Curse him and his coolness.
I kick off my shoes and start shimmying out of my jeans, because the sooner I get this over with, the better.
When the driver’s side door opens, I yelp and dive-bomb toward the floor. “Anton!”
“I’m not looking. Take it easy.”
I hear more than see him slide into the truck from where I’m currently hanging out on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m starting the truck so it warms up for you. We’ll be cold enough in no time,” he adds, and I hear his grin.
“Whose fault is that?” I grumble.
“No one’s forcing you to write the article.”
False.
“You can give it up anytime you can’t hang with my schedule,” he adds.
I chew on the inside of my cheek. I can’t say no to a challenge, and he’s throwing down a gauntlet here that my competitive nature is lapping right up.
“I won’t be giving up.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Keep your eyes forward, Bates.”
I pull on a pair of spandex board shorts. They’re slightly big, but I roll the waist and they should work. There’s a sports bra in the bag, and I refuse to think about Anton shopping for this for me. He probably sent an assistant or someone from the team to do his bidding. He’s a busy man. There’s no way he made time between getting home from California and showing up here to go shopping with me in mind. Right?
The mental picture of him in a clothing store, sifting through racks or bins or shelves and hunting down my size, running his hands over the material I’m now wearing on my body, is so startling I suck in an audible breath.
“You alright? Got enough room back there?” A motorized mechanism whirrs to life, and the driver’s seat moves forward.
“I’m fine. You didn’t have to buy me clothes,” I say more quietly.
He doesn’t respond right away.
I pull the sports bra over my head and slip on the long-sleeved, water-wicking shirt he’s packed. It’s got a mock neck and the periwinkle-and-orange River Foxes logo on it.
“Figured you needed some River Foxes gear anyway,” he says as I pull on a pair of sweatpants and see that they, too, are stitched with the River Foxes emblem. “Since you’ll be around the team and all. You need to look like a fan.”
“Shouldn’t I stay neutral, for my journalistic integrity?” I contort my body to pull on my fleece-lined boots. “Maybe I should pick up a couple of jerseys from some of your opponents. Make sure no one thinks I’m playing favorites.”
Am I messing with him? You bet. The low growl that comes from the front seat tells me I struck a chord. Good.
What I don’t say—what I won’t admit—is that I own exactly one NFL jersey. Well, two. But they’re both his. One from his days on the Mobile Tigers. And a River Foxes one with the number 4on it. I keep them in my bottom drawer, buried underneath my sweatshirts.
I wedge myself up off the ground and struggle back into my parka, pulling up the hood around my face with a huff. Anton has gone very still in the front seat.
“There. I’m ready. Let’s get this over with.” When he doesn’t respond, I tap his shoulder. “Hello?”
He clears his throat. “Right. Yeah. Let’s go.”
He hops out of the front seat, and I don’t have any time to figure out what sort of cat got his tongue. Because there’s a frozen bay waiting for me to jump into it.
12
