“Sorry for the mess,” I apologized, as he took a seat in the chair. I perched on the edge of the bed, very aware that I was very nearly naked. I hadn’t given much thought to the length of the robe, but now, with Nathan sitting in front of me, my wet hair drying into messy waves, I was very conscious of how much of my bare legs were visible. I tugged at the hem of the robe, hoping to cover at least the top part of my thigh. I noticed he was doing his best to avert his eyes, though there was a flush slowly spreading across his handsome cheekbones.

I felt totally exposed in front of him. And not in the way I had imagined many, many times.

“I—” I said, just as he blurted out, “I just wanted to—”

There was a moment of silence and then, “You first—,” we both said.

We stared at each for a moment and then shared an embarrassed laugh. Some of the tension broke, but not all of it. I tugged at my robe, wrapping it tighter around me.

“Ladies first.” He gave me a smile.

I cleared my throat. “I wanted to apologize for last night.” I found myself staring at the end of the terry cloth belt that I was winding around my fingers. “It was incredibly unprofessional of me and I completely understand if you want to request another reporter do the interview. I also need to apologize for being a total jerk last night. Clearly my ex-boyfriend brings out the worst while beer brings up the peanuts,” I joked lamely, feeling so incredibly awful for how I had treated him.

I risked a glance up at him, but he was also looking downward, apparently at his feet. What did he have to be so embarrassed about?

“I wanted to apologize as well,” he said, finally looking up at me. “I was a real jerk to you last night.”

“I think that was pretty well covered by me,” I countered, pushing my wet hair back over my shoulder. He watched the movement, his gaze then following the line of my neck before dipping down towards the suddenly gaping neck of my robe. I pulled it closed and he jerked his eyes back up to my face, his cheeks even more red.

He coughed. “I shouldn’t have taken you to that bar.”

“You didn’t know that Nick would be there,” I told him, before furrowing my brows at him. “Right?”

He nodded. “But I still shouldn’t have taken you there. You were right. It wasn’t a place for an interview and I knew that.” He went back to staring at his feet. “This whole time you’ve just been trying to do your job and I’ve been a big baby about it.”

“You don’t like journalists.” I shrugged my shoulders, still waiting for the brush-off. “I understand that. Some people don’t like the spotlight.”

“It’s not just that,” he said. “I just don’t think I deserve it.”

I was surprised. Like, really, really surprised. He was an incredibly talented baseball star—usually that was the kind of person that lived for the spotlight. “Why would you think that?” I asked.

“I just think there are more important people out there. People who deserve attention. People who don’t get it.” He looked up at me sheepishly. “Besides, I am not newsworthy.”

“I think you should let me be the judge of that,” I told him, for a moment forgetting that he still hadn’t agreed to actually go through with the interview. But I sensed that there was potential here. “OK,” I leaned forward. “Why don’t I make a deal with you?”

“A deal?” he raised an eyebrow. “What kind of deal?”

“You give me one evening. One. I get my interview, all the standard questions, the whole usual thing. If I decide you’re not newsworthy, I’ll do the article on something else.” There was no way that the Register would agree to this, but there was also no way that Nathan wasn’t worth writing about. Nobody went from college ball straight to the major league.

“Something else?” he asked, looking intrigued. “Like what?”

I lifted a shoulder. “You seemed to think that there were things more interesting than you. I guess you’ll have to prove it to me.”

He smiled and my heart skipped a beat.

“Sounds like a challenge,” he said.

“Guess it is,” I responded. There was hope for this article yet.

“OK,” he stood and regarded me. “I’m guessing you’d like to do the interview tonight.”

“If you don’t mind.” I gave him a smile and stood as well, keeping a tight grip on my robe.

“Six?”

“Great,” I walked him to the door.

He gave me a half smile as he stepped into the hallway. “Guess it’s up to me to prove to you how boring I really am.”

“And I’m looking forward to seeing you try,” I teased as he turned to face me. We were still standing close together. Too close in fact. Or not close enough, I couldn’t really tell. All I knew was that if he leaned forward just a little bit, he would be able to kiss me. And I’d be able to kiss him back.

Nathan’s eyes dropped to my lips and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. For a moment I thought he was going to do it, finish what we had started in the frat house the other night.

But there was a clattering from down the hall and we both jumped apart as a cleaning lady rolled past us. Even though she kept her eyes discreetly down, I could tell she knew exactly what was going on.

Nathan cleared his throat. “I’ll see you at six,” he finally managed.

I nodded and waited until he had disappeared into the elevator before I closed the door.

Chapter Fourteen

He took me to an arcade. It was noisy and crowded and almost a worse place than the bar to hold an interview. There was no way I’d be able to record anything in this din. I had a hard time disguising my disappointment.

“Trust me,” he said when we walked in.

I just stared at him, my heart sinking. I had gotten two more emails from my editor-in-chief asking for an update, making that a total of three emails I had ignored from him. I felt guilty, but before walking into the arcade, I had felt confident that I would be able to get something tonight that I could send them tomorrow. Now I wasn’t so sure.

If this had been a date, or a night out with friends, I would have been in heaven. There was something so comforting about the atmosphere around us, of kids feeding quarters into machines, all hoping to win the piles of prizes behind the counter—stuffed animals, MP3 players, and other things that were probably cheaper if they were straight-up bought in a store, but way less satisfying than if they were won at the arcade.

There had been an arcade next to my mom’s favorite bar, so I knew the environment well. It felt familiar. Safe. Quarters were something she could give me, so every time she wanted to have a night out, she’d give me a bag of quarters and send me to the arcade until it was closing time. For months I had my eye on a big pink stuffed unicorn. I didn’t have many toys and that stuffed animal seemed like the most magical, beautiful thing I had ever seen. The idea of owning it seemed impossible, but also within my reach if I worked hard enough. And that’s what I did. Every single time I went there I played to win the unicorn. While the other kids cashed in their tickets for smaller, more quickly satisfying trinkets, I kept my tickets in a bag underneath my bed. 1,000 tickets. That’s what the unicorn cost. It took me six months, but I got it. And it was still in my bedroom back in my mom’s apartment in Houston. She was allowed to get rid of anything else I owned, but she knew that she couldn’t touch that unicorn.

“Let’s make a bet,” Nathan said to me, shaking me out of my memories.

“A bet?”

“Yeah, a bet.” There was that wicked smile again. “If you win, you get something you want, and if I win…”

“I just want this interview to go well,” I interrupted before he could tell me what he wanted. I knew what he wanted. Because I wanted it too. And that was a bad idea.

“I already promised I’d be honest with you,” he said.