Aiden Kyle stalked through the door of the San Francisco Strikers’ locker room and scanned the area for his friend and shortstop, Rafe Wilson. Aiden had been pitching for the Strikers for three years, and he and Rafe were close.
But, Rafe had just screwed the whole damn team and Aiden was ticked.
He slapped the newspaper down on the table in front of Rafe and pointed to the picture of a smiling Rafe with his fiancée, Ashlyn Daniels. It’s not that he begrudged Rafe his happiness. He wanted his friend to be happy. If Rafe was crazy enough to think marriage would give him that happiness, Aiden was on board. Rafe had been stupidly happy and blissfully ignorant of what was happening to him since he met Ashlyn. And, if he was honest, Aiden liked Ashlyn. She was good for Rafe.
That didn’t mean he had to like the fact that his friend had just selfishly triggered the curse right in the middle of their season.
“You couldn’t wait?” he asked Rafe. “You just couldn’t wait until the end of the season to save us all from the curse?”
They all knew what the curse was: if one Striker fell in love during the season and got either married or engaged, two more would fall, for a total of three victims. And, every time that had happened, the team as a whole suffered. Record high injuries one year, missing out on a pennant they should have won another, distractions and errors when they should be at the height of their game.
Hell, a month ago, Rafe had been just as adamant as Aiden that none of them trigger the curse this season. If no one fell in love and got married or engaged, they’d all be safe and the season wouldn’t go to pieces overnight.
Rafe shook his head at Aiden, grinning up at him. “Shoot, you should be thanking me. Now you have a shot at happiness, too.”
Aiden grumbled under his breath as Gage Collier, their catcher as well as another good friend, picked up the paper. In addition to the picture of Rafe and Ashlyn, the columnist—who wrote as much about gossip as he did about the sport itself—spilled the entire story of the curse, along with the fact that Rafe Wilson had just initiated it.
Right there, in bold heading letters, the column screamed: “The Triple Play Curse: Which Striker Will Be Next To Fall?”
“How the hell did Brian James get wind of the curse?” Gage asked before turning to the other end of the locker room. “Hey, Denali! Have you been out drinking with Brian James again?”
Their teammate, Jason Denali, grunted an answer as he shrugged a shoulder.
“You run off at the mouth again? Tell him about the curse?”
Denali grimaced. “Maybe?” The tone of his question made it clear he wasn’t really sure himself. Denali tended to drink a little too hard and talk a lot too much, and Brian James had figured out that little weakness a long time ago.
Aiden rolled his eyes. “Great. I’ll have to spend the season with nothing other than strippers and my freaking hand lotion in the shower if I want to avoid this damn curse. Thanks a lot, Rafe.” Keeping women out of his bed seemed to him to be the best way to ensure he didn’t fall prey to the curse.
Rafe just grinned. Aiden shook his head and tossed his bag into his locker. Not him. He wasn’t going to fall. He wasn’t going to forget what he had going here. He was still young, a pitcher for one of the best teams in the American League, and he sure as heck planned to enjoy the benefits of that position for a good long time to come. Those benefits included women, gorgeous women, throwing themselves at him night after night.
Crap. With the exception of this season. Being with a woman now would be too risky. Nope. Strip clubs and hand lotion was it for the rest of this season.