Free Double Play by Jen Estes

on the shoulder. “Before he straightened out, my brother was
     quite the troublemaker, too.”
    The very sight of
     James’ smarmy smile made her nauseated. Cat tore her eyes
     away.
    “ Quinn
     can be a handful but believe me, he feels awful about last night,
     too.”
    “ I’m
     sure he does.”
    She nodded and
     turned to Roger. “Well, I don’t want to interrupt your meeting any
     further. I was just heading out and wanted to say sorry
     again.”
    “ Thank
     you, Catriona.”
    “ I’m
     on my way out; I’ll walk with you.” This man’s voice came from the
     couch behind her. Cat recognized his voice as she turned
     around.
    “ Spencer?”
    She took a quick
     inventory of the other faces in the room to make sure there weren’t
     any other surprises in this bunch. Finally she focused back on her
     friend, trying to hide her dismay at his presence in the Billionaire Boys Club.
    Roger gave
     Spencer a jovial pat on his shoulder. “Spencer missed the presser
     this morning so he brought me a bottle of Jameson to bribe me into
     answering a few questions.”
    “ Anything for a scoop. I’m sure Cat can relate. Right?” His
     pleading eyes begged her to play along.
    She nodded and
     finally relinquished a smile for his benefit. “Jameson is
     Journalism 101.”
    Spencer edged his
     way toward the door, backing Cat out of the room as he did so.
     “Thanks again, Roger. Gentleman.”
    “ Nice
     weather we’re having today, isn’t it, Cat?”
    “ It
     is. I hope we have a similar day tomorrow for game one.”
    “ Oh
     that would be—”
    Once they turned
     the corner and she knew they were out of earshot, she smacked his
     arm. “Spencer, what the hell?”
    “ I
     know. Damn, I know, Cat. I saw it on the news when I woke up this
     morning and your cellphone was going straight to voicemail so I
     called your apartment. Your brother filled me in and told me to
     keep quiet about being there earlier. Why’d you cover for
     me?”
    “ It
     was Quinn’s idea.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I
     listened to him.”
    “ Well,
     thank you, I guess. I can’t imagine the hell I’d be going through
     if you hadn’t.”
    “ You
     don’t have to imagine it. I can give you the play by
     play.”
    He frowned and
     stopped her, pulling her over to a bench in the hallway. “I’m so
     sorry.” His brown eyes
     locked on hers , shining even
     more vibrantly through the lenses of his black-framed
     glasses . “Please tell me you don’t hate me.”
    “ Of
     course I don’t.” Cat scooted back a few inches. She didn’t need any
     more guilt today. “But I think we should just ’fess up. I lied to
     the cops and the detective’s still asking a lot of
     questions.”
    “ No!”
     He looked around and lowered his voice to add, “If they find out
     you lied, they’re going to think there’s something to
     hide.”
    “ There’s not, though. You left before anything
     happened.”
    “ You
     know as well as I do nobody’s going to care about that. Won’t it
     just make things worse if they find out two reporters were
     there?”
    “ So
     I’m supposed to take the heat all by myself?”
    “ No,
     of course not.” He exhaled and leaned back against the wall. “The
     thing is, you’ve got Roger on your side but I don’t have anybody
     like that at the News Herald . If my editor finds out I was
     there, she’ll fire me faster than you can say unemployment
     line.”
    Cat took a deep
     breath and weighed his request. The lifeboat only had room for one
     and she was already sinking. Her colleagues began to file into the
     hallway. They always left early on non-game days, and she had to
     follow their lead. She had an errand to run before this nightmare
     of a day was over. She turned back to Spencer.
    “ Okay.
     I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway.”
    Spencer threw his
     arms around her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
    She inched out of
     his clingy grasp. The twosome