He had fire burning through his entire body. He’d skipped the meds, on purpose. Now he wished he hadn’t as he had to grip the doorway through a wave of pain. “I need you to swear to me that the vitamins you’ve given me are just vitamins.”

Tucker scrubbed a hand over his face, squinting sleepily through the bright light. “What?”

“Is it possible I got the wrong packet from you, say a day or two before my surgery?”

“No.”

“Tuck—”

Tucker sat up and leaned back against the headboard. “The vitamins are pills, Pace.” He paused. “Anything else is a powder. You couldn’t have mistaken the two.”

Okay. So he had two pieces of news, one bad, one worse. One, he hadn’t accidentally ingested anything from Tucker. Two, Tucker did have the illegals. Shit. He turned off the light and went back to bed.

The news of Pace’s drug test hit the sports world and blew up. Gage had promised to try to keep it undisclosed until after the appeal and subsequent second testing, but he hadn’t succeeded.

Sam swore she had no idea how it’d gotten out of the Heat’s office, and though she didn’t bring it up, Pace knew everyone was thinking it’d been Holly.

He preferred to think someone in the testing office at the MLB commissioner’s office had gotten his pockets greased instead. Still, it was yet another betrayal, and already hurting and pissed, Pace went back to bed to try to sleep it all off.

He couldn’t.

Because he’d been hard on Holly, unfairly, and he knew it. He tried calling her, but she didn’t answer.

He wouldn’t have either.

The commissioner claimed innocence in putting out the test results. Pace’s agent and attorneys were on it, but it didn’t matter. The damage had been done.

The news was everywhere, and when Wade and the guys brought him a loaded pizza three days later, they ate in silence as they watched all the sport shows tear into him, until finally, Ty turned off the TV. “Assholes.”

Henry reached for his beer and thought better of it. “I’m driving,” he said glumly.

“I’ll drive you,” Wade said. “We’re not taking any more chances with anything. This is our year, goddamit.”

“Our year,” Ty repeated firmly, and they all toasted.

Then Pace slept for two more days, staggering to the door when someone knocked, staring bleary-eyed at the woman who’d woken him. He was hurting pretty good so he didn’t speak. Instead, he just soaked up the sight of Holly as though she were a balm for his abused senses. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore sweats—Heat sweats, with his number on them. He tried not to be moved by that but failed.