Page 18 of Sweet Spot

“On purpose?” Kate frowned.

“No. He had no idea Olivia lived there. He was like five when they lived on the island. Anyway, the crush was still there and they started dating.”

Kate popped some edamame in her mouth and sucked out the beans before chucking the husk into the bowl with the other discarded pods. “So how does this lead to you?”

“I was the ranger at the Calusa Key Sanctuary. You may have heard we do some educational stuff there.”

She shook her head and smiled. “I have heard something about that, yes.” The combination of hair swishing, lips curving, and that sultry voice of hers made me picture kissing her again. I could remember the feel of the warmth of her skin in my palm and it itched to make it happen for real this time.

Strange how much I liked flirting with Kate. It was every bit as much a sport as baseball. Any play could be successful or disastrous, and part of the thrill was finding out which it was.

I intentionally decided not to mention Rosie. “Well Olivia, Chris’s then-girlfriend, has a son. Linc was in one of our camps and Chris brought him by and started helping out. We got along great. One day he offered to bring Everett and me to a friends-and-family practice at the stadium.” And then my life changed. Not only did it bring me this job opportunity, but it led me to this moment, sitting across from a woman I might have never met. “Ev threw some nasty shit that day.”

“In this case I’m assuming nasty is good?” She held her straw as her lips wrapped around it. The way her lips and tongue moved entranced me. Made me picture them moving over my skin. Kate’s mere presence activated the primal part of my brain. Did I want to talk with her? Absolutely. Did I also want to imagine every single way our bodies could connect? Also yes.

“Yes. Nasty is very good. Specifically it means hard to track. Some pitchers throw hard. Some have so many pitches in their arsenal you never know what they will throw and they can play some wicked mind games with a batter. That’s Chris’s specialty. But Ev never settled into a specialty. It’s part of why he left the game. He was just another pitcher in a sea of decent pitchers. But he never stopped throwing. Over the years he started playing with different grips and timings. He had fun throwing batting practice at the high school when they needed help. I don’t think he realized just how nasty his pitches had gotten until he was tossing strike after strike at professionals again.”

“The Mantas were smart to snatch him up then. But how does this lead to you?”

“I’m getting there,” I teased. I liked being playful with Kate, liked making her smile and laugh, anything to get that voice of hers in the air again. “Apparently, over the course of the day, I subtly coached most of the team. I don’t remember this and I believe all the tales told are fabricated, however I seem to have corrected Rhett’s swing, adjusted Wes’s run, and kept Seth in his place, which, I must agree, is a small miracle.”

Kate shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “That’s a nice start, but I don’t believe they offered you a team after a few tweaks.”

“Correct. I accidentally got into a conversation about team strategy with a very important man.”

Her mouth fell open. “Eli?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t know who he was or that there would be a job opening. Stirling knew exactly who I was and was a fan of mine back in the day. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was already in talks with the owner to buy the team. At his suggestion, they offered me a coaching job. Coaching led to managing.”

She whistled. “In very short order. You are impressive, Isaac Anson.”

It took everything I had not to puff up my chest and act like an idiot just because a pretty woman praised me. But inside? All of that happened at once. In fact, impressing Kate was my new mission in life. Maybe if I impressed her enough she’d say yes to a date when she was done with her contract.

The waitress placed our plates of sushi on the table and I used the distraction as an excuse to change the subject and get Kate talking. “So what about you? How did you wind up with this gig?”

“Well, like you, it was an accident.” She arranged her dishes as she spoke. With her attention on the food I was able to study her again, but still couldn’t figure out why I was so attracted to her. I found everything about her damn near perfect, so I knew I was delusional. No one was perfect. But to me, Kate had it all. A beautiful face with a sexy smile, a gorgeous body, and she was fun to talk to. I was still absolutely convinced all I had to do was touch her to erase my stress.

“How so?”

She shrugged. “A lot of odd jobs come along with graduate programs. One of them involved working on consumer behavioral profiles. This was associated with my sociology degrees. The company that hired us was trying to fix a public image issue but they kept getting it wrong and making it worse. So they hired us to get to the root of what their customers were actually thinking and what they wanted. Turns out, it was the company itself that turned everyone off. They were such a hot mess that even their very delicious products weren’t enough to get people to buy their stuff anymore.”

“Are you going to tell me which food this is?”

“Nope,” she said with a laugh that made me feel good. “I signed so many pages with so many rules. Anyway, I got a little too into this job and ended up writing up a whole proposal. The company loved it and hired me to implement it. It took a year and by the end of that process I knew I’d found my niche. I decided to make my doctoral research about the different cultures of workplace environments. I took two more jobs like the first, both much easier to manage, before Max called me up. Ever since I fixed the Pythons my phone has been ringing off the hook.”

Her left hand sat flat on the table while she ate with her right. I was left-handed, so my right hand was free. Only a few inches separated our fingertips. I could slide my hand forward and touch hers.

Fuck, how I wanted to erase all the complications and just flirt like hell. Like we had at Red’s. “What would have happened if Stirling didn’t call you last week?” I held my breath as her eyes locked with mine. Time slowed down. It must have because the space between the thuds in my chest stretched out longer and longer. “Would you have met me at Loretta’s?”

She nodded slowly. A long silence settled between us. Then her tongue darted out and wet her lower lip and I was gone. Nothing else existed but that tongue and all the wonderful things it could do.

“Yes, I was excited you asked. You…confused me.”

“How did I confuse you?” Was it like this brain fog I got every time she came around? Because if so, I totally understood.

“I’m not usually attracted to men wearing t-shirts and flip flops.”

“That’s almost every man in the state of Florida.”

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