“I don’t have a crush. And wee lass? Really? You’re Scottish now?”

“Sometimes. Chicks dig the brogue. You should try it on your girl over there.”

“She’s not my girl. She’s just…” Interesting, Cole finished silently.

“Good,” Lincoln said, clapping him on the shoulder. “So you won’t mind that she left.”

Cole’s eyes flew to the seat where the woman was sitting, annoyed to see that his friend was right. She was gone.

“It’s just as well,” Lincoln said. “We have bigger things to focus on. Say, like how we’re going to annihilate the bastard who’s out for your job.”

“It’s not my job,” Cole said, carefully keeping the tinge of bitterness out of his tone.

“Not yet,” Lincoln said. “But it will be. Taking your competition out of the picture is the only reason I’m at this barbarian event.”

“Remind me never to take you to a hockey game,” Cole muttered.

Still, he appreciated his friend’s loyalty. And Lincoln was right. Tonight wasn’t about petite female baseball fans and their damn notebooks.

Tonight was about Cole’s professional future.

The key to that future? Oxford magazine.

Oxford was the country’s top selling men’s magazine where Lincoln—and most of Cole’s other closest friends—worked.

But more important, it was also where Cole worked.

Well, sort of.

He would work there. Just as soon as he found the asshole who was after his job.

Cole wasn’t going to pretend that he didn’t have a competitive streak. It was a prerequisite for someone whose bread and butter came from knowing the nuances of professional sports.

And it was rare that Cole felt a personal investment in a competition. But tonight? Tonight, it was definitely personal. Cole was the competitor.

The prize?

The title of Senior Sports Editor at Oxford.

The magazine was finally getting a real sports section. Their token two-page spread on fantasy football squeezed in between cologne reviews and the proper way to wear a tie clip was being expanded to a multipage, multitopic sports section.

A section that needed an editor.

Cole was the right man for the job. The only man for the job. Not only had he been writing for Oxford as a freelancer for years, but the editor in chief, Alex Cassidy, was one of his closest friends.

When Cassidy had come to Cole and explained that he wanted to make Oxford a serious contender for the Sports Illustrated readers, Cole had been damn sure that Cassidy was offering him the job.

Hell, Cassidy had been begging him for months to join the team, and Cole was finally ready—ready for a steady paycheck.

Ready to belong to something.

Because, although Cole wasn’t exactly dying to buy a house in the ’burbs and settle down with a nice girl, it wasn’t just about Cole.

It was about Bobby, and the fact that Bobby’s care was getting more and more expensive. His brother needed more than Cole’s occasional freelance checks could provide.

Cole wasn’t just ready for this job. He needed it.

And that’s when Alex Cassidy had dropped his bomb.

The job wasn’t Cole’s for the taking.

So, goodbye to Easygoing Cole. Hello, Gladiator Cole.

Because, really, what the fuck?

Cole hadn’t minded that they’d had to publicly post the position. He understood there were HR boxes that had to be checked. But never had Cole thought there’d actually be competition. Not only were the Oxford guys practically his family, but Cole was the best damn sportswriter in the city.

His application should have been a formality. Their request that he update his résumé and submit a portfolio should have been just a matter of documentation.

The position was his, damn it. Cole was the Oxford sports section.

Except he wasn’t. Not yet anyway.

Cassidy had called him yesterday to inform Cole that he was a finalist. A fucking finalist.

Pissing Cole off even further, Cassidy wouldn’t tell him who his competition was. Cole had named every worthwhile sportswriter in the city, but Cassidy wouldn’t so much as grunt in confirmation.

Damn Cassidy and his unshakable professionalism.

His friend hadn’t left him completely in the lurch, though.

Cassidy had pointedly mentioned to Lincoln that the other candidate had been invited to the suite reserved by Berkin’s Hospitality Group for tonight’s Yankees game.

Lincoln had, of course, told Cole.

So here they were, trying to sniff out the competition.

It was the only reason Cole would be caught dead in the luxury suite. Cole hated luxury suites.

This wasn’t what baseball—or any game—was about. Baseball was about the peanuts, the rowdy crowds, the overpriced beer. It was about the sound of a fastball smacking against the catcher’s glove, the satisfying crack of a wooden bat when a rookie pinch hitter really got hold of one.

For Cole, watching baseball was about sitting with his brother in the stands, watching Bobby’s face go positively ecstatic every time they did the wave, and the way his brother never, ever got tired of the seventh-inning stretch.

That was baseball.

And Cole wanted nothing more than to be an anonymous part of the rowdy crowd, preferably on the third baseline, watching the Yankees hopefully trounce the Blue Jays.

Instead, he was stuck here with a bunch of fools who wouldn’t recognize a line drive if it hit them in the ass.

Adding insult to injury, it was all for nothing. There was no sign of his competition. Cole knew every decent sportswriter in the city, and none were here tonight.

It was possible, he supposed, that Cassidy was considering some out-of-town jock for the position, but a quick scan of the room showed only familiar faces, all corporate bigwigs.

“Let’s get out of here,” Cole said to Lincoln, downing the rest of his beer in three gulps.

“You don’t want to wait for Cassidy?”

“Nah, I’ll catch him tomorrow.”

Before Cole turned to leave, he couldn’t resist one last look in the direction where his Tiny Brunette had been sitting.

He paused when he saw that she’d returned and, incredibly, the woman had just become more appealing.

Her face was turned to the side slightly, her notebook now on the open seat to her right instead of her lap, and she wrote furiously with her right hand, while her left hand held…

A hot dog.

Be still my heart.

Apparently, Miss Glued-to-the-Game had managed to tear herself away long enough to get a good old-fashioned hot dog. Mustard only, from the looks of it. Personally Cole would have added some ketchup, but still…a woman who’d so unabashedly eat a hot dog?

He had to talk to this woman, risk of rejection be damned.

Cole was beside her before he’d even fully committed to the decision to move, ignoring Lincoln’s snicker behind him.

Up close, she was even smaller than he expected. Narrow shoulders, no chest to speak of, skinny little arms.

He had yet to see her face full on, thanks to the cap pulled low on her forehead, and suddenly he wasn’t sure what he was more desperate to see, her face or her notebook.

He cleared his throat. “Hey.”

Not exactly his best opener, but it sufficed to get her attention.

Tiny Brunette’s pen stopped its furious scribbling, and her jaw paused in its steady chewing of the hot dog.

Slowly her face lifted to his and Cole had the strangest sensation of the breath catching in his chest as he waited to finally meet this woman’s eyes.

And, wow. What a pair of eyes they were.

If the rest of her was tiny, her eyes were enormous by comparison. Huge and dark brown and friendly.

Damn she was cute.

Not gorgeous. Not beautiful. But she had the girl-next-door, wanna-grab-a-pitcher? kind of appeal.