“We should probably stay through the awards,” Gavin said. Translation: I’m nervous too.

“So leave after that?” Translation: So, I have two hours to get over my nerves?

Gavin killed the engine and looked at her in the dark. “Deal,” he said. Translation: I have two hours to get over my nerves.

Gavin gripped her hand as they exited the elevator on the top floor of the administrative wing of the ballpark, where every year the facility and banquet staffs transformed the soaring, spacious lobby into a Christmas ballroom. Gavin led her through a maze of tall cocktail tables to where Del and Nessa waited for them. Most of the players they passed waved or fist-bumped Gavin as they walked by, but their wives and girlfriends couldn’t have been more obvious in their dismissal of Thea. Their eyes shifted away from hers, their smiles brittle. Which wasn’t all that unusual, but tonight it seemed more pronounced.

She found out why as soon as she and Nessa sat down while the men went to grab drinks.

“Rachel and Jake had a massive fight,” Nessa said, looking like a runway model in her floor-length, beaded gold gown. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but he apparently told her tonight he wants to stay in a hotel for a while.”

Thea felt a surprising flash of empathy for Rachel. “Are they here tonight?”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty clear something is going on.”

“She blames me, doesn’t she?” Thea said, finally catching up. “My bad mojo at Thanksgiving?”

Nessa winced. “I did hear something like that.”

Great.

When the men returned with drinks, Nessa and Thea dropped the conversation. Del held his beer up in Gavin’s direction. “To beautiful wives.”

“I will definitely drink to that.” Gavin leaned forward and clinked his bottle against Del’s before taking a drink.

Then he bent close to Thea’s ear. “To the most beautiful wife in the room,” he whispered, lightly tapping his bottle against her glass. He kissed her before letting her drink.

“I’m feeling a little ignored over here,” Del joked. “What about you, Ness?”

Thea looked up. Nessa’s smile was sentimental, Del’s naughty. Gavin swiped his lips across her temple. This was going to be a long night.

Other tables began to fill up with couples over the next half hour, but theirs remained conspicuously empty. Even Yan and his wife, Soledad, chose to sit on the other side of the room, which stung. How could people be so superstitious? Did they really think she had anything to do with Jake and Rachel possibly breaking up? Thea drank her champagne quickly and let Gavin get her another.

A few minutes before dinner, two of the coaches and their wives finally took mercy on them and asked if the seats were taken. Apparently, the superstition didn’t extend to the coaching staff.

By the time dinner was over and the awards ceremony started, Thea had consumed three glasses of champagne and realized with a quiet giggle that at least she was no longer stressing about having an orgasm later.

The awards were for a combination of serious accomplishments and silly traditions. Most Epic Playoff Beard. Worst Bull Pen Dance. Del jokingly refused to accept the award for Worst Dugout Tantrum for a botched attempt to steal second early in the season. But each award took them closer to the inevitable moment when Gavin’s grand slam would be recognized, and with every minute, she tensed in anticipation.

If they didn’t make a big deal out of it, she’d be fine. But there was no way they’d rush through that one. It was the biggest play of the year. They’d probably show a video of the entire thing, which would be the first time she’d watched it since the night it happened. She hadn’t allowed herself to watch any replays because the memories were too raw. The night of his greatest career accomplishment had been the night of her greatest humiliation and hurt. The fact that both could exist in the same space and time was a cruel twist of fate, and she would have to relive it in front of all these people.

If Gavin shared her anxiety, he didn’t let on. He kept a hand on her or an arm around her at all times, glancing at her every few minutes with that dizzying smile or a wink.

“This next one is a no-brainer,” the marketing guy finally said. “Best Long Ball goes to . . .”

The room erupted in an almost choreographed chant of grand slam, grand slam, grand slam. A now-iconic photo of Gavin leaping into his teammates’ arms at home plate appeared on the giant screen. The room erupted in applause. The video switched to slow motion as he rounded third base toward home. Midway down the stretch, he whipped his batting helmet in the air, an exuberant action that spawned a thousand Has Gavin Scott’s helmet landed yet? tweets the next day. His waiting teammates hauled him into a throbbing, leaping, screaming huddle. They jostled him. Hugged him. Knocked him to the ground and hauled him back up. Ripped the jersey clear from his body, revealing a black performance undershirt that clung to every ripple of muscle in his stomach, chest, and shoulders. That photo sparked a thousand I want to have Gavin Scott’s baby tweets.

Gavin strode to the stage to accept the unofficial award amid back-pounding hugs and bursts of laughter. When he returned to the table, he bent and kissed her loudly but didn’t sit. The marketing guy said it was time for the last one, a new award that the guys themselves decided was long overdue.

“Legends, please stand.”

Every player and coach stood. Thea glanced at Nessa, who shrugged as if she were as confused as Thea.

“We all know that the real heroes of this team are the partners at home who somehow put up with us,” the guy said into the mic.

Thea’s heart stopped. What was this?

“You stand by us through the wins and losses. Through the stress of contract talks and trade deadlines. You make this crazy dream of ours possible, and we don’t do enough to let you know how much we appreciate it.”

Thea swallowed hard. Her heart thudded against her rib cage.

“Legends,” the man said. “Show your appreciation.”

Catcalls and wolf whistles followed. All around them, players and coaches pulled their wives and girlfriends to their feet and into their arms for surprise, passionate kisses. A flash of uncertainty crossed Gavin’s face as he held out his hand. Thea folded her fingers in his and stood on unsteady heels.

“This is why I wanted you to come tonight,” he said quietly, sliding his arm around her waist to draw her close.

Thea tilted her face up to his, and what followed was the kind of movie-quality, time-stood-still moment when the rest of the room faded away and there was nothing but Gavin’s eyes and smile and hands. God, his hands. Big and calloused from years of hard work. His fingers on her back trailed a lazy path up and down her exposed skin. A shiver raced through her, the hot kind.

His fingers wrapped loosely around the back of her neck as he bent his head. His lips hovered above hers as if he wanted to give her a chance to back away because his body language told her this wasn’t going to be like all the other kisses he’d dropped on her tonight. Those had been the warm-up. The batting practice to the big show. This kiss was going to be the real deal.

He teased her with a nip at her bottom lip that sent tremors through her entire body.

“Gavin,” she whispered, pleaded, letting the champagne make all the decisions.

With a smile, her husband slanted his mouth fully over hers. Finally. Completely.

A floaty feeling took over, dizzy and light, but it wasn’t the champagne. It was him. The scent of him, the taste of him, the strength of his lips. It was the way he pulled back only so he could plunge deeper, again and again and again. It was the heady excitement of kissing in a room full of people who had ceased to exist within their private cocoon. It was the tender yet possessive way he cradled her head with his fingers. Thea cupped his softly bearded cheeks and pulled her lips away. Their rapid, ragged breaths mingled and blended into a single pant and then a shared puff of surprised laughter. Sounds came back slowly to her. The clink of glasses. The murmur of couples whose embraces had already ended. The click of high heels on the tiled floor. The romantic strains of a slow song by the band.

Gavin nudged her face up to look in her eyes. “I d-don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of here.”

Game time. Thea nodded. “Let me run to the bathroom first.”

Thea grabbed her clutch purse from the floor and gave him a grateful smile when he gripped her elbow to help her stand again.

“Be right back,” she said.

The bathroom was down a long hallway and around the corner. As she left the ballroom, the sound of the band faded until all she could hear was the rapid beat of her own heart.

Which didn’t, however, drown out the voices around the corner.

She stopped and held in a groan. Rachel and her coven were apparently sitting in the waiting area between the offices and the bathrooms. Which left Thea with two options: go down one floor to use another bathroom, or walk past them with a wave and otherwise ignore them. Dammit! She didn’t want to take the time to go all the way to another floor. And what the hell? Why should she have to? Just because Rachel had managed to turn most of the other women against her didn’t mean she had any less right to be there. She and Gavin were still married.

With a deep breath for courage, Thea took a step around the corner.

But Rachel’s next words brought her once again to a halt.

“I can’t believe they had the balls to show up tonight,” Rachel said, her words slurred just enough to reflect the steady flow of alcohol she’d consumed.

“It’s so selfish,” said Mia Lewis, fiancée of outfielder Kevin Krieg. “I’m sorry, but they are officially bad luck.”

Thea’s stomach twisted into a painful cramp. There could be no doubt that they were talking about her and Gavin.

Rachel snorted. “Did you see them kissing?”

“I thought it was sweet,” said another voice. Maybe Mary Phillips? The wife of Brad Phillips, the backup catcher, had always been nice to her. What was she doing with them?