What did she have to be so upset about? Had she not invited some guy to sit with them and then ignored him? Had she not then ignored him the rest of the evening? Not once did she cheer or even look in his direction or come join them. She needed to relax a little bit.
They waited at the elevator in silence. When the door opened, he held his hand against the doors, letting her go in first. As soon as the door shut, she whirled to face him. “Put your shirt on.”
He stepped back, her bonfire in full blaze. “Okay, okay.” He slipped his arms in and buttoned a few of the buttons. “Better?”
“Much.”
“What’s eating you?”
She huffed.
“Look, I don’t do the woman pouty thing, or the silent treatment either. You tell me what’s bugging you or we don’t talk.”
The elevator opened.
“Don’t let me get in your way.”
He couldn’t believe it.
She crossed her arms, face a stone.
“So that’s it?”
“I don’t see what other direction we can go. After tonight?”
He gestured for them to walk out through the exit doors to the parking lot. “What exactly do you think happened in there?”
“You left me to go play with a room full of women, and you have the gall to ask me.” She shook her head. “Gunner couldn’t believe I would even go out with you in the first place.”
His frustration simmered hotter. “Oh yeah, what, am I not smart enough for you? Figured out you were dating a dumb jock?” His worst fear blurted out in anger as though he didn’t care. He turned away, not daring to see the truth of his words cross her face.
“Yes. But I defended you. I told him you were just putting on a show.”
Cole cringed. He thanked the valet and they climbed into his car.
“And then you didn’t come back.”
“You never once came over.” He tossed over his shoulder to her in the passenger seat, “Or even looked at me. I was waiting for you to get over your date on our date, but you never did.”
“Gunner wasn’t going to just leave me at the table alone. You don’t get it. Like, at all. Cole. This is not going to work. I’m happy for what happened today at the children’s center, but I won’t be seeing you again.”
“That is for the best. It wouldn’t have lasted. You’re so outside of my type I don’t know why I even considered it.”
Tears welled up, and she turned away.
“Hey now, I didn’t mean anything by that . . .” He didn’t know why his words hit her so strongly. He thought for sure she wouldn’t care at all.
She waved her hands. “It’s nothing. This has nothing to do with you. Look, we were stupid to think this could work.”
They pulled up to her car in the parking lot. “Don’t get out.”
She jumped out, ran to her door and slammed it closed.
Her head slumped forward on her steering wheel. He watched in total confusion and misery. They were so far apart, so different. Things could never work, but he felt terrible he’d made her sad. Hated the contention. Hated that she was leaving and unhappy.
She glanced over at him, wiped her eyes and started her car. The tires squealed as she raced away, and Cole knew one of the best women ever to enter his life was leaving. As fast as she could.
If only he could be someone she respected, looked up to. He shrugged. Big Dawg was just not her style. At times like this, he thought he might not be Big Dawg’s style either, not if Harlow was turned off by him. But he didn’t know who else to be. He’d been Big Dawg for forever.
Chapter 12
Harlow opened the door to her apartment, finally home. She waited for the security of being in her own apartment to settle around her in a blanket of welcome, but that warmth never came. Instead, the nagging, persistent, unsettled hurt in reaction to how she left things with Cole clung to her.
“Ugh.” She’d come so close to falling and falling hard for Cole. She cringed. Not close, over the edge. Gone, fallen. Done for. And he was a jerk.
She carried her luggage straight into the laundry room and began unloading clothes into the washer. Cole’s jersey, in a pile of other colors refused to be ignored. She stopped, let the clothes fall into the machine, but held the jersey up. Her heart clenched. A tear fell down her cheek. How could one man be so many different people all at once? Their time at the children’s center was pure magic. And then she smiled. There were good memories from the trip. And articles to write about them. She hurried through the rest of the unpacking and then pulled out her laptop at the kitchen table.
After framing four articles about different aspects of the fundraiser, the Six Pack, the dodgeball competition, and about Cole himself, she let her mind wander over the women’s issues involved. She always did. Papers didn’t often pick up these pieces, not even as op-eds. But she drafted them anyway. Perhaps it was therapeutic, or it kept her defense of women alive and fresh in her mind. Either way, she would keep trying. Cole was the perfect example of how not to treat women. She sighed. And how to treat them.
The rally in Seneca Falls was coming, and she would be a speaker and co-chair of the event. Women had come a long way in the last thousand years, but there was still more to gain.
She let her mind relive the dodgeball game. The second one. She typed furiously and her mouth ached from smiling. “It was just a dodgeball game, but as a crowd of women rushed around me jumping up and down and cheering, it became so much more.”
And then Cole had swept her up and put her on his shoulder and paraded her around the room. A few of the papers had run with the shot. She pulled them up and once again relived the moment. She’d felt like a featherweight in his hands, on his shoulder. She had her hands in the air, out to her sides, her smile could not have been any wider, and Cole—he looked happier than she’d ever seen him. And proud. He looked like a proud dad at his son’s baseball game. She ran a finger over his face on her laptop screen. This was what she wanted.
Her thoughts ran away from her resistance to them. This Cole, the guy who lifted her, helped her to shine, brought out her best. The man who challenged her. She snapped the screen shut. But she knew that Cole didn’t exist. She knew that lurking in his huge, hot body, was the Cole at the sports bar. And that man could rear his head at any time and crush Harlow’s hopes. She could not stand another Devin experience. She was just barely coming out of it now. And so, somehow, she would have to forget the Cole she thought she was getting to know, and falling for, she admitted. And focus on the jerk who revealed himself. And thankfully sooner rather than later.
She changed into her shorts and went for a run. Belltown. She needed to be up on campus, on the trails around it. People wondered why she never left. Everyone assumed she wanted out as soon as she could, and most of the time, she did want out. But deep down, she wasn’t ready to let it go. She loved Belltown, the old-style buildings, the courtyard of students studying on the lawn in the warm weather or empty during the brisk Massachusetts winters. She loved the clock tower that played their alma mater.
Her pace picked up to get her to the top of the hill. Freshman Torture Summit. She smirked and remembered the first time she had run to the top, the path lined with students chanting, “Go. Go. Go.”
She had been gasping for air at the top and got slammed with a bucket of water.
Not long into the semester, most students took the hill like champs. And now that she ran it every day, it just felt great on her muscles. The stretch in her lungs was exhilarating, and at the top, she was always spurred to go faster across campus.
She pushed harder up the hill, welcoming the burning in her thighs, wanting to torture away all thoughts of Cole. If she could make her body hurt worse . . . She shook her head at her nonsense. And pushed harder. At last she crested the top of the hill, pulled out her water bottle, and sucked in deep gulps of air before she could take a drink.
A pair of hands clapped.
She jerked her head to the right a
nd about choked on her water. “Cole?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Still running?” He indicated they keep going. He was also dressed to run. No one was up yet, the campus delightfully empty.
She picked up her feet and kept jogging with Cole at her side. And because she wanted to throttle him, she didn’t know what to say. All the words she’d been wishing she’d thrown in his direction flashed through her mind, but with him at her side, obviously making some huge sacrifices to be there with her, she paused, shocked to see him. She concentrated on her running and her rhythm and not looking like an idiot. He was silent, just matching her pace. He seemed to be thinking.
So they jogged. Then he picked up the pace, so she did as well. He went a little faster, and she matched him stride for stride. He chuckled, not even breathing hard. “Race you to Big Mack. I haven’t rubbed his heel yet this trip.”
“You’re on!” She took off, stretched out her stride as much as she could. There was no way she could beat Cole Hunter in any kind of race, but she was going to pass out trying.
His grunt of surprise made her laugh, and she pushed even harder. Three feet, two feet, the heel of Big Mack the Lumberjack statue in sight. Just as she was about to reach down, hands encircled her waist and lifted her in the air. “Let’s do it together.” His voice in her ear sent shivers up and down her arms. “A real tie this time.”
He held her up until she nodded, and then they approached the heel, hands out together, and rubbed it at the same time. “There, was that so hard, Bonfire?” His eyes flashed at her. And she forgot she was angry.
She laughed. “It might have been.”
He shook his head. “You’re something, Harlow. That’s for sure.”
The pause that followed was full of questions, and the expected awkwardness descended. “What are you doing here, Cole?”
“Just in town. We left things weird.”
“Just like that. You’re here ’cause we left things weird?”
“Yeah, and for other reasons.”
Her curious mind went crazy with speculation. “And what are you planning to do about it?”
“About the weirdness?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I just don’t want it to be weird.”
His honesty was so charming. She wasn’t sure what to say. “Ok.”
“Can I just tag along?”
She swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, just do whatever you have to do. I assume you’ve got work, assignments. Don’t let me keep you. I’ll just . . . come along?”
The thought of Cole going into work with her, of sitting by her while she wrote an article about him, of the looks she would get from every important person in her life, she shook her head. “I don’t think . . .” Then she stopped. “Well, okay, let’s go meet the ladies preparing for the Seneca Falls rally. There’s a brunch. Wanna come to that?” She hid her smile at the thought of Cole showing up to support a meeting for women’s rights.
“Sure.”
They turned to walk back across the quad. Cole kept pace at her side but didn’t reach for her hand or anything. He seemed content to just follow her lead.
“Cole, what is this?” Her confusion was clouding out all other thought. She left California so angry with him she could hardly breathe, and here he was, as handsome as ever, and she was ready to forgive him anything, but trying hard not to.
He stopped. “This is just what I said. I’m not proud of the way things went down. And I’m not ready to give up.”
“Wait, don’t you have practice today?”
He lifted his glasses up onto his head and raised an eyebrow. “Keeping track of my schedule?”
She felt her face heat. “It’s my job.”
When he didn’t respond but kept waiting for more, she added, “I cover the Six Pack now. If you guys start drinking a different sugary electrolyte drink I’m supposed to take note of it.”
He nodded, obviously pleased. “So, I can’t get rid of you even if you want to have nothing to do with me?” His small smile grew until it stretched across his face.
Harlow could only laugh in response. “That about covers it, yes.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Excellent.” He paused as they passed in front of the athletic facility. “So, I’ll head in here, shower up, and meet you where?”
She gave him the address, more puzzled than ever at his behavior, and then jogged away, back to her apartment for a shower of her own.
Did she want Cole Hunter in her life? Want? Yes. Like she wanted to eat a whole container of praline and caramel ice cream, even though neither of them was good for her.
Her face heated at the inner admission.
She was so afraid of what might happen to her heart. She didn’t think she was strong enough to go through the heartbreak she knew was coming. But she kicked herself at another admission: she wasn’t strong enough to stop him if he tried to win her over.
Chapter 13
Cole checked his watch as he walked into the women’s center on campus. It had been created their senior year as a place . . . for women. He shrugged to himself. He guessed. Not totally sure of its purpose, he stepped inside and froze as every eye turned to him and conversation stopped. Every female eye. And this crowd didn’t look as friendly as the athletic department welcome he’d just left.
He held up his hands and did a mini version of his dance, waving to all in the room. He caught a few smiles, other smirks and some trying to hide their interest, but more frowns and eye rolling.
Harlow stepped forward. She whispered, “Cole, what are you doing?”
“Um, meeting you for brunch? Is this the place?”
“Yes, of course.” She tugged on his arm, her small fingers feather-light on his skin.
“After you.” He dipped his head and followed her amusingly embarrassed form through the room and out the other side. The gaze of women had never felt so discomfiting as it did right then. Had he lost his touch? Maybe they weren’t baseball fans? That happened to him, but usually his looks alone brought out a few smiles. These ladies, for the most part, were not into him. Plain and simple. The same nervous feeling in his gut whenever he tried to impress Harlow twisted in a tight knot.
She led him down a hall and into a room filled with a long table, surrounded by women. A few raised eyebrows acknowledged their arrival, but these ladies seemed to be expecting them. One woman at the head of the table was speaking.
He sat quietly next to Harlow. So, what was this meeting? She had mentioned a rally in Seneca Falls, New York?
“And now we’d like to hear from Harlow about the rally.”
Harlow stood, and a proportionate number of eyes gazed in his direction as well. He schooled his features and tried to look appropriately interested and serious. Even though he had no idea what this was, why he was here, and why there wasn’t a bit of food for their brunch.
“The rally planning is moving forward as expected. I’m trying to pull in other groups from across the state and in the region as well. We’ve heard of interest from states as far as Rhode Island, but I’m hoping to spread more to the South. And possibly over to California.”
Every eye turned to him.
He cleared his throat, unsure.
Then the door banged open and a loud conversation and a rush of people entered the room. He knew them immediately. The press.
“Cole Hunter, are you in support of the rally at Seneca Falls?”
Harlow slipped him a piece of paper, perhaps an olive leaf of mercy, whatever it meant, he was grateful. It read, Women’s rights, higher wages, greater opportunity, more representation on decision-making committees.
He could get behind that. His mother sponsored stuff like this all the time. “Sure am.”
They scribbled furiously. “Can you tell us why? How will any of these changes affect you?”
“Well, I don’t suppose I need to know why, now do I, ma’am? If a woman tell
s me she feels picked on, I believe her.” Several of the women reporters’ grins told him he’d said the right thing. Perhaps he could get out of this meeting without making Harlow even angrier with him.
Harlow waved them out. “Thank you for coming. We love all exposure for our cause.” She handed them all packets of paper. “These are the issues we would like addressed. And the events where we need coverage.”
They looked like they might not leave. Then the closest guy to Cole asked, “Is this why you keep coming to Belltown so often? Spending time with your girlfriend?”
“Well now, I’m working toward that. You can’t just go calling Harlow Ember your girlfriend after a couple events. These things take time.”
“Okay now, that’s enough.” Harlow walked to the door.
As the last guy left, he called into the closing door. “Will you be at the rally in Seneca Falls?”
Harlow paused, watching his face.
He couldn’t tell what she hoped he would say, so he said, “Sure. I’ll be there.”
The door shut. And the women erupted in conversation.
He didn’t even try to follow the flurry of emotions going on around him. He stepped back farther into the room. His jet was warming up as he waited, to take him back to LA. He could make it if he didn’t linger too much longer.
“Um, Harlow?” He raised his hand. “I’m going to have to get back.”
“Oh, sure. For practice.” Her eyes flitted through the room. “Um, I’ll walk you out.”
They stepped out into the blessedly empty hallway.
“What was going on in there?”
She shook her head. “You don’t want to know. So many things.” She started walking. “But are you serious about coming?”
“To the rally?”
“Yes. I need to know.”
“I don’t have to. I said yes because I wanted to get those reporters out of there. I couldn’t tell what you wanted me to do.”
“Hmmm.”
He waited. “Well?”
“Well, I don’t know. Cole, I don’t know about any of this. We had an amazing dodgeball game, then a horrible date where you left me to talk to other girls for half the night.”
Falling for Centerfield Page 9
