“We don’t count the Hobbit movies or that Crystal Skull junk.”
“Yes, Back to the Future is the greatest. Star Wars can take a hyperspace leap into an asteroid belt.”
She grinned and Great Scott! His heart flipped. “Foreman’s a movie buff. I dig it. So what call or text did you get that pissed you off?”
Tenacious, this girl. He put the phone back in his pocket, then waited a beat. “This “Am I the Dick” thing. People have made the connection.”
Her eyes went as wide as pucks. She grasped his arm, and he had to say, it was not unpleasant. “How would they know that was you?”
“We’re talking about the gabbiest sons of bitches in pro sports. Have you spent any time with this lot? They love to gossip and they especially love anything that makes a teammate look like an idiot.”
“That’s not fair. You didn’t write it, so it doesn’t seem right you should suffer for it.”
“Whoever wrote it obviously doesn’t feel that way. Whoever wrote it thinks I deserve everything that’s been said about me.” This was so much fun that he decided to raise the stakes. “Harper Chase called me.”
“No!” She grabbed his arm again. This tactile way of hers was kind of nice. You’re going to hell, Foreman. “What did she want?”
“To ask if I needed to talk to a counselor about my issues with women.”
The Rebels CEO had called but only to one, verify it was about him and two, laugh her head off.
Mia looked appropriately forlorn. “Foreman, I need to tell you something.”
Here it comes. He wasn’t sure he wanted it done, but at the same time, he didn’t like knowing she thought badly enough of him to craft a prank like that. If anything, he needed to understand her motivation.
“You do?”
“Yeah, I … well …” Finally came a very small, “It was me.”
“What was you?”
“The post. I wrote it.” Her obvious anguish almost made him feel bad, then he remembered he was the victim here.
“You wrote it? I—I can’t believe it.” Rubbing his mouth, he shook his head in feigned shock. He stood and gripped the player gate, his back to her to hide the smile on his face.
“I was mad at you, Foreman, and—oh, God, I had no idea it would take off like this.”
Ah, hell, he couldn’t keep it going any longer. He turned to face her. “I know.”
She frowned. “You know what?”
“I know you wrote it.”
Her cheeks went red. “How—but how do you know? When did you know?”
“I figured it out when I was over at your place for lunch.”
“But—but that was almost a week ago!” She shot up, hands on hips, fire in her eyes. “You’ve known all this time and didn’t say anything?”
“Sure did. I didn’t think you’d want Vadim to know you were behind it. He’s pretty black-and-white about stuff. Not a lot of gray in his world.”
Her mouth formed an O. “You covered for me?”
He shrugged. “I figured we’d get around to talking about it eventually. Thought maybe I’d give you a hard time in training first, but frankly, you’re kicking my ass out here, so now I’d prefer we aired it out.”
“Air it out?”
“Yep. I’d like to know what was going through your mind when you did that. I get that I pissed you off, but it seems pretty elaborate as far as payback goes.”
She dipped her gaze to the floor. “I wanted to see if I was overreacting. I wanted people to tell me if I was in any way justified. So I told the story from your perspective to see if you’d come out of it well.”
He closed the gap between them and touched a finger under her chin. It tingled, sending a shock through his hand, all the way up his arm. Her eyes were soft, pleading, and he added that look to his spank bank along with the laughing and furious ones.
This is okay, he insisted to himself. This light touch, this thrilling closeness. No harm done because he would never, ever cross the line here.
“You weren’t overreacting,” he whispered. “I screwed up. I apologized to Tara because I manipulated the situation to my advantage and now I’m apologizing to you—again—because I shouldn’t have dragged you into the middle of my drama.”
“I shouldn’t have made a joke of it. I took it too far.”
He dropped his finger before he was tempted to move it along her jaw and extended his touch to something more illicit. “Don’t get soft on me now, Mia.”
She