Page 4 of Sliding Into Love
Ethan froze, his whole body tensing, his face on fire. He shouldn’t interact with her again; it would get him benched.
“Janna is probably asleep by now, but you can give them to Ivy.”
What? Oh, Derek still thought Ethan meant the little girl.
“Ivy?”
“Yeah, my sister. Well, she’s technically my foster sister, but a family doesn’t have to be blood, you know?”
Two things hit Ethan at once. First, her name.Ivy.It evoked green and growing things, sunlight, and sweetness. Second, she was Derek’ssister.
Ethan shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts. Thinking about herat allmeant nothing but trouble.
“No, I can’t—I mean—I have to go.”
At least his car was nearby, so Ethan wrenched the door open, slid in, turned the key in the ignition until the engine roared, and left before he could make things worse.
Ivy Johnson’sfoster daughter Janna was sound asleep with her older brother Jase nodding off in the backseat beside her as Ivy waited for Derek in the stadium side lot where the Hawks players and employees parked. The lot mostly held flashy, expensive vehicles, and Ivy Johnson’s sensible sedan stuck out in its normalcy.
It would be too late to drive him home, Derek had said, but Ivy insisted. Derek had just been bumped up from the Double-A Hawks affiliate, and she was so excited that he would finally be home again, she’d practically dragged him to her car.
Those were the kinds of things family were supposed to do.
While she waited, Ivy fished through the bag that betrayed her to find her phone, debating if she should check her email for the umpteenth time that day.
What could it hurt? If nothing else, maybe there’d be a coupon in her inbox. Losing her internal battle, Ivy thumbed open the app, overlooking the three percent hovering beside the red battery icon. She’d have to be fast, but the service at the stadium was slow when she’d tried to check earlier. So slow, it hadn’t updated at all, leaving her on edge for half the game. Waiting for an email she didn’t even know would be coming reminded her too much of years of watching and waiting as others were chosen for foster placement and adoption.
Fuck it, she was checking.
In her inbox were four-hundred-twenty-seven unread emails, which she ignored. None of them were what she’d been waiting for.
She hadn’t expected it to be nearly impossible to find work after she’d graduated with double master’s degrees in Biology and Education. But she’d applied for what felt like hundreds of jobs in the months since her graduation and had no responses. Checking her email a million times a day felt more like muscle memory after so long.
It wasn’tjustabout the money; she’d inherited a little, enough that she’d be okay for about a year. It was about stability. What she’d never had, and wanted,neededto give to Jase and Janna. But the waiting, the not knowing, had turned into something more than just annoyance. It lurked in the back of her mind, an old, familiar, nagging feeling of not belonging, of being unwanted.
Instead of wallowing in those feelings, she switched on the radio and scrambled to turn the volume down when it blasted dad rock at her. Janna gave a little grunt in her sleep, and Jase opened his eyes for a moment before they fluttered closed again. With a yawn, Ivy glanced at the exit, wondering how much longer Derek would be. As if on cue, the door opened, revealing him, and a few seconds later, a tall man in athletic shorts and a hoodie pushed through the door, calling out. Derek stopped and turned around, and the other man took a step forward.
Oh,shit. It was the player who’d picked up her tampons and knocked her down.
Ivy’s cheeks burned as she relived the scene.
Not that she should be embarrassed—like he’d said, it was natural. Still, the whole situation had been so uncomfortable.
But him knocking her down was the closest Ivy had been to a man in…longer than she cared to think about. They’d wound up horizontal, and he’d wrapped his arms around her.
And Ivy didn’t even know the dude’s name.
All she knew was how gentle and tall he’d been. His gentleness surprised Ivy—he’d somehow managed to fall on her lightly, and while the skin of his hand was rough when he’d helped her stand, his touch was soft. Not what she’d expected from a man of his size.
Their interaction was so brief, his height was the only feature she’d noticed. The man was too far away for her to see much, but seeing him beside Derek put his height into perspective, with Derek only coming to the other player’s shoulder.
Watching the pair curiously, Ivy wondered why the pitcher was so tense as he held out a bulging black tote bag to Derek. Was the guy blushing? Derek looked at him, peered down at the bag, then glanced toward her car.
Ivy ducked behind the steering wheel, but when she peered around it, Derek gestured toward the car. The other guy shook his head and looked away, then did a jerky half-wave in her direction and turned away to slide into a shiny black car. His tires screeched as he backed out of his spot, and the engine roared as he sped away. What was that all about?
Derek approached the car, and Ivy pressed the unlock button for him to open the door and slide in.
“So,” Derek asked once he’d settled into the passenger seat, “what did you do to Ethan Ford?”
