“Then it’s my lucky night.” He looks at me a little like he did years ago, yet in a whole new way too.

  Like how a man looks at a woman he wants.

  I flash back to our plans, to our teenage dreams that didn’t come true.

  I have definitely dreamed of what might have been with this sexy man.

  And I’m not sure I want to wait for tomorrow to get started on my new dating plans.

  4

  Shane

  My almost prom date looks absolutely fantastic. Her big green eyes are welcoming, with a saucy sparkle in them. Her hair is short, platinum blonde, and held back with a little hair clip. I sneak a glance at it—a small dog with big butterfly ears is emblazoned on the side.

  Definitely must ask her more about that later.

  Tight jeans cling to fantastic legs, and a black top slopes off her shoulder, revealing creamy skin with a constellation of freckles that I would like to trace with my tongue.

  Clementine Rose was the kind of pretty in high school that made me sneak glances at her behind me in calculus. Now, she’s the kind of pretty that makes it impossible to look elsewhere.

  She’s all grown up and deliciously sexy.

  “So what have you been up to? It’s been ages since we said we were going to go to prom,” I say, since that was the last time we talked.

  She frowns. “There was no prom at the Carter Club for us.”

  I smile, a little wistful too, and it’s not because I wish I went to that cheesy event space with her. “And I still wish there had been.”

  “But you had such a wonderful opportunity. And look where it landed you. Now you’re a superstar,” she says.

  “I’m not sure I’d say superstar,” I say. I’m not being falsely humble—that’s true. Yes, I am rising in the sport of baseball, but I’m only three years in. I might be cocky with my teammates, since that’s how we roll, but outside of the locker room, I’m more of a realist.

  “You don’t have to. I did. And I’m not wrong. I can smell it on you like a cologne,” she says playfully, sniffing the air.

  “Yes, I did douse myself in Superstar before leaving my home. Smells like . . .” I wave a hand, casting about for an analogy for the fake cologne brand I just made up, then snap my fingers. “Ten-thousand-dollar bills.”

  “Hey, do they even still make those?”

  “Why did they ever make them?” I ask. “Literally, what is the point of a ten-thousand-dollar bill? Who wants to carry one around? Do you want to be the chump who leaves your ten-thousand-dollar bill in the cab or the loo?”

  “The point of them is to show that you have it. It’s like the monetary equivalent of unzipping your pants and whipping out a monster cock. Amusing, eye-opening, perhaps even highly entertaining.” She raises a finger to finish her point. “But a totally unnecessary sideshow.”

  I crack up. “Did you just say ‘monster cock’? Did you truly just say that?”

  Her pink lips part in an O, and she clasps her hand to her mouth. “I did. How utterly naughty of me. Wash my mouth out with soap.”

  Bloody hell. Clementine is flirty. Clementine is also dirty. Maybe even bawdy. Was she this naughty in high school? Or is this a new thing?

  “You have a naughty side, Clementine,” I say.

  “Does it bother you, Shane? Would you prefer I be more . . . dainty?” She’s like a strawberry cocktail, chased by a shot of tequila—sweetness and fire.

  “I prefer you,” I say, since two can play at this flirting game.

  That’s all this is.

  Simple bar flirting.

  Nothing more.

  There’s no time in my life for more anyway, but maybe tonight I can enjoy a few moments with her.

  The girl who got away once upon a time.

  I gesture to the bar. “Drink, love?”

  She nibbles on the corner of her lips, a soft laugh falling from her lush mouth.

  “What are you laughing at?” I ask.

  “You still say ‘love.’”

  I shrug, a little helpless. “You can take the boy out of England, but you can’t take the England out of the boy.”

  “Good. I like the England in the boy,” she says, then cocks her head to the side, appraising me. “Or, really, the man.”

  Is this happening? Did I truly walk into a comedy club on Valentine’s Day and bump into the one woman who never quite left my mind?

  I wasn’t planning to meet anyone tonight. I was planning to do the opposite—not meet anyone.

  “And this man likes being right here, right now,” I tell the flirty blast from my past.

  “Good. Very, very good, you snorter.”

  I laugh, something I haven’t done a lot of when it comes to dating, and women, and romance.

  Brilliant. Fucking brilliant.

  I’m already thinking of her in ways I shouldn’t.

  Romantic ways.

  I should say, Nice to see you. I start spring training in a day, but then again, what’s the harm in chatting with an old friend from school?

  This is simple catching up. There’s no harm.

  None at all.

  But there’s one little matter I need to be clear on.

  “So, when we order this drink, will your boyfriend show up in a few minutes, and is he a six-foot-ten professional MMA fighter who will toss me out of here?”

  “Don’t be silly. He’s over seven feet, and he’s also a bounty hunter.”

  “No problem, then.”

  She sets a hand on my arm. “Besides, you can just throw him one of those wicked fastballs of yours.”

  “Ah, I’ll challenge him to a baseball duel. Perfect.”

  She smiles, full wattage, an all-the-stars-in-the-sky grin. “And your girlfriend?”

  “Like your giant fake boyfriend, she doesn’t exist. So can I get you a drink?”

  “I’d love a martini.”

  “And I’ll have the same,” I say, and we move to a spot at the far end of the bar. When I catch the gaze of a blonde bartender, I raise two fingers.

  She strides over, flashing a grin. “What can I get you?”

  Her voice is full of my home country, but now’s not the time to chitchat with the bartender from London. I place our order, then the woman turns to my . . . friend.

  Who feels immediately like my date.

  “Your hair clip is the cutest thing ever. Is that a Papillon?”

  With a delighted smile, Clementine lifts her hand, running a finger across it. “I’m in mad love with them. I have a rescue Papillon, and he’s the love of my life.”

  “As it should be with a dog,” the bartender says, then taps the counter. “I’ll get to work on your drinks.”

  She heads down the bar, and I turn to Clementine, eager to hear all about her. “So, what are you up to now?”

  “Try not to be shocked,” she says, deadpan.

  I square my shoulders, schooling my expression. “I’m putting on my unsurprised face.”

  “I’m a pet trainer, mostly dogs,” she says proudly.

  I tip my forehead to the clip. “That’s perfect for you. Didn’t you have ten dogs growing up? A whole passel?”

  She shoves my elbow. “Just two. Nowhere near enough.”

  “Naturally. One can’t have enough dogs.”

  “You get me.”

  “And business is . . .”

  “It’s great,” she says, then whips out her phone, clicks to Instagram, and shows me her feed—picture after picture of her working with small beasts.

  Leading classes.

  Teaching agility.

  Wow. She’s not simply a dog trainer.

  She’s a celeb of sorts. Her feed is brimming with local influencers, sports stars, news anchors, tech wunderkinds. “You’re the dog trainer to the stars,” I remark.

  “I work with everyone. I just have a few high-profile clients,” she says, downplaying what’s clearly a booming business.

  I click on one of the pics and scroll through the comments. I arch a brow. “And it says you have a waiting list several weeks long. Good on you, Clem.”

  She smiles graciously. “I can’t complain. Work has been good to me. And it’s been good to you, Mister Wicked Fastball. To think, it all started with your championship game senior year.” She punches my right arm.

  A pang of sadness digs into my chest, but it’s chased by happiness—that’s how I felt as we were winding down at the end of high school. She was the only thing I missed when I took off for an unplanned baseball tournament, and the chance to start college early that summer.

  “I can’t believe I had a championship game clear across the country the weekend I’d asked you to prom,” I say with a sigh.

  I’m back in time, eighteen again, finishing school, sneaking off to kiss a beautiful girl after a game. Clementine and I went out a few times, made out a couple more times, and made plans.

  The woman in front of me pouts, over-the-top and adorable, as her pink lips curve down. “And to think I was left all alone, standing in the corner of the Carter Club ballroom in my emerald-green dress, no one to dance with.”

  The image is beautiful and breaks my teenage heart all at the same time. I tuck a finger under her chin. “Somehow I doubt you were left standing all John-Hughes-rom-com-movie-style in the corner.”

  Clementine shrugs, a little coquettishly, those big green eyes full of mischief. “What do you think happened, then?”

  “No doubt all the blokes asked you to dance,” I say, imagining the scene now. A long line of hopeless and undoubtedly horny boys, eager for a shot at the most captivating girl in school. Eighteen-year-old me is weirdly jealous of those sad sacks, even seven fucking years later.

  “Ha,” she says with a laugh. “Not exactly. Also, aren’t John Hughes flicks a little old for you?”

  “Yes. But I’ve spent enough time on planes and in hotels in the majors that I’ve tried to watch pretty much every film made in the last thirty to forty years.”

  “That’s some serious commitment to sampling entertainment.”

  “Music, movies, and books are kind of my thing. But what about you, calling me out? Isn’t John Hughes too old for you too?” I counter.

  “Yes! But my parents went on and on about those movies when I was growing up, so finally, for a girls’ night last year, my friends and I tried watching the holy triumvirate—that’s Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club.”

  “The verdict?”

  “We turned them off and watched The Adventures of Mister Orgasm instead.”

  “You can never go wrong with a fictional cartoon hero committed to a woman’s pleasure,” I say as the bartender returns with our drinks.

  “Here you go,” she says, and I pay for them straightaway, thanking the blonde behind the bar. Then I turn to Clementine, lifting my drink.

  “Something we couldn’t have done in high school,” I say.

  She leans a little closer, dipping her voice to a whisper. “Unless we were very sneaky.”

  “We were kind of sneaky, weren’t we?”

  “We had our moments, slipping behind the bleachers for no particular reason other than that it was fun to kiss there,” she says.

  I pick up the thread easily, warmth skimming down my body from the memories, or perhaps it’s from the present moment with her. Maybe both. “Stealing a kiss before the bell rang,” I murmur.

  “See? We might have been sneaky at prom too,” she says, her tone a little seductive.

  “Were you going to slip a flask between your breasts?” I ask, taking the liberty to set a hand on her forearm.

  Her breath catches as her gaze drifts down to my hand. Then her eyes swing back up, meeting mine. Her irises shimmer with desire.

  “Shane Walker, you naughty man.” She glances around, checking our surroundings, then lowers her voice more. “Maybe I was. Just for you to discover. Does that make you miss prom even more now?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” I tell her, stroking her wrist. She trembles as I touch her, and her reaction makes me never want to stop.

  “Such a shame, then,” she says, a little breathy.

  We’re both talking about the night we missed and about the here and now.

  Funny how I came to this club to avoid the temptation of meeting a woman at a concert.

  And here I am, reconnecting instantly with this woman.

  She inches closer. “And there was no John Hughes moment for me at prom. In the end, I didn’t go. I went out with girlfriends instead. We did karaoke in Japantown, then went to a diner, and we had a blast.”

  “Good,” I say, and now it’s not eighteen-year-old me who’s relieved—it’s this me.

  What the hell is going on? Do I truly care that much about my high school girlfriend’s whereabouts one night in June seven years ago?

  Maybe I do.

  “So you don’t have to worry about the long line of tongue-wagging teenage boys wanting to hit on your ex,” she adds.

  Busted.

  Thoroughly and completely.

  Though she doesn’t quite seem like an ex. An ex is someone you broke up with or who dumped you. Clementine and I wanted to continue, but circumstance pulled us apart.

  “Was it that obvious that I’m a jealous bastard?”

  Her eyes swing down to my hand again, touching her wrist, then return to my face. “Completely. But rest assured, there were no stolen kisses, no flasks, and no third base in the Carter Club coatroom, complete with mothballs.”

  A rumble works its way up my chest. “Clementine Rose, you’re reminding me of all my favorite teenage memories with you. Except for the mothballs.”

  “Mine too,” she says, then shifts her hand, palm up, inviting me to thread my fingers through hers.

  I do, our fingers sliding together, sending an erotic charge straight down my spine.

  I can only imagine what trouble we’d have gotten into at prom. And I can definitely picture the best kind of trouble tonight. “We were good at the good kind of trouble,” I say, lifting my martini glass with my free hand.

  She clinks her glass to mine. “Should we toast to good trouble?”

  But that hardly seems enough. This night is sparkling with possibility, teasing me with the prospect of the best kind of evenings.

  “To good trouble and to stealing kisses,” I offer.

  She licks her lips, flicking her tongue along the corner of her mouth.

  I groan, unbidden.

  Let there be good trouble tonight.

  Surely I can handle good trouble.

  It’s only love I need to avoid.

  That’s what I tell myself as we toast.

  “I’ll drink to both of those,” she says, with a sexy smile that makes my heart flip.

  Harder than just a good-time flip.

  5

  Shane

  One martini later, and her hand is still in mine.

  And our fingers and thumbs are practically fucking.

  Okay, not exactly.

  Fingers fuck in other ways. But the way she skims her soft hand along mine fries my brain.

  Trips my senses.

  Reminds me of all the other what-ifs we missed.

  Not simply prom.

  But something else we talked about then . . .

  She was going to come to my championship game, but the tournament was switched at the last minute from San Francisco to Miami. I spent two weeks there before heading off to college, also in Florida. Two weeks I was going to spend with her.

  Circumstance, the cockblocker.

  “I missed seeing you at the championship game too. It was supposed to be held right here in the city. I was looking forward to that. Which makes me a selfish fucker, I suppose.”

  She lifts a brow in question as she settles into a seat at the bar. “You wanted me at your game?”

  I’ve only had one drink. So it’s not the martini going to my head. It’s her. “I wanted you.”

  “I wanted to be there, Shane. At the ballpark by the water. Cheering for you,” she whispers.

  “I would have loved that,” I say, clasping her hand tighter as we inch closer.

  “You always seemed to enjoy it when I went to your games,” she says, taking me back to some of my favorite memories.

  Back then, when I had romance and baseball. When my favorite thing—the sport I loved—was tied up with the girl I was quickly falling for. The two hadn’t become dangerously entangled like they did last season with Tinsley in the bad kind of trouble. The kind of trouble that turned into distraction, lies, and heartbreak.

  Tinsley’s the last thing I want to think of though.

  And it’s remarkably easy to shove her out of my mind, since I only have room in it for Clementine right now. In fact, in this corner of the bar, it feels like we’re the only two people in the world.

  “I used to love closing out a game and finding you in the stands after a save,” I tell her.

  “Kissing me after your victory,” she recounts, and she is talking my language.

  “I missed that most when we won the championship. Can you believe that? I had everything I thought I wanted then—a fast track to the majors—but I was dying, fucking dying, to kiss you after that win,” I say, and it all spills out in a heap of wishes and wants.

  Ones that her eyes seem to reflect back at me. They shimmer with hope.

  “Mmm. I loved your kisses, Shane Walker. I wanted more of them. I wanted . . . other things with you too,” she says, letting me connect the dots, and I absolutely do.

  “Fine. I wanted to do much more than kiss you too,” I say, a dirty hum in my throat.

  “Mmm. You mean . . . more than third base?” She nibbles on the corner of her lips.

  I laugh, then loop a hand around her waist. “My lovely Clementine, I wanted to hit a home run with you,” I whisper.

  “I wanted that too,” she whispers, then in a softer, barely-there voice, she adds, “Want that tonight.”

  And I wave the white flag.

  Not that I was doing a good job resisting her, but I’ve zero intention of that now. “Can I kiss you?”