Page 43 of Heavy Hitter

Lacey grins back, a dark thrill zipping through her. She meant what she told him back at the farm—it’s not like she was wandering alone in some barren orgasm desert waiting for him to come along and rescue her—but the truth is she’s never felt as deeply, naturally sexy as she does with Jimmy. She’s never liked her own body quite so much. She uses her chest to nudge him backward until the backs of his knees hit the sofa and he sits down, then hikes her dress up and settles herself in his lap with one knee on either side of his thighs.

Jimmy tips his handsome face toward her, then hesitates at the last second. “Am I going to fuck this whole”—he gestures at her general person—“situation up if I kiss you?”

“Depends how hard you commit, I guess.” Lacey raises an eyebrow.

Jimmy smirks. “I’m pretty fucking committed,” he murmurs, then presses his mouth against hers.

It escalates more or less immediately, his big hands wandering down her body, reaching up underneath her dress. Fuck dinner, Lacey thinks with surprising clarity, pressing herself against the warm, broad expanse of him, grinding herself against the bulge in his pants. Fuck the entire elaborate production. Instead they can just go upstairs and get directly into bed, and then tomorrow—

“Uh.” Claire clears her throat from the doorway; Lacey springs to her feet before the sound is even all the way out, smoothing her dress down and wiping the edge of her lip. “Sorry,” Claire says, not quite looking at either one of them. “I didn’t know you were—I wouldn’t have—the car’s here, whenever you’re ready.”

“Oh, no worries,” Lacey says, composing herself as quickly as possible. It’s not like Claire hasn’t seen worse, obviously; still, all at once she’s blushing clear up to the roots of her hair. “You guys have talked on the phone, yeah? Jimmy, this is my assistant Claire.” Her smile is ferocious, she can feel it. “Claire, Jimmy.”

Jimmy puts a hand out—but does not, Lacey can’t help but notice, make any move to stand upright quite yet. “Nice to meet you,” he says as they shake. “Sorry for the, ah, inconvenience. Of... myself.”

He’s joking, Lacey can tell, but Claire doesn’t laugh. “Not at all,” she says, her tone friendly but businesslike. “Glad to have you on Lacey’s team.”

“Glad to... be on it,” Jimmy says, a little uncertainly. He does stand up then, his knees cracking audibly, and reaches for Lacey’s hand. “Let’s do this thing, huh?”

Lacey nods, still smiling. “Yup,” she says. “Let’s do it.”

***

CLAIRE BOOKED THEM A TABLE AT SCOTTI’S, A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD red-sauce Italian place with candles stuck into wine bottles on top of the checkered tablecloths. Lacey watches as Jimmy looks around, taking in the vehement unfanciness of the dining room, clocking the fact that Lacey purposely didn’t ask for any kind of privacy. “I see what you all did here,” he says quietly, taking a sip of his Peroni as a middle-aged woman two tables over snaps the world’s least subtle iPhone photo. “This was very clever.”

“Apple pie and homecoming,” Lacey murmurs back, motioning over a wide-eyed tween so that they can take a selfie together. “Once you really get to know me, I think you’ll find I’m a very normal Midwestern girl.”

The waiter comes by three different times to ask if they’re ready to order while Jimmy scrutinizes the menu like he thinks there’s going to be a test of his reading comprehension after dessert. “Do you not like Italian food?” Lacey finally asks. “Sorry, I probably should have asked you that before now.”

Jimmy shakes his head. “I like Italian food fine,” he says. “I just feel like the internet is going to conduct a symposium on the semiotics of whatever I order right now, so I want to be sure I’m, you know. Doing my part to contribute to your team.”

Ugh, Lacey knew that comment had rubbed him the wrong way as soon as it came out of Claire’s mouth earlier. “I can think of some ways for you to contribute,” she shoots back—trying to make a joke of it, nudging her ankle against his underneath the table. “If you’re looking for ideas.”

Jimmy smiles at that, though Lacey isn’t sure if she’s imagining that it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He hasn’t smiled much since they got here, actually; their conversation feels stilted and fake, like they’re two actors in a high school play who haven’t entirely memorized their lines. “You excited for the series?” she asks once he’s finally decided on the lasagna, aware that she sounds a little desperate. Act like you’re having fun, she wants to tell him, but she’s afraid someone will be able to read her lips.

“You could say that,” Jimmy allows—and now he’s smiling for real, just a little, presumably amused by her increasingly sweaty attempts to move them along. Help me, then, she thinks, trying to send the message telepathically across the table. The whole point is to make it look like you’re having fun.

Well, no, Lacey amends to herself, glancing at Jimmy a little guiltily. The point is to actually have fun, obviously. It just so happens to be fun they’re having in front of an audience, for public relations purposes.

It feels like they sit there forever, dutifully eating the kind of heavy, cheesy, salty dinner Lacey already knows is going to make her workout tomorrow morning feel impossible, wondering why she ever thought this was a good idea. It was a mistake, she sees now, to push him to do this; it was the latest in a long string of strategic errors she can’t quite seem to stop making ever since he came along. Already Lacey is dreading their walk out to the car, when the photographers who have gathered outside the restaurant will inevitably take a million pictures to be promptly analyzed by a legion of amateur body language experts who’ll declare their relationship a disingenuous, farcical PR stunt before they ever even make it back to her house. Maybe she should have just had him deny it altogether, she thinks wildly. Maybe they weren’t ready for this after all.

Jimmy surprises her, though, slinging his arm around her once he’s signed his name to the credit card receipt and helped her into her jacket. Just like that he’s Handsome Everyman Jimmy Hodges again, feigning good-natured surprise as they step out onto the sidewalk and flashbulbs explode in every direction. “Hey, guys,” he says, nodding with a lopsided grin at the scrum of photographers outside the entrance to the restaurant. “Who are you waiting for?” He cranes his neck. “Listen, you’re never going to believe this, but I think I saw Lacey Logan in there with some dopey-looking asshole from the Orioles.”

Oh, they like that, the laughter sincere and good-natured. Lacey couldn’t have coached him better herself. “How was dinner?” one of them calls, still snapping busily away.

“It was incredible,” Jimmy says easily, angling his body in a way that suggests they have his full attention even as he’s guiding Lacey into their waiting SUV. “You guys should get in there, order some tiramisu. Tell them to send me the bill.”

Lacey turns to look at him with some amazement once the door is closed behind them. “Nicely done,” she admits.

Jimmy clears his throat. “Learned from the best,” is all he says. It doesn’t necessarily sound like a compliment.

They’re quiet on the car ride back to her place, neither of them saying anything as he follows her up the front walk, as she keys the code into the pad beside the door and turns to wave good night to Javi. He’ll stay on until midnight, parked in the SUV in the driveway until someone else from the team arrives to replace him. She’s got twenty-four-hour coverage, even at home.

Once they’re inside Lacey walks from room to room flicking the lights on—putting Henrietta Lang on the sound system, getting them each a glass of water—before finally running out of small, plausibly necessary tasks and sitting down hard on the edge of the sofa. She was stalling, that’s all. She was buying time.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks quietly.

Jimmy plays dumb. “Talk about what?” he asks, shaking out his hands before tucking them back into his pockets.

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