Squeeze Play

by Aven Ellis

  “Let me get a glass of wine first and I’ll explain. Are you making spaghetti?” I ask hopefully. Katie makes a killer spaghetti, from a recipe that has been handed down in her family for generations. It will make me feel better.

  While it won’t erase thoughts of Hot Guy, it will taste delicious.

  “Yes. With garlic bread. We are celebrating your first day with carb overload. And we’re also celebrating the first baseball game of the season.”

  “Already?” I ask, reaching for a bottle of cabernet sauvignon that is breathing on the counter.

  Katie snorts. “It’s opening night for the Soaring Eagles. Baseball is back in DC! How do you not know this?”

  I grin. “Because baseball is painfully boring and I’d sooner clean the lint trap on the dryer than have to watch it.”

  “You are seriously weird,” Katie says. “Two words: baseball butt.”

  “Two words: don’t care,” I reply. “But because I love you, and it’s opening night, I will happily sit on the couch next to you while you watch for baseball butt. I’ll sip wine and read this riveting paperwork on my healthcare options and retirement plan.”

  Katie laughs. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Boredom,” I tease.

  I move around her and open the cabinet, retrieving my favorite wineglass and pouring some cab into it.

  “Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes,” Katie says. “I’ve just got to pop the garlic bread in and let the cheese melt. Would you mind turning up the volume on the TV? I love pregame on opening night. It gets me excited for the season.”

  It’s all I can do not to laugh, as this is the way I feel about the Is it Love? reality dating show. Whenever the season starts, I must see the first hour, which is a preview of all the contestants for the season. By the time the show starts, I’m looking for my favorites and judging how they interact with the lead. Last year, I fell in love with Skye Reeve during the intro hour. Tom didn’t pick her in the finale, and I swear my heart broke right along with hers. At least she rebounded well, writing a popular blog I follow, but Tom made a huge mistake by not picking her. He’s already fighting with the girl he did pick, if the tabloids are any indication of the truth.

  But enough about that. Sadly, my night is going to be filled with baseball butt instead of exotic dates around the globe.

  I reach for the remote on the coffee table. I’m about to turn the volume up when I see player intros being flashed upon the screen, including pics and stats.

  “So far, they are not cute, Katie,” I call out.

  “The players are too young for you,” Katie teases as she opens the oven. “You need to check out the manager. That’s the baseball head coach. They are usually old.”

  “Shut up,” I say, turning back to the TV.

  Another guy pops up, meh, then another. I’m about to head back to the kitchen when another picture appears on the screen, and this time, I gasp aloud when I see the smiling image.

  “Brody Jensen is the new starting catcher for the Soaring Eagles behind the plate this year, acquired in a trade with Miami. Eagles manager Pete Shera is excited about not only his quick release but his power as a switch hitter, too.”

  I hit freeze on the remote, studying the face on TV.

  The unruly, wavy, dirty-blond hair.

  The light blue eyes.

  The golden scruff shading his jawline . . .

  Oh, my God.

  Hot Guy is professional baseball player Brody Jensen.

  Chapter Three

  I drop the remote in disbelief, sending it crashing onto our coffee table. Pissy hisses from her cat bed, as the loud noise has irritated her, and I let out a gasp of utter shock.

  No.

  He can’t be.

  Not the same guy.

  No.

  No way.

  “Hayley?” Katie asks, stepping into the living room. “Are you okay?”

  “I-I-I he can’t be Brody!” I sputter, gesturing wildly at our TV.

  Katie glances at the TV, where Brody’s smiling face is frozen in place.

  “What do you mean, he can’t be Brody? That’s Brody Jensen,” Katie says, crinkling her nose in confusion. “And why do you care if he is? Why are you turning so red? What is wrong with you?”

  Red? I know my pale skin is probably about to turn purple with the anxiety and humiliation I’m feeling.

  “I threw coffee on his crotch today,” I wail. “And I talked all kinds of nonsense with him, nonsense that included sex toys and a trapeze and how I’m a take charge girl and if I wanted hot meaningless sex with him I’d get his number and call him oh, my God he is a Washington Soaring Eagle,” I collapse on the couch, my heart hammering in my ears.

  I had sexual banter with a famous professional athlete.

  Who no doubt laughed his ass off at my ramblings and the fact that I had no clue who he was the second he walked away.

  Katie’s mouth falls open. “What?”

  “I met him!” I say, cringing as I stare at the TV, where Brody is still smiling at me. “I told him sports were boring! Oh crap! But I didn’t know it was him. Oh God, I so didn’t know it was him. I would never have had that stupid conversation if I had known he was a ballplayer.”

  “You . . . you met Brody Jensen?”

  “I accidentally tossed an entire iced coffee on his crotch.”

  “On Brody Jensen? That Brody Jensen?” Katie asks, pointing at the TV.

  “Yes. I told him I’d rather have a manicure in hot sauce than watch sports, and then I gave him my email and told him to send me the bill. Oh crap, I want to die.”

  “Hayley. You know I’m used to your ramblings,” Katie says, sinking down next to me, “but I can’t believe this. You met Brody Jensen. Not just met him, but apparently had a conversation with him. The catcher for the Soaring Eagles. And you had no idea.”

  “None.”

  We both watch the frozen TV in silence.

  “Wait,” Katie says slowly, as if a thought has just hit her, “you were engaging in sexy conversation with a man under fifty? What?”

  “Okay, future lawyer, you are misstating the facts. I do not want a fifty-year-old man, thank you, but thirty-five. Anyway. I don’t know what happened in that coffeehouse but yes, yes I did, and he is smoking hot and funny and so laid back, and I suddenly didn’t care that he was in the bro age because he was interesting.”

  I pause to take a breath and notice it smells like something is burning.

  “Katie, what’s in the oven?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.

  “Shit! Garlic bread!” Katie cries.

  She leaps off the couch and runs into the kitchen. I follow her, and as soon as she opens the oven door, the aroma of burnt garlic bread fills the air, as does smoke.

  “Quick, wave it off before it sets off the fire alarm,” Katie cries, tossing me a dish towel.

  Katie dumps the garlic bread into the sink, and I begin waving my towel at the smoke in front of the kitchen alarm. I have a feeling the detector is about to go off and beep! Beep! Beep! It’s blaring now.

  “Dammit,” Katie says, running to the front door.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  Katie flings it open, trying to get more air circulation, and I know within seconds the security desk will be calling to see if we have set our apartment on fire.

  I’m still waving the towel, trying to force the smoke away from the alarm. Pissy runs from her cat bed and shoots down the hallway, and I know I won’t see her again until tomorrow.

  Katie’s phone begins ringing, and then mine.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Katie says, picking up her phone and heading into the building hallway.

  “Girls, are you okay?” Barbara, our elderly neighbor yells, peeking her head into our doorway. Her husband, Dominik, is standing next to her.

  I drop the towel in defeat.

  “Burnt garlic bread,” I yell out. “I’m sorry about the noise!”

  Mercifully, the
blaring stops.

  “Let me bring you some fresh bread,” Barbara says. “I made some this morning.”

  My ears perk up. Barbara makes magnificent Polish bread using recipes passed down in her family for decades.

  “What are you eating?” Barbara asks.

  “Spaghetti,” I say, as Katie steps back into the apartment.

  “You need sourdough. I’ll be right back,” Barbara says, shuffling back to her apartment next door.

  Dominik steps inside and grins at us. “She bakes enough bread for the entire metro area. We have bread coming out of our ears over there. Take whatever she gives you, and thank you in advance because I can’t eat any more. I tell her a million times I can’t eat any more bread, and she just won’t listen.”

  My heart warms at the sight of him. He’s in his eighties, as is Barbara. They take a walk every night before dinner, and they always hold hands. Barbara says it’s because her balance is horrible, but Dominik says it’s because she can’t keep her hands off him, even though he’s an old goat and they’ve been married more than sixty years.

  That’s what I want. A marriage that spans decades. A man whose hand I still want to hold more than twenty years after the day I first held it. A partner who teases me. Who will stand by me through good and bad.

  Serious relationship goals right there.

  “Is something wrong with your TV?” he asks, staring at Brody’s frozen face.

  “No,” I say, quickly grabbing the remote and resuming play.

  “I’m ready for baseball,” Dominik says, removing his wool newsboy cap and rubbing his bald head. “Nothing is as wonderful as watching a baseball game.”

  “Would you believe Hayley met Brody Jensen today?” Katie offers.

  I shoot her a look. If she brings up the fact that I talked about meaningless sex with Brody to Dominik, I will kill her.

  “What?” Dominik asks, a huge smile passing over his face. “A real ballplayer?”

  “Yes,” I say, trying to fight off the glow that I feel rising in my cheeks. “At a coffeehouse.”

  “Was he an ass? I bet he was an ass.”

  I burst out laughing. “No, he was very nice.”

  I pause for a moment, remembering how easygoing he was about me ruining his jeans. How he engaged me in conversation. The way his pale-blue eyes shined in amusement at me . . .

  “Ah. He wanted a piece of your ass, I betcha,” Dominik says sagely.

  “I leave you alone for five minutes and you start talking about Hayley’s ass?” Barbara says as she comes back into the kitchen with a loaf of bread and a Tupperware container. “You can’t be out of my eyesight for a second, Dominik Brzezicki.”

  “A famous baseball player wants her ass,” Dominik clarifies.

  Eek, now I’m dying. My face has gone from glow to inferno, I can feel it.

  “What?” Barbara says, stopping at the kitchen counter. “Who?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Brody Jensen,” Katie says at the same time.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Barbara says. “I only watch baseball to humor Dominik. It’s boring. I bake when baseball is on.”

  “Tomorrow, you girls will be getting babka,” Dominik says.

  Ooh. I love babka. I hope it’s the chocolate and cinnamon swirl one she made when Katie and I first moved in as a welcome gift. That was spectacular.

  If Barbara does indeed bake whenever the Soaring Eagles are on, I’d better find the apartment building gym ASAP.

  “I’m ignoring you,” Barbara says to Dominik, interrupting my thoughts.

  “What’s new?” Dominik teases.

  “Stop,” Barbara says. “Now girls, I have sourdough here, and I brought you some potato and cheese pierogis, too.”

  “Oh, thank you, you are so sweet,” Katie says. “Would you like some spaghetti to take home? We have plenty.”

  “Yes, please take some,” I encourage.

  “No, thank you. Tomatoes give me heartburn,” she says. “Now come on, Dominik. Let’s go home.”

  Dominik turns to me. “Give baseball a chance, Hayley. There’s a reason why it’s America’s pastime.”

  He heads out the door while Barbara lingers behind. As soon as he’s out of earshot, she turns to me.

  “Yes, there’s a reason why it’s America’s pastime, and it’s called baseball butt. He thinks I’m baking, but I know when to pay attention,” Barbara says. Then she winks at me and walks out the door, shutting it behind her.

  Katie and I take one look at each other and burst out laughing.

  “She’s right, you know,” Katie declares, heading back into the kitchen. “And I bet Brody’s baseball butt is superior. If you think I’ve forgotten to ask you for all the details of what happened between you and the catcher, you’re wrong. You are going to tell me everything over spaghetti.”

  I glance back at the TV, where two announcers are talking endlessly about the upcoming game between the Soaring Eagles and the Philadelphia Owls.

  While Katie fixes up our plates, my mind drifts back to Brody, wondering why he engaged me in that whole conversation when he didn’t have to and how he took my email address and slipped it into his pock—

  Brody Jensen has my email address.

  Yet the fact that I know who he is now doesn’t make me more excited. I liked the Brody I met.

  Before I knew he was Brody.

  Not that it makes a difference.

  He’s either thrown it away by now or it’s in the laundry basket to be washed.

  While I know odds are less than one percent that he will email me, for some crazy reason, I hope he does.

  And with that thought in mind, I think it’s time for me to see exactly who baseball player Brody Jensen is—on the field.

  Chapter Four

  “And now, introducing today’s Washington Soaring Eagles starting lineup,” the public address announcer says, as dramatic intro music blares in the background from Eagles Field.

  I take an anxious sip of wine as I wait, staring impatiently at the TV.

  Since I’ve been waiting forever for this game to start, this is my second glass of vino.

  “How much longer until I see Brody?” I ask, watching as Katie twirls a long strand of spaghetti around her fork.

  While I was blessed with stream of consciousness thinking that translates to things flying out of my mouth that shouldn’t, Katie was blessed with the ability to eat massive amounts of anything and not gain weight. While I have to measure out my pasta, eat more salad, and have one tiny slice of bread, Katie is on her second plate of spaghetti. And fourth piece of bread.

  Katie is one hundred percent winning at life right now.

  “They are going in the order of the hitting lineup, so he’ll be seventh,” Katie says expertly.

  I draw a breath of air while I wait for players to come out of the dugout. The people already on the field are the team personnel, coaching staff, and reserve players, according to Katie.

  “Your skipper, Pete Shera!”

  I watch as a man in his fifties trots out onto the field, jogging on a red carpet and high-fiving the Soaring Eagles standing along the first-base line.

  Katie hits pause on the remote. “Are you regretting not throwing coffee on his crotch instead? He’s more your dream man age.”

  I shoot her a mock glare. “No. And no, he’s not. Now un-pause it!”

  “Ooh, I think Brody Jensen has definitely got your attention,” Katie says, clicking the remote.

  I bring my glass up to take another sip of wine before thinking better of it. I’m a lightweight, and I do have to work tomorrow.

  “Batting first, your centerfielder, number fifteen, A.J. Williamson,” the announcer roars.

  Katie hits pause. “Okay, I know you’re all into Brody—”

  “I am not,” I insist, cutting her off.

  “Um, my career woman, who lands her dream job and has talked nothing about said dream job on her first day and is, instead, sitti
ng here wanting to watch baseball? You’re interested. I would be! He’s freaking Brody Jensen!”

  But I didn’t know he was Brody Jensen.

  I found Hot Guy interesting and clever.

  “I don’t care that he plays baseball,” I say. “Now why are you delaying me seeing him?”

  Katie sighs dreamily. “Look at A.J. He’s hot.”

  I study the still image on the TV. A.J. falls into the tall, dark, and handsome mold that Katie is always drawn to. His hair is longish and jet-black. He has a light beard shading his jawline but no visible tattoos on his arm, not like the cool sleeve that Brody had . . .

  “Yeah, he’s okay, I guess,” I say, shrugging.

  “Okay? He’s hot as hell,” Katie enthuses.

  I cock an eyebrow at her. “Good baseball butt?”

  Katie grins. “You are learning well, young grasshopper.”

  I laugh, and Katie clicks the remote. I watch as more players come out, but none are cute. And definitely not hot like Brody.

  After the sixth player has been announced, my heart does a stupid skip thing, knowing Brody is next.

  Then the cameras cut to the bullpen, where I see Brody dressed in his gear, crouched down in position and catching a ball from a pitcher.

  That is Brody, I gasp in disbelief. Not that I can see him well with his mask on, but it’s him.

  The guy who has my email address.

  “Batting seventh, and in his first year with the Soaring Eagles, warming up in the right-field bullpen, please welcome the catcher, number thirty-three, Brody Jensen!”

  “I can’t believe I met him,” I say aloud.

  “Not just met him, but talked to him,” Katie says.

  I still can’t get my head around this. Hot Guy is a professional baseball player.

  An excited, jittery feeling fills me as they go back to the rest of the lineup. Then members of the United States Navy Ceremonial Guard step onto the field, preparing to unfurl a huge American flag across the outfield.

  I have to say, the Opening Night ceremony is majestic. I notice the red, white, and blue bunting around the stadium and the special Opening Week logo on the grass. Players hold their caps over their chests, and the Armed Forces Color Guard and Field Drummers enter the field. I think of how this game is steeped in American history, in tradition, and as the United States Army Brass Quintet begins to play the “Star Spangled Banner,” I do see how people can be so emotionally attached to this game. As Dominik said, it is the national pastime for a reason. Right at the end, navy jets flyover the ballpark, and they show the players looking up at the fighter jets that roar overhead.