“Go get it. Find out when it is.”
“Why are you so interested?”
She gave him a smile. “Just consider it therapy. Will you go get it?”
She was pretty when she smiled. Really pretty. Like not making him think of her as his Attila the Hun therapist kind of pretty. He got up and went down the hall, came back with his phone, which he’d scanned for Gray’s email while he’d made his way back to the sofa. “It’s this weekend, actually. Too late now. We have to head to Florida.”
He handed her his phone so she could read the email. She looked at it then lifted her head to look at him. “It’s not too late at all. It would only delay the trip to Florida by a couple of days. You should definitely go. Are all your friends baseball players?”
“No. We had guys from every sport holed up together in the athletic dorm.”
“That’s so interesting. How many of them have gone on to play professional sports?”
He smiled. He hadn’t thought about the guys in a long time, hadn’t seen them in a while. It would be good to catch up. “From my core group—all of them.”
She arched a brow. “Really? That’s amazing. And now my curiosity is high. I want to know who these guys are.”
He thought about it for a minute. Ridiculous idea. He wasn’t even going. But if he was . . . “You could come with me.”
She looked as surprised by his comment as he was when the thought popped into his head.
“What?”
But now that he’d said it, it made sense. “Sure. Come with me. I’ll introduce you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I mean you should totally go. You’ll have a good time. And you really should reconnect with your friends.”
“This was your idea.”
“I know. It was my idea for you to go.”
He liked that she looked so uncomfortable, with her deer-in-the-headlights, wide-eyed expression. Since she made him so damned uncomfortable all the time, it was nice to turn the tables on her.
“Hey, you’re supposed to be with me all the time anyway. You wouldn’t let me blow off one day of therapy. You’d let me be away for a three-day weekend to go to this reunion?”
She opened her mouth, then shut it.
Perfect. He had her now.
“Okay, you might have a point there.”
He never made an argument without one.
“Uh, where would we be going exactly?”
“Not that far. Central Oklahoma. Just a short drive down the highway. And we could work out at the lodge facility. There’s state-of-the-art equipment there.”
She cocked her head to the side, mulling it over. “Okay.”
The doorbell rang, and Garrett went to grab the pizza from the delivery boy. They ate while planning logistics for both the weekend coming up and for the subsequent trip to Florida.
“I’ll need to order certain equipment for your workouts. And I’d really like to have access to a pool.”
“There’s one at the beach house I stay at. We could use that one.”
She arched a brow. “Really? You have a beach house?”
He grinned. “I rent it from a couple I know. I don’t like hotels. It’s bad enough I have to deal with them throughout the season. At least during preseason I have the beach house.”
“All right. I can work with that.”
“Actually, you could stay there, too. There’s a guesthouse.”
She pondered the idea. She’d figured she’d stay at the same hotel as the team, but this would make more sense, especially if there was a guesthouse. “Okay, that works. We can commute together to the team facility.”
“Yeah, we can do that. But there’s also a gym room that has a lot of exercise equipment.”
“Really?” She got out her notepad. “Tell me what’s in there. I’ll be sure to order in whatever else we need.”
He gave her a list, and she made some notes.
“This will work out great. I’ll need to call Max and get things ironed out for the delay. He was expecting us to make plans to head down there right away.”
“Make the call.”
“Now?”
“I don’t see why not. If Max or Phil has a problem with me taking that trip to Oklahoma, they’ll let you know. And then I’ll talk them out of it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you always get your way?”
“Not always, but it’s nice when I do.”
She grabbed her cell and dialed Phil’s number. As team doctor, he’d have the final say. As Garrett suspected, Phil was fine with the delay and was happy Alicia was going with Garrett to continue his therapy.
She hung up and laid her phone down. “We’re all set.”
“Good.” He leaned back in the dining-room chair.
“What’s going to happen when you don’t get what you want?”
“You think everything goes my way all the time?”
“Seems that way.”
He shook his head. “Honey, if I got everything I wanted, I’d be in Florida throwing pitches right now.”
She laid her hand over his. “I’ll get you there, Garrett. I promise.”
He looked down at her hand, so small over his. Hard to believe those hands could wreak so much pain on his shoulder. He lifted his gaze to hers. “I’ll keep trying to believe that.”
She stared into his eyes. “You have to believe in me and trust me. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back on that mound.”
For some reason the low tone of her voice, the slight rasp in it coupled with the intimacy of her hand on his made his balls quiver. He wanted to make some quip about doing whatever it took, but hell, he wasn’t a teenager anymore and sexual innuendo would be stupid. He was already attracted to her, and now he’d invited her to spend the weekend with him.
He pulled his hand away and started to clean away the remnants of their dinner.
“You bought. Why don’t you let me take care of cleaning up this mess?”
She gathered up their plates and the pizza box before he could object. And then she did the dishes, so he leaned against the stove and watched her.
“I can do all that, you know.”
She threw him a look over her shoulder then smiled. “So can I. There were only a couple of plates and salad bowls.”