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“No, wait! Will you make it out to my husband, Paul?
He’s a huge Mets fan.”
    “How about I do two? One for you and one for
Paul?”
    “Would you really ?” she squealed, and squatted down at the booth,
watching him write something on one ticket then on another ticket as Kelly restrained
herself from barfing. Parker tore out both tickets and handed them to her. “Thank you so
much,” she gushed. “This will make my husband’s day.”
    “My pleasure, Lucy,” he said with a
wink and watched her rush away, clutching her autographs. Then he looked at Kelly. “Would
you like an autograph?”
    Kelly snorted. “I just hope she
didn’t have the salads written on the other side of those autographed tickets, because I
am starving.”
    “So am I,” he said, pushing a hand through thick black hair. “You must have
to be at work very early every morning.”
    “Five-thirty, Monday through
Friday.”
    “Wow,” he said, with a lopsided smile. “That’s rough.”
    “Not if you’re
not a party animal,” she said with a lopsided smile, too.
    His smile widened to a full grin.
“Now Kelly O’Shay, you don’t look like the kind of woman who believes everything she reads
in the Daily News .”
    “You’re right. I never believe my horoscope. But everything
else, I believe. I mean, why would the Daily News lie to me about you? And can you
honestly expect me to believe you are a good boy, early to bed, early to
rise?”
    He chuckled low, leaned forward so all she could see was his gray eyes, and
said, “I never claimed to be a good boy. And I won’t deny that I get out every now and
then. A guy can’t live on frozen dinners alone, you know.”
    She just bet he
got out every now and then. Probably in the company of little girl groupies, dressed in
tiny micromini skirts and halter tops. Probably the sort that wore microminis and halter
tops and hung on his every word. Hell, she couldn’t blame the poor dumb things.
Parker was hot.
    “The last time I went out, I went to the Museum of Modern Art,”
he said, completely surprising her. “Have you seen it since they completed the
renovations?”
    “Ah . . . no.” The Museum of Modern Art? A museum ? He really didn’t
seem the type, did he? She couldn’t picture him, a big guy, knocking around a museum.
“That must be your attempt to get me to believe you are cultured and refined and not just
a jock who can’t bat.”
    “I’m not trying to get you to believe anything. I was justremarking that the last time I went out, I went to see the Museum of Modern
Art. I happen to be a big fan of architecture and modern paintings.”
    Well, knock her
over with a feather. “Right,” she said, and smiled, waiting for the punch
line.
    “Come on, Kelly,” he said genially. “Don’t tell me you’re suffering from the
totally inappropriate, completely ignorant, and disgustingly uninformed conception that
just because I am a professional athlete, I have no appreciation for the fine arts. I hope
you aren’t that narrow-minded.”
    In a word? Yes . She didn’t
buy for a minute that Parker appreciated the fine arts. She had him pegged as the sort of
guy who came off the field, sat back, popped a couple beers, and watched SpongeBob
SquarePants reruns. “I’m just having a hard time picturing you walking around an art
gallery.”
    “Huh,” he said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Just how do you picture
me?”
    The image of him naked suddenly danced merrily across her mind’s eye, and
totally taken aback by it, Kelly blinked.
    “What?” he demanded.
    “Nothing,” she
said, feeling a bit of heat beneath her collar. “I don’t picture you at all .”
    “Well, I wish you would try picturing me playing baseball and see if you
can’t turn that shock jock bit down a notch.”
    There was that image again, only
this time it was a naked Parker in the batter’s box, and Kelly could not keep the smile or
the heat from her face. “I don’t picture you,” she insisted