Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Christ, her tits were nearly falling out of her dress. “My teammates. They’re not going to let anyone keep them out, if they want to come in. They lack anything resembling a boundary.” He sat up with her in his arms, wincing. “Let’s pull up your dress.”
Eve was still in a fog, so Madden performed the task for her, one-handed.
The voices drew closer now and that finally seemed to penetrate Eve’s haze.
“Oh! Your team?” She scrambled off him, but her state of disarray couldn’t have made it more obvious what they’d been doing. Her hair was sideways and half free of its clip, her mouth rosy and swollen. “Should I go?”
“Don’t even think of leaving my sight.”
“When did you get so pushy?”
“Since you threatened to divorce me early while I’m in a hospital bed.”
He regretted the outburst as soon as her face started to lose color. “It sounds terrible when you say it like that.”
“It’s terrible no matter how you say it,” he said quietly. With every ounce of the conviction he felt. “And it’s not happening.”
They only had five seconds to glare breathlessly at each other before the door was kicked open, slapping off the opposite wall and sending a meal tray crashing to the floor.
Ruiz stood at the front of the pack, holding a bouquet of roses. “Bad Madden, you Irish brick house motherfucker. Ice that shit and get back to work.”
“Planning on it.”
“Planning on it,” Ruiz echoed with an attempted brogue. “This dude is crazy. Hey. Brought you some flowers—” The pitcher was advancing into the room, but cut himself off when he noticed Eve standing in the corner. Still looking like she’d come within inches of being ravished. “As I live and fucking breathe. Is this Mrs. Donahue?”
Eve shot Madden an incredulous look, flushing to the roots of her hair. “I’m Eve.” She waved at the dozen or so men who were trying to pile their way into the room to get a look at her. “Oh boy. Hi, everyone.”
“Hi, Eve,” came a chorus of baritones.
If Madden was annoyed at being stuck in a hospital bed before, the ordeal had just become untenable. His instinct told him to surround Eve, protect her from everyone’s curiosity, so that’s what he was going to do. Without another thought, Madden ripped off the blood pressure cuff, followed by the flimsy sheet, before climbing to his feet, gritting his teeth over the brief lack of equilibrium.
“Whoa.” Ruiz tossed the roses onto the counter. “Lay back down, man.”
“Madden,” Eve said, coming forward and attempting to guide him back to the bed.
He drew her up against his uninjured side instead. “I’m fine.”
Ruiz turned and looked at the rest of the team. “Coach! Get this warrior off the injured list. He only needs one shoulder.” The pitcher leaned around Madden to make eye contact with Eve. “Your man got me back on track tonight. I haven’t pitched the lights out like that in five damn years.”
“Finally pulled your head out of your arse and listened, is what happened.”
Every player in attendance howled, but none of them found the comment more amusing than Ruiz. “Something tells me we’re not done brawling, Donahue.” He put his hand up for a fist bump, which Madden cautiously returned. “But I think we’re going to be all right, man. You’re blunt as fuck and kind of weird, but I like you.”
“Thanks.”
Ruiz laughed, exchanging a high five with the player closest to him. “We’re about to go celebrate, but we wanted to stop by and see you first. Get better, man. Like I said, we’ve got work to do.”
Madden nodded, surprised to find an odd sense of . . . belonging with the group of men in front of him, which he’d come nowhere close to experiencing at the professional level until that moment. They weren’t a bonded group of friends, they were individuals with big personalities and complicated paths to the pros, but maybe the individuality worked for him. Maybe this worked better for him than blending to fit. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” Ruiz said, sincerely. “Bad Madden. Bad Madden.”
The Yankees’ starting lineup chanted their way down the hallway to the elevator, their voices carrying until all three groups had piled into the empty cars. When the quiet was all that remained, because even the executives were in a hush now, visibly moved by what they’d witnessed, Madden found Eve looking up at him, at first thoughtfully, then with understanding. Pride.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mental note to self: Never drive in Manhattan again.
The ordeal of retrieving her car from the pay lot, then double-parking among a sea of honking vehicles to pick Madden up at the front entrance and now circling Madden’s city block trying to decipher humanity’s most confusing signs to determine if a spot was valid or she’d get her ass towed? Eve thought, Never again. Not that Madden seemed to mind sitting in her passenger seat, smiling to himself as she cursed and got stuck behind delivery trucks, rickshaws, and yellow cabs.