“Oh, for the love of God.” She tried a deep, calming breath, but it didn’t work. “You know what, Gage, I don’t even know where to start with you. But I’m thinking of wrapping my fingers around your neck and squeezing. Fair warning.”

“Warning taken.”

“And I’m not sleeping with your precious pitcher.”

“Okay. If you could keep it that way . . . ?”

“Oh my God.” She stared at him, slowly shaking her head. “You know what? All of you are—”

“Crazy. I know.” He gently took a hold of her arm when she turned away. “Listen, I’m sorry. But honestly, given the sparks coming off of you two, I’m afraid if you . . . investigate that, then—”

“What? You’ll lose? In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what you’ve been doing anyway.”

“It’s not for me. It’s everyone else. They’re unbelievably superstitious, and now we’re facing Pace’s injury and possible surgery—”

“Surgery?”

“—and all that bad press, it’s just blown out of proportion.”

“Surgery?” she repeated so that Gage finally shut up and just looked at her.

“He didn’t tell you. Fuck.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, listen, this is between you and him. Just . . . just don’t go try to talk to him tonight—”

“Oh, I’m going.” She pointed a finger at him. “But I can promise you this: there will be no sleeping involved.”

“Uh . . .” Gage was clearly trying to evaluate her intention. “If you could not kill him, that would be really great, too.”

“Now there’s a promise I can’t make.” She headed to the elevators and pounded the button for Pace’s floor. Possible surgery. Which meant he’d probably torn that rotator cuff. How ironic that the press had been claiming that very thing for weeks.

Of course he hadn’t mentioned how bad it was earlier, which left her to wonder if that was because he didn’t trust her not to put it out to the public, or because he didn’t want her sympathy.

Or maybe it was far simpler than that. Maybe he just didn’t care enough about her to bring it up.

No. No, she refused to believe that, and got onto the elevator. The man who’d kissed her tonight hadn’t been a man who didn’t care. Which left her to believe something else. He’d picked a fight so she’d go away and leave him to his own misery. Yeah. It was entirely likely that he’d do exactly that rather than talk to her about his fears and pain. “Damn idiot.”

The man with her in the elevator shot her a startled look.

“Not you,” she said quickly. “I—”

He hit the button for the next floor and got off as quickly as possible, without a backward look.

With a sigh, she leaned back against the wall. Yeah, she certainly had a way with men tonight.