Page 11 of Under Pressure

“Challenge accepted,” I tell him before giving him the chance to leave.

He takes it eagerly and makes his way back to the dugout. I fall into line behind my teammates and slap a few hands as I work to release some of the adrenaline I’m feeling. It will take me a while to shake it completely, and I’ll most likely wind up ina freezing shower with my hand around my dick for a while once I’ve made it back home.

A year ago, I’d have been working through this seemingly endless well of energy differently. In a way that would include a woman and a long, long night of fucking.

Things are very unusual for me now, and I still don’t know how to feel about that. It’s a problem for another day.

Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, preferably.

5

“Dowe really have to watch this?”

Eli crushes a handful of chips between his teeth before speaking, the words hard to understand. “Yes. This is when it gets really good.”

“You’re disgusting,” Callie scolds him. She blows the crumbs off her shoulder that flew out of his mouth. “Have some water or something.”

I focus on the words Eli just spoke, tapping my fingers where they lie interlocked on my stomach. “How do you know that this is the good part if you haven’t watched it yet?”

“What?” He doesn’t look away from the TV.

Glowering at him, I shove at his shoulder. “Did you watch the game last night?”

“A bit of it, maybe.”

Callie groans under her breath and leans away from him to rest her cheek on the arm of the couch. She’s feeling the effects of her night out behind her eyes right about now. It’s rare that she goes out drinking, but apparently, her friends wore her out and convinced her.

It’s a miracle she’s even awake this early, let alone with aworking brain. Despite my warnings all throughout her teen years, tequila is her drink of choice.

“I could have been sleeping right now,” she whines.

Eli shrugs. “Did either of you watch it?”

“You know we didn’t.” I sink deeper into the worn leather couch.

“Exactly. And that is just pathetic. Where’s your hometown pride?”

Callie tucks her knees beneath her and shuts her eyes. “Don’t start, Eli.”

“Does your head hurt that bad?” he asks, turning from the game for the first time since he forced us to turn it on.

We always open later on Wednesday mornings, but that never stops either of them from coming in at the same time they normally would on any other day. I think it’s their way of making sure I’m not working when I don’t need to be, like I need a pair of busybody chaperones.

Usually, I can get away with making the two of them breakfast upstairs or bossing them around the café as punishment for putting their noses where they don’t need to be. This morning, the only thing Eli wanted to do was watch the replay of the Vancouver Havoc game last night.

I’d have preferred just about anything else.

And now that I know he’s already watched it? I’m debating drowning him with coffee beans.

My irritation dies a bit when I watch him make his way over to the cupboard above the small counter with our mini-fridge. He pulls our basket of meds out from the bottom shelf and starts rooting through the various bottles. Callie shifts on the couch, and we both watch him pop the cap on the painkillers and drop two into his hand.

The bottle of water he takes for her from the mini-fridge is so chilled it’s nearly frozen. He crouches in front of her and hands everything over, concern flooding his gaze. My sister doesn’t balk at it and, instead, smiles for the first time today.

Intrigue sparks in my chest before I set it aside and reluctantly focus on the game. Callie has made it obvious over the last couple of years that she has no interest in dating anyone until after she’s finished with school. If Eli doesn’t want to heed her warning, then good luck to him.

I’m not going to meddle, I promise myself.

“And here comes Beckett Rourke out of the bullpen. It’s no surprise to anyone watching here today that he’s the guy Roman Shore’s trusting to secure the win tonight. With Kamron O’Neill having a three-up, three-down inning in the top of the eighth, you’d have hoped the offense would have been able to deliver a couple of runs, but we’ll see if that’s going to cost them.”