“Hope you were gentle on him tonight,” he said, raising his drink to his lips.

“On who?”

“You sleeping with more than one of us then?”

“I’m not sleeping with Pace.”

But she’d wanted to be. Damn stubborn man. So she had a mind of her own and liked to use it. So she’d seen something between him and Red and had dared question him. So she’d . . .

Assumed the worst.

Okay, she’d been wrong there, very wrong, but she’d seen and heard it all in her life, and often from those she’d thought she’d trusted.

But Pace had overreacted. Seriously overreacted. It’d startled her and had also made her wonder . . . why? Why overreact if nothing was going on?

A little smiled curved Ty’s lips. “If you’re not with Pace, maybe there’s another ballplayer on the Heat who can float your boat.”

She cocked her head and studied him with a little smile of her own. “Does that line ever work for you?”

He laughed ruefully. “You’d be surprised.”

She just shook her head.

“Maybe you’d go out with me if I asked.”

“Are you asking, Ty?”

“Would you say yes?”

She laughed. “I think I just discovered why you’re sitting at the bar and the other guys are with women.”

He tossed his head back and laughed. “Maybe I’m gay. You ever think of that?”

He was built and warm and funny, and looking at her as if he’d like to butter her up and nibble on her all night. He wasn’t gay, but she played along. “Are you?”

He touched her jaw, gently stroking a strand of hair behind her ear, his eyes going sleepy and sexy. “No. But I have a feeling if Pace walked into this bar right this minute, he’d want me to be. He’d probably make me a eunuch.”

“I make up my own mind about who I see.”

“And it’s not going to be me,” he said, good-naturedly resigned. “Or you’d have let me know by now.” He leaned back and settled in. “Okay, so what is it you need to know?”

“What makes you think I need to know something?”

“Well, to my eternal disappointment, you’re not here for my fine body.”

She laughed again. “Okay, so I wanted to talk about Jim and Slam.”

“We’ve done that.”

“Yes, but I’ve been thinking.”

“Uh-oh.” He reached for his beer.

“From everything I’ve read and been told,” she said carefully, “Jim never admitted guilt and Slam claimed innocence, in spite of both of their toxicology reports coming back positive.”

“True. Jim has never talked about it, and Slam is still claiming he never knowingly took any steroids or enhancers.”

“So what does that mean, that someone fed them to him without his knowledge?”

Ty lifted his shoulder. “He’s not the first to claim such a thing.”