“It’s . . .” Trey sighed, then looked around. They were on an island to themselves in the corner where their table sat. “It’s weird, and not. We don’t spend time over at their house. She’s got sisters, and they’re young enough it would be wrong to be hanging out too much over there. Plus, Cassie lives in the pool house out back, so it’s not like she shares a wall with Coach or anything.”

“Small favors,” Josiah said under his breath with a grin. Trey elbowed him hard.

“So she’s mostly over at my place. We’re just keeping it quiet as much as we can. No nights out, no public outings or events together. We want to get through this season and then we’ll evaluate how to handle it from here. But as far as how Coach treats me on the sidelines . . .” Trey smiled and tugged at his earlobe. “Trust me, when he wants to ride me, he knows how to do it. I think my eardrum is still ringing from practice today.”

“Because you were throwing like you had rocks in your wrists,” Josiah added helpfully, dodging another elbow. “Man, watch out. That’s my cradling arm.”

Killian watched the by-play quietly. But he had to know. “Doesn’t the media attention suck?”

“Yes,” was Trey’s immediate reply. “But what the hell else am I going to do about it? I love her.”

“Aww,” Michael sang.

Trey ignored that. “So I put up with it, because it’s just part of the package. I won’t always be doing this. In another ten years, I’ll be ‘that one guy who used to play for the Bobcats.’ I can put up with it, for her.”

Wiping away an imaginary tear, Michael sniffed delicately. “That was beautiful, man.”

“Watch it, or a stray ball will just magically find its way toward your head tomorrow.” Trey looked at Killian. “You’ve been dealing with your fair share of media lately. What’s going on there?”

Three pair of eyes were immediately focused on him like laser beams. Wow. “Fre—Aileen?” he quickly corrected. “She’s just trying to dig up dirt for some piece on me. She’s coming up with bupkus. With season ending so soon, she knows time’s running out.” He glanced at them. “Why, has she asked about me?”

“Yes,” all three answered in unison. Killian groaned.

“Say nothing.”

Silence was his answer.

“Come on, help me out here. I want this to end. I’m not made for attention. Otherwise I would have played a more noticeable position.”

“Like me?” Trey asked, a wry smile twisting his lips. “Hardly. I don’t know if anyone is ‘made’ for having their private life become a public spectacle. It’s just something we end up putting up with because of the job we chose. I hate it, to be honest. If I could play ball in a ski mask and use a pseudonym, I would. But this is the way it is.”

Hearing the most recognizable guy on the team admit he hated the attention eased Killian’s guilt about giving Aileen the runaround. At least, Aileen the reporter. Aileen the woman . . . he still didn’t know what to do with.

Josiah settled back against his side of the booth, wedging his shoulder into the corner against the wall for a little extra room. Restaurant booths were really not designed for four men their size, even with Killian’s more average stature. “She’s cute, I think. The little reporter. She’s got that ‘eternally young pixie’ thing going for her. Like, you could fast forward twenty years and she’d still look the same.”

Michael nodded and took a gulp of water. “I could see that. She’s cute.”

Killian’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

“I don’t really do the groupie thing,” Josiah went on. “But she’s not technically a groupie. She’s a smart one, too. When she was interviewing me about my bike and riding around, she knew all sorts of eco-stats for Santa Fe and the region. Maybe she just did her homework, but it was damn impressive anyway.”

Killian nearly had to clench the booth seat to keep from reaching out and punching at Josiah.

The server arrived with their food instead, which served as a distraction for his frustration. Frustration with himself, mostly, at not having a clue what the hell was wrong with him. He had no claims on Freckles. They weren’t dating, they weren’t . . . anything, technically. It would be bad for her if her boss found out she was with the subject of her current work. And keeping her around long enough to find out about Charlie would be the exact disaster he’d spent the last six years trying to avoid. Would he be anything less than an idiot for practically inviting that sort of trouble through his door?

“She’s nice, too. I heard she found out where Stephen was and sent him flowers a few days ago.”

Killian’s head snapped up from his chicken to look at Michael. “How’d she find out?”

“Dunno.” His seatmate took a huge bite of his fish and chewed for what Killian thought was an insanely long time. “Maybe it’s slowly leaking, but I didn’t see anything online about it. So she never reported it, or told anyone at work. It was a nice touch, I thought. Classy, keeping that quiet. The guy clearly needs help, and he’s getting it, and if she found out, she’s not making it more difficult for him to get the help.”

Killian couldn’t help but agree. His heart was doing that annoying racing-thumping-skipping thing again, and he rubbed at it with the heel of his hand.

“What we need is another good, solid clusterfuck,” Trey said, stabbing at his salad. “You know, one of those that rocks the media for a while and really throws them in a different direction?”

“Like the prostitute ring a few years ago,” Josiah said, picking up his wrap. “But let those NBA jokers have the scandal this time.”

At the mention of the prostitution ring, Killian’s gut turned to ice. He set down his fork and took a sip of water, hoping the glass didn’t shake noticeably in his hand. When they continued on, making disparaging remarks about other sports—in a good-natured way—he let go of a shaky breath and tried another bite of his chicken.

It went down like glass shards.

“Whatever happened with that whole thing?” Michael asked.

Killian kept his eyes on his plate, fighting in his mind for a way to change the subject that sounded better than “How about that local sports team?” Since, you know, they were the local sports team.

“That was years ago,” Trey said, shrugging. “God, I was probably only a few years into the league when they busted that up.”

“We all were,” Michael said. “Too young to be caught up in that shit.”

Killian managed to swallow a dry laugh.

“I think they cut a deal with the ring’s madam,” Josiah said, scratching at his jaw in thought. “Most of the women just disappeared. Vaporized. We’d see some of them, remember? We knew their call names, or whatever they used when they were working. I haven’t seen any of them around recently, so my guess is they beat a hasty retreat.”

“Probably found a new type of clientele to utilize,” was Trey’s guess. “Stock brokers or surgeons or something. My guess is it’s same trick, different city.”

Different city was right, Killian though. New trick.

Real estate, this time. And single motherhood.

“Hey, you okay little man?” Michael thumped him on the back once. Killian coughed in response. “You’re looking pale.”

“I’m good,” he managed to choke out. “But I think you just made me swallow my fork.”

Michael laughed at that, and they moved on to a new topic, one he wasn’t capable of following. All he could think of was Charlie, and exactly why he needed to get a better grip on his . . . whatever with the freckled journalist.

Chapter Eighteen