The Catching Kind (11 page)

Yeah, still not happy about that obviously.

"No. I mean, where are your clothes?"

"I can't sleep in my clothes. What will I work out in tomorrow? I have three hours of swinging a bat in the afternoon. I’m not wearing slept in clothes to do that.”

"You can't walk around my apartment naked."

"Sweetheart, this ain't naked.” He crossed his arms across an overtly impressive chest. “This is me politely not sleeping naked. Which is how I usually sleep."

"It's how you usually sleep at home or with your girlfriend."

"Who is currently you. But, here I am, sleeping on a couch, in my boxers and not doing any of the other things I could be doing with my
girlfriend
."

I threw the pillow at his head and growled when he caught it.

I would have if he hadn't too—I mean, he's
paid
to catch things. With that, I headed back to my room where there was a perfectly good bed, and fell into it. 

And I didn't feel the least bit guilty. 

NINE

I woke to banging. Not building-something banging or someone's-at-the-door banging. I woke to cabinet banging.

That's when the morning joy of my guest hit me.

I could only hope that comfortable truce we’d established the night before would carry over.

I pulled my hair into a ponytail, wrapped my little robe over the pajama shorts set I was wearing, and headed out to the kitchen to see if he'd destroyed it already.

"You don't have any coffee." He had thankfully pulled the shorts back on, but between the naked shoulders and the mussed bed head, he looked like an ad for sex…I mean, something sexy.

Yeah. Whatever.

I glanced away because…yeah.

"Good morning to you too."

"How can you not have coffee? I thought writers lived in weird, dark places and subsisted on coffee and cigarettes."

"And you thought wrong. I subsist on tea and chocolate when I'm not eating like a normal person."

"So, there's really no coffee?" He looked at me like I might be lying. Like there was coffee in some secret compartment he just hadn't found yet.

"Nope."

"How do you live like this?" His voice rose with the accusation as if I was living without heat instead of a specific beverage.

I guess we’d found his Achilles heel.

"Pretty easily actually."

"We're going to have to go out. We need to get coffee. This is an emergency."

I almost thought he was joking, but he brushed past me and grabbed the bag he'd left in my room. 

"You need to get ready. Do your girl stuff so we can go." He was already keying into his phone. "What's the closest coffee shop?"

The weird, almost British female voice answered, "The. Closest. Coffee. Shop. Is. The Brew. Ha. Ha."

"Thank you.”

"Did you just thank your phone?"

I stood back in awe, watching him spiral into a crazed, under-caffeinated lunacy. 

"I need coffee, alright? What part of emergency did you not understand?"

Oooookay. Coffee. Emergency. Got it.

But I had needs too. "I need to shower."

He looked at me like I’d threatened to shoot him.

"And to get dressed in Connor Acceptable Clothing."

Now he was glancing toward the door.

"Don't even think about it. You woke me up on my sleep-in day. You're buying me tea and a muffin and maybe even a cookie for later."

"Fine." He pushed all the sheets and pillows down to the end of the sofa and reached for the remote. "But hurry up."

I shook my head, but he didn't notice. He already had his feet up and SportsCenter on. Which was funny because I was pretty sure I hadn’t even gotten SportsCenter in my package.

The shower was easy. Even blow-drying my hair was simple since it was pretty much stick-straight. Getting dressed wasn't as straightforward.

Luckily, almost as soon as I closed my door I heard the shower come back on. That gave me at least ten-minutes to figure out what to wear.

I grabbed the binder Becca created, pretty sure there wouldn't be a fake-morning-after outfit but was shocked to find a whole set of possibilities under Casual Encounters.

Once my new clothes were on—and I’d hopefully ripped all the tags off—I threw on light coats of mascara and lip gloss and headed toward the living room, surprised to hear the shower just turning off.

Connor took another ten minutes to get dressed, brush his teeth, and use my hair dryer. He'd probably end up using it more than me if he planned on staying over a few times a week. 

I'd actually just bought a new one. When Becca had come over to arrange my wardrobe in some type of order—not to mention kidnap some of my clothes she deemed
unwearable
—she'd insisted there was so much dust in my rarely used hair dryer that it was a fire hazard.

When Connor came out of the bathroom, he tucked that darn bag back in my room before coming out to join me. I guess it was going to be living there for a while. 

He glanced my way and stopped, studying me. I was
not
going to change. This outfit was clearly on the Casual Encounters/Daytime list. He'd have to have it out with Becca if he didn't like my outfits.

"You look nice."

"You sound surprised." I tried not to show how surprised I was at his surprise.

"No. Just...Well, I've seen your morning thrown together look.” He shrugged. “There's no yoga pants involved today."

Nope. Today I was wearing a little pair of white Capris and a blue t-shirt that cost more than any three t-shirts I owned before. I'll admit, it fit perfectly and it was super soft, but still. Who paid this much for a t-shirt? I'd even thrown on a little ball cap—not one with his team's logo—that was listed in the accepted binder and paired it with strappy flats and new sunglasses, then topped it off with a flowy scarf.

I'd never felt so put together in my life.

Getting ready was typically exhausting, but this hadn't been so bad. It didn't hurt that Becca had emailed more pictures of how to combine outfits that I was supposed to print out and update my binder with.

I grabbed my bag and a light coat before following him to the door.

"Have you been to this Brew Ha Ha place?"

I'd kind of hoped he'd forgotten about The Brew. It was the coffee shop my girlfriends and I wrote at and hung out in. 

"Yup. I go there all the time.” I turned around to put my coat on, afraid to look him in the eye. “Are you sure you don't want to head over to a Starbucks? There's one just a little further down the street."

"I don't think I'd make it.” He glanced around as if he might swoon at any moment and needed a soft place to land. “You'd have to get a bag of coffee and bring it back in the form of an IV."

"But, then you know what you're getting. You know? There's no disappointment."

“I like trying new things.”

“I’m kind of craving…” I scrambled for a Starbucksy something as I faced him. “A mocha-mocha-soy-espresso-chai.” Um, yeah.

"Is there a reason you don't want to go to The Brew Ha Ha?"

Yes
. "No. It's just..."

He stopped, his hands going to his hips as he glanced away. "You don't want to introduce me to your friends if they're there."

Kind of.

"No,” is what I said out loud. “I just—I'm not ready to deal with it all yet. It's been weird when it was just the two of us. Now you want to throw my friends into the mix right away."

"You haven't told them yet about the deal?” 

"Oh, I told them alrighty." Because that’s what girls do when they’re venting, they tell the most horrible parts that really upset them. Only, you can’t take those things back later. 

There must have been something about the tone of my voice, because that smirk came out again.

"And you may not have told them the most flattering things about me, is that it?"

"Well, you weren't exactly kind when we met."

Which was a good reminder for me as well. This was just another game to him.

It would take a while to figure out which Connor was real. The first one, who dismissed me so easily, or the one he was showing me now that was a little insane about caffeine but a relatively good guy.

"Hailey, you have to understand. A ball player has only two things going for him: His skill on the field and his reputation. I need to be able to get ads and maybe a hosting gig when my knee or my shoulder or my wrist or my ankle or whatever it is that's going to go goes."

I froze, crossing my arms and watching him explain this. 

"Then, they tell me my reputation is shot and we need to repair it. They follow that up with, ‘
Don't worry. We have the perfect girl. Cute, funny, smart. She's one of the darlings of publishing for your target audience
.’"

"And?"

And, I knew where this was going, but I wanted to see if he'd say it. If he'd really go that far.

"Well, Hailey, you have to admit you were a mess that morning." 

"I was
not
a mess. You live in a dream world where it's a woman's job to look good. If she didn't look good, then she'd be a sucky model or whatever wouldn't she?”

"It's not just that. I mean..."

I waited him out this time. He hadn't been able to finish a sentence since he realized he was digging a hole so deep he'd tossed out the shovel and brought in a backhoe halfway through.

"Yes?"

"You told your friends I was a jerk." He sounded genuinely upset about this.

"Here's a clue. If you don't want people to tell other people you're a jerk, don't act like a jerk."

We glared at each other eye to eye because of the stairs. I could feel the heat rising up my neck. I was mad.
So mad
. Yes, I'd told the girls what he was like. And it was true. It was also true that yesterday he'd been nothing but nice.

The disparity of it bothered me. How much of yesterday was an act and how much of before was just him being caught off guard?

"I'm not a jerk." He glanced away, his gaze going out the window to the treetops lining the street. “Listen, I know. I know I came off for you far worse than you came off for me that morning. I
was
rude. It’s just…”

He took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing as he still stared past me. Then he laughed. Not a typical Connor laugh, but one that was a little sad and definitely pointed at him.

“Gavin’s told me I’ve lost track of myself.” He turned and looked at me with that full attention gaze he seemed to be able to give to anyone. “Hailey, I’m sorry that I was rude and selfish and self-focused in the elevator and that I demeaned you in front of a woman because she was beautiful and dressed for her job. I was angry and worried and I defaulted to the person I put out for the papers, not the guy I like to be when I’m with my family or the few friends I trust. You are not ugly or beneath me. You’re…I like you. I’m glad we’re deciding to be friends. It’s…good, you know?
Friends
is good. I could use more. Especially an honest one.”

I stared at him, afraid to move as everything,
everything
about this whole mess shattered under my feet. 

I took a deep breath, and, with that…I let it go.

"Fine." Then, I added because it felt correct, “Thank you.”

"Okay." He crossed his arms and uncrossed them. “Thank you back.”

We headed out the door, both of us caught in our own worlds as we both tried to figure out what this meant. I didn’t argue with people. Jenna and Kasey, yes. Dane, always. 

Either it was because Connor had hurt my feelings and I’d had a hard time letting it go. Or it was just Connor and the way he made you feel like the center of everything, that had me feeling like I
could
argue with him. Like he was a safe zone. 

"Listen," I went down the two steps to join him on the landing. "Let’s just…let’s go back to the friends thing. Especially at The Brew.”

"I'll be nice to your friends."

"I know.” I really did. I was trying to adjust quickly, to this new Connor. The one I’d met was so solidly rooted in our short relationship, that doing this one-eighty was making me dizzy.

We reached the lobby and I headed toward the door.

"Hailey." He caught up with me and snagged my hand. "We'll start now."

I had no idea what he meant. Start what?

Connor stared through the glass of the door to the sidewalk, a suspicious look on his face. 

"Start what?"

"As of the second we walked out of your apartment, we were
in public
. If we're going to do this, we need to help each other remember. Conversations like that need to happen behind closed doors and when we're out, we need to look like we're together."

I hated this.
A lot. 

"Fine."

He took my hand, rolling it over in his so he stared down at it as if he were reading my palm. His thumb traced a small circle over it, running over the ridges.

"You have tiny hands."

"That's because I'm not six-feet tall. Those hands would look like big Hamburger Helper gloves on me."

Connor laughed as he threw an arm over my shoulder and pulled me into his side.

"It would be worse if it were your feet. You'd be tripping over those things all the time."

I rolled my eyes and tried not to smile. I knew what he was doing. And, because it was easier, I let it work. Plus, to be fair, I thought he really did want to be friends. It wasn't his fault I wasn't a model—it was only his fault he was a jerk about me not being a model.

We walked down the street, people barely glancing our way. Connor kept up a light conversation, telling me a story about his brother's date a few weeks before and how the girl had thought he was a millionaire because she'd met him coming out of Connor's building.

Of course, hilarity ensued and Gavin ended up telling her where to go.

I suggested maybe she was a better match for Connor and we could double date. He was a bit appalled when I asked if he had a picture of Gavin on him.

Obviously that wasn't going to happen any time soon.