Page 21 of Vegas Heat

I press my lips together and nod, and then the waitress delivers our food.

And, incidentally, helovesmy pumpkin pancakes.

CHAPTER 10: GABBY

After breakfast, I head up to the suite I was supposed to sleep in last night with my friends while Cooper heads to his room to make a phone call.

When I open the door, my six closest friends are all awake and lounging around, and they all look a little hungover. I, on the other hand, have a wide smile gracing my lips.

“Where have you been?” Mia asks, leaping to her feet with an accusatory finger pointed in my direction, anger all over her face.

“I was with Cooper,” I say, my voice all dreamy even to my own ears.

“Haven’t you checked your messages?” she asks.

“I was with Cooper,” I repeat. “Sorry, allow me to amend that. I was getting banged like a drum at a marching band parade by Cooper.”

Mia’s jaw drops open. “You had sex with him?” she whisper yells.

“Yes. And I’m just here to grab my suitcase so I can get back to his room and have some more sex with him. Have I mentioned how good he is at the sex? He’s got this tongue that’s, like, unreal, and he—”

“Gabby!” Mia says, fisting my biceps. “Do you know who he is?”

My brows draw together. “He’s Cooper,” I say. I think back to the semi-fuzzy walk last night when people seemed to recognize him as they called him by his full name.

“He looked familiar to Chelsea, so we looked him up. He’s Cooper Noah. He played third base for the Dodgers for seven years before an elbow injury took him out of the game.”

My eyes widen as my palm moves toward my forehead. “A baseball player? For the Dodgers?” I think I might be in shock as her words hit me. Why would a megastar baseball player have any interest at all in someone like me?

The t-shirt I’m still sporting makes a hell of a lot more sense now.

I don’t follow baseball. My mother hated the game, so we never watched it when I was growing up, and it wasn’t until much more recently that I took an interest in it at all.

I still don’t know much about the game, but I’m learning.

Maybe Cooper can teach me a thing or two. And if he’s been out of the game a few years, I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t know who he is since my interest in the sport is very recent. Our timelines just didn’t overlap, I guess.

I wonder why he didn’t mention it, but I don’t want to be the one to bring it up. Maybe he prefers it this way, and I think I do, too. If we see each other beyond this weekend, I’m sure it’s something that will come up at some point, but I don’t want him to think I’m just after him because of who he is.

And I really don’t want him to find out who I am, either. I don’t want what we’re starting to be tainted by things completely out of our control. Not when our dynamic together is so good.

“I don’t even know what to say,” I admit. “I’m supposed to just come up and grab my bag so we can spend the day together.”

“Well…how was it?” Becky asks.

I sigh dramatically as I drop down into a vacant chair. “I can’t even come up with the words, to be honest. It was…” I shake my head. “It was like I’ve known him my entire life. It was like we were destined to sit next to each other at that blackjack table, like our paths were meant to cross.”

“But he’s like, in his thirties, isn’t he?” Kelly asks, scrunching up her nose. “Doesn’t he have wrinkly old balls?”

I nod. “When the connection is this strong, age is just a number,” I say, citing the same words he used as a cliché. Maybe it’s a cliché, but it’s also the truth. “And there’s nothing wrong with his balls. They’re quite firm, as a matter of fact, and they seemed to be working just fine as they slapped against me last night.”

Mia’s still narrowing her eyes at me like I’m a child who needs scolding, but Chelsea lets out a loud laugh. Chelsea’s the resident perv, so I know she’ll be on my side. She probably wishes she was the one in my shoes right about now.

Proving my point, she sighs. “You’re so lucky. He’s hot, even if he does have wrinkly old balls.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “He is pretty fucking hot. His abs are just…” I lick my lips as I think about those abs. Damn, I want to run my tongue along every ridge.

I miss him.

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