldn’t get off work, and I yelled at him. He’d always been there, for every major game, but the biggest series of my life and he couldn’t get off work? I actually told him to quit his job.” He made an angry grunting noise. “He said he couldn’t, and that life was full of disappointments, and that I’d have to get on without him. I told him I didn’t give a shit if he was there, and that I’d win without him.”

  I could hear the pain in his voice, and I wanted to go back in time and make it all better.

  “You didn’t know.”

  “No. I was too caught up in baseball to notice. How stupid was I? How could I possibly think he wouldn’t have done everything he could to be there? I was too busy being hurt and pissed off to realize there had to be something major going on.”

  “He didn’t want you to know.” I knew Brad’s father wouldn’t have wanted to be a distraction for him. “He wanted you to go out and play your best, so you couldn’t know.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out after the fact, but at the time I was an asshole to him. You weren’t there, he wasn’t there, and I was all alone.” I winced, and he tightened his arms around me. “I wasn’t mad that you weren’t there, baby. I knew you had to be home, and that you were watching and cheering me on, at least until the end.”

  Fuck. I closed my eyes. I’d abandoned him when he’d needed me most. I couldn’t hate myself more if I tried.

  “But it had always been the two of us, for as long as I could remember. He was always there and suddenly he wasn’t. I was so angry.” He had been. We’d talked about it for hours after he’d called his dad and found out he wasn’t coming. I’d tried to comfort him, but his father’s absence hadn’t made sense to me either.

  “I didn’t think anything of it when Bailey showed up to watch me play. She used to go to all my games in school, and she said she had time so she’d come to be my cheering section.”

  I gulped. “You . . . you never told me she was there.”

  I felt him shrug beneath me. “I didn’t think about it, honestly. She was just one of the guys. I was glad to have someone there, but she wasn’t the one I wanted. But she showed up a few games into the series, and you were avoiding me by then.”

  Because I’d already seen them about to get down and dirty together. I took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “You told her you loved her,” I said, my voice low and tight.

  “What?” He shifted so that we were both sitting up. “What are you talking about?”

  I shook my head, panic starting to slice through me as our moment of truth approached. “You did, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I might have. I did love her. I told you that. I wasn’t in love with her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Then why were you—” I bit my tongue and tasted blood. My hands were shaking. “What did you mean the other day, when you said you’d fucked up and now you and Bailey don’t talk anymore?”

  He sighed and gripped a handful of his hair. “The night she came to see me, she told me my dad was sick. I was upset, I cried a lot, and she just sat and listened to me.” He shook his head and his eyes started to glass over. “I guess she thought maybe distracting me with sex was a good idea. She kissed me. And she touched me, and I just froze.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I pushed her away and asked what she thought she was doing. She said she was trying to make me feel better and I got angry. I didn’t want to feel better. I was mourning my dad and, Jesus, you and I were still together! I said some awful things to her. She took her shit and left.”

  My chin trembled. “And you never talked again?”

  “No. I tried to call her but she told me to
fuck off.” He laughed harshly. “I got a lot of that from girls I loved. That was the last time I was in Omaha. I took off and never came back.”

  I tried to blink the tears out of my eyes, but they kept coming back. His whole world had come crashing down right in the moment when he should have been his happiest. His father had been sick, his friendship with Bailey had ended, and I’d left him because I’d thought him capable of cheating on me with the very girl he’d rejected on the spot. I wondered, if I’d stuck around in that hallway for just one more minute, what would I have seen?

  My eyes stung. He brushed his fingers through my hair. “Please don’t cry. You didn’t know all that was going on. Hell, I didn’t know.”

  I looked at him then, saw the misery in his face, and wished like hell I could I go back in time and be there for him like I should have been. What a stupid, naïve child I’d been.

  “I wanted to hop the first flight to Tampa I could get.” I jerked in surprise and his gaze shifted to my face. “Did you think I was just going to let you walk away without a fight? That I was going to let baseball get between us? I was going to quit the fucking game if I had to, in order to keep you.”

  My breath came in shaky gulps. “Brad. That’s insane. It’s your life.”

  “You were my life, Dani. Nothing mattered to me if I didn’t have you. But I couldn’t not go to my dad. I guess I had to choose, and it had to be him.”

  “Of course it did!” I sobbed. He closed his eyes and I tried to fight off my own misery and guilt. I didn’t matter. This was my fault and I needed to listen to him, to help him now like I hadn’t before. “I’m so sorry, Brad.”

  He leaned into my touch. “I know. It wasn’t your fault.” Oh, but it was. I should have been there. I should have had faith in him and been by his side while he dealt with his father’s illness.

  “Pancreatic cancer. Stage four, or whatever the worst one is. He’d begged Bailey not to tell me. He didn’t want it to get in the way of my dreams. His dreams. Can you believe that? My dad was dying, and he didn’t want to bother me.”

  “Of course I believe it. He wanted you to have it all. Look at where you are now, Brad. This is what he wanted for you.” What I wanted for him. He’d done it all by himself, with nobody by his side because I was an idiot.