Spring Training

by KB Winters

“Cody?”

  I straightened, realizing my slipup a moment too late. “Damn it.”

  Paris laughed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Well, well, well. Look who’s got it bad!”

  “I meant Robby,” I said, my tone low and grouchy. I dunked a piece of bell pepper into the dip, using it like a chip to scoop out a glob of the artichoke dip. I popped the whole thing in my mouth, sulking while Paris continued to giggle.

  “You miss him, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  “Am not!”

  The truth was, I hadn’t been able to get Cody out of my head since the moment we met. I originally thought that if I went to bed with him, it would somehow satisfy my curiosity and allow me to move on—but no—just the opposite occurred. After leaving his hotel, I’d gone straight home and tried to sleep it off but my mind and body kept replaying the carnal delight of being with him. Of feeling like we belonged together instead of just using each other for a night.

  And by the afternoon, things hadn’t improved. I was just as hot and bothered as I was the first time we met. The only problem was that this time I couldn’t tell myself that I was simply suffering from an overactive imagination. I knew the truth—the reality of being in Cody’s bed—was even hotter than the way I’d imagined it in my head.

  “Then why won’t you tell me what happened after you two scampered off into the night together. After the dinner?” Paris leveled her stare at me.

  I cleared my throat, forcing down the bite in my mouth. As much as I didn’t want to listen to Paris continue to rattle on about the wedding plans—or lack thereof—I was even more anxious to avoid talking about Cody and what happened behind closed doors at his hotel suite. “Did you tell Robby about the gardens you were talking about?”

  Paris eyed me. “Not so fast, doll. You’re not off the hook yet.”

  I blew out a puff of air. “Fine. We hung out…at his hotel…in his room…”

  Paris’ grin went from amused to mischievous. “You banged Cody Wright?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the busy, lunchtime crowd inside the small cafe. “Damn, Paris. Why don’t you just hop on the table and use a megaphone!”

  She laughed. “How was he?”

  I hesitated and worked my bottom lip between my teeth. Paris chuckled. “That good, huh?”

  “It was really, really hot and I can’t stop thinking about him.” The confession blasted out of me like a busted fire hydrant. “Paris, I cannot feel this way, and I definitely can’t let it happen again!”

  “Why?”

  I buried my face in my hands. “Because he’s an asshat.”

  “Was he an asshat to you?”

  I hesitated for a moment, rewinding the night. After the quick double check, I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” She shrugged, her fork waving in the air.

  “It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I didn’t want some pro athlete. That was never who I thought would fit in the picture beside me.”

  Paris sighed. “Again, doll, you’re thinking way too fast forward. Cody is a single guy, you’re a single girl. You’re both allowed to have some fun. I’m proud of you for getting outside your teeny tiny box for once!”

  “If what you’re saying is true, then why don’t I feel better?”

  “Because you do miss him!”

  The way I imagined it, I would have stalked out of his hotel room, swinging my hips, and left him as the one wanting more. My curiosity and raging hormones were supposed to be satisfied. At least for a while. Instead, it was like starving all day and only allowing yourself to eat one tiny little wafer cracker. It was more irritating than it would have been to go on hungry.

  “I know what we’ll do!” Paris announced. “When the boys are back, Robby and I will host a little dinner party. You and Cody and some other couples from the team. That’ll give you a chance to hang out with him and see what he’s thinking.”

  “That sounds terrible,” I replied, my tone flat. I shook my head at her. “No, that’s not how this is going to work. Paris, I have to stay away from him. It’s like a Band-Aid. I just gotta rip it off. Cold turkey.”

  “Why?”

  “For one, I have too much on my plate right now with this game. I shouldn’t even be here right now, but I can’t resist their grilled chicken Caesar salad, and you were in a crisis. I definitely don’t have time for Cody. Casual or not.”

  Paris pursed her lips at me but didn’t try to argue. I could feel her disappointment bubbling up inside of her but she kept it to herself for once. “All right. No dinner party. But you’re still going to go with me to the games sometimes, right?”

  I gulped. “Sure, but let’s wait a little while. Give us both some space.”

  Paris nodded. “A cooling off period.”

  “Exactly!”

  “All right. You got a deal, but I gotta say, I do not understand you sometimes, Chels.”

  “Well, that makes two of us…”

  * * * *

  Space. A cooling off period. Time to get my shit together. To let myself settle and recover from the explosive fuck fest with Cody.

  Right.

  That plan worked right up until about seven o’clock when I planted my ass on the couch, TV dinner in one hand, the remote control in the other, and flipped through the channels until I landed on the sports channel.

  “You’re weak, Chels,” I scolded myself, tossing the remote down and popping a bite of mac and cheese in my mouth.

  Cody Wright’s face filled the screen and my heart went into triple time, bam, bam, bam. He could get under my skin even in pixel form. Great. The sportscasters were going on about him, giving a breakdown of his career and accomplishments, including a handful of replays from some of his best games.

  “You know, Don, it might be too early to say, but I think Wright could be the ticket to turning this team around before it’s too late,” the grey haired man on the right said earnestly to his co-host.

  His co-host bristled. “Nah. Mark, this is a Hail Mary on the part of the Warriors’ front office. The ship is on fire and they are trying to put it out when they should be building a new one!”

  “How can you say that? Are we looking at two different screens here?” Mark, the older of the two interjected, pointing behind them at the green screen flashing stats alongside Cody’s picture. “He put up three fastballs in the Pioneers game, broke two over a hundred—”

  “But what happened in his debut?” Don fired back, a smug look crossing his arrogant face.

  I glared at him. A hot rush of anger washed over me.

  “You wanna talk Hail Mary’s?” Mark said. “Putting Wright in, for his majors debut, when they were down seven, one, bases loaded. That was a Hail Mary!”

  I nodded, throwing my two cents in with Mark. “Oh my gosh…what in the hell!”

  I scrambled for the remote and turned off the TV.

  “No, no. This is so not happening. I am not going to sit here and argue with sportscasters.” I pushed up from the couch and abandoned the TV, running my finger over my fish tank on the way into the kitchen to do the dishes. “I am also not going to watch the game,” I told them. “I’d rather watch you guys play baseball. That would be—”

  I froze in place. “Fish…baseball…”

  I raced back to the couch, set my dish on the coffee table, and flicked the TV back on. The warm ups started and I ran off to my office to gather up a sketch pad, notepad, and an assortment of pens and colored pencils. I hauled everything downstairs and spread everything across the walnut coffee table and sat down on my knees behind it. The ideas spilled forth like rushing water and by the middle of the game, everything lying before me was like a puzzle finally snapped together.

  “Fishball!” I said, laughing manically at how perfect it was. It was the idea I’d been waiting on for weeks, months, really. Lucky’s Big Adventure was going to head to the baseball diamond.

  Ch
apter Fifteen

  Chelsea

  “And that’s the game, folks!”

  I glanced up from my furious scribbling at the announcement. The game was over and the broadcasting duo of Mark and Don took over again. I spent most of it completely lost in my own world. Pages and pages of notes were spread out before me. Things were underlined, marked up in different colors, and half a dozen sketches lay on the floor beside my legs. With the sound of the game playing in the background it had all come together and I channeled it into my work. At the end, when I pulled back and took a breath, I felt like the guy from A Beautiful Mind. It all made complete sense to me, but if someone were to walk in and glance over my shoulder they’d probably think I finally lost my grip on the last of my marbles.

  I laughed to myself, relieved at the light and airy feeling once the weight of finding a viable idea for the next Mr. Fish game was lifted from my shoulders. I could breathe again. When I walked into the conference room a week and a half from now, I’d have something solid and concrete to pitch.

  Something pretty damn good if I said so myself.

  After all, baseball is the American past time, right?

  Granted, up until a few days ago, I knew nothing about it, but I planned on making up for lost time.

  Purely for the sake of the Mr. Fish game of course. It had nothing to do with Cody. At least, that was my story.

  I pushed back from the coffee table and leaned back against the couch. I worked and stretched my wrist and flexed my fingers. They were stiff from gripping the pencils and pens like a madwoman for the last three hours.

  But it was done. I wouldn’t change a thing. Sure, there would be little tweaks and changes when I actually started feeding the code to the computer, but the details and rules were established and that was always the hardest part. The part that felt like giving birth. Or, at least what I imagined labor to feel like, accomplishment-wise.

  A buzz startled me and I realized it was my phone. The only problem was it had become buried in the papers on the coffee table. I dug through the stacks and retrieved the phone. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen but it was a local number so I answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey, pretty girl.”

  My heart leaped from my chest up into my throat, the pulse banging frantically at the deep, sweet, slow drawl on the other end of the line. “Cody?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You catch the game?”

  I looked up at the TV and turned it to mute. The sportscasters were still there, obscuring the field. “Um…no. I didn’t. How’d you do?”

  “Another rocking night.”

  “Congratulations.” I pushed up from the floor and paced the living room. I went to the fish tank and then crossed back to the opposite wall. “Is that why you called? To tell me about the game?”

  “Hell no. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Aha. How did you get my number?”

  “Robby.”

  I made a mental note to kick him in the shins next time I was at Paris’. “Fantastic. I owe him one…”

  Cody laughed and I melted into the sound. Damn it. “Don’t take it out on him. You know you’re happy to hear from me.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help a small smile from spreading across my face. “You sure are a cocky thing, aren’t ya?”

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  “I’m sure,” I said with a laugh. I paced back to the fish tank and my free hand danced along the edge. Nervous energy took hold of me. I didn’t know what to say, and the sound of his voice was making my mind wade back into dangerous waters, filled with the echoed memories of the way we moved together, the sounds he made while I straddled his narrow hips, and the way he felt inside of me.

  I closed my eyes and gripped the side of the tank. Get it together, Chels. Don’t let him know he gets to you.

  “What are you doing tonight? If you’re not watching the best game on TV?”

  I opened my eyes and smirked. “I was coming up with the idea for my next award winning game.”

  “Aha. Sounds exciting. Wanna fill me in?”

  I pursed my lips. “Like you really care about some children’s game.”

  He laughed softly. “Do you care about it?”

  “Yes. Of course I do.”

  “Then tell me about it.”

  “You promise you won’t laugh?”

  “I would never,” he replied, actually sounding very serious.

  I bit the corner of my lower lip. “All right, fine. The first game was bent toward teaching kids geography so it was called Lucky’s Big Adventure. Lucky is the name of my clown fish.”

  “Like Nemo?”

  I laughed. “Like Nemo. How do you know about that?”

  “It’s a good movie.”

  I laughed harder at the image of him sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn watching Disney movies. “It is. Anyway, the investors want the follow-up to focus on math. I’ve been struggling to come up with an idea and then tonight it kind of hit me. Why not baseball? So, Lucky Plays Fishball or something like that for the title, and he learns math as he learns baseball. Things like counting the bases, number of people…well, fish…on the team, different plays. I mapped it all out.”

  “Sounds cool. If you need a baseball tutor, I’d be more than happy to come over and give you some instructions…”

  I shivered at the way he said instructions knowing full well they’d have absolutely nothing to do with baseball.

  “I’ll keep ya posted,” I said, trying to keep the quiver from my voice.

  “Good girl.” He chuckled. “So, let me ask you, did this new idea have anything to do with me? I mean…you’re telling me you weren’t watching the game but you’re over there cooking up a new baseball themed game. I have to think that has something to do with meeting me.”

  I grinned. “Or, it could be the fact that in the last week I’ve been dragged to two different games when I was supposed to be home working.”

  Cody laughed. “Nah. I’m not buyin’ it, baby girl.”

  “That’s fine. You don’t have to. If anyone is sitting around obsessing, I’d say it was you. I mean what, you just walked off the field five minutes ago and you’re already on the phone with me?”

  Cody laughed. “I knew it!”

  “What?”

  “You were watching the game. Ya naughty girl, telling me lies.”

  I spun around and looked at the TV, realizing my mistake. “Shit!”

  Cody laughed harder and I couldn’t stop myself from joining in. “All right, fine. You busted me. Happy now?”

  “More than you know, sugar.”

  His low tone rippled through me and my skin flushed. I wanted him there, beside me, around me, inside me…

  “I was brainstorming. That’s all. It really had nothing to do with you.”

  “You tell yourself whatever you need to,” he said, the smile still lingering in his voice.

  “Are you flying home tonight?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “I wish.” His tone changed, sounding more clipped, like something about the question, or perhaps the answer, irritated him. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Paris told me.” Great, now I was doing that annoying teenage girl thing. Asking questions that I already knew the answers to in order to keep him on the phone.

  “You saw her today?”

  “Yeah, we had lunch. She’s all messed up because of an argument with Robby.”

  “Trust me, I know. I got the man version of that the entire flight here.”

  I laughed. “I’m sorry. I had an easy out. I don’t know if I could have handled that for longer than an hour.”

  Cody chuckled. “It’s no sweat. What do you think? Those two gonna get their shit together?”

  “They will.” I smiled. “They’re probably sexting right now.”

  Cody roared with laughter. “Hot.”

  I blushed at the blurted comment. “It’s kinda their th
ing.”

  “What about you?”

  “No! Not at all. The internet is forever…”

  “Damn, I could use a couple naughty snaps to get me through the night.”

  A lightning bolt of hot electricity shot through me and I tensed, all the blood in my body rushing between my legs. The idea of taking sexy pictures for Cody—and thinking about what he would do once he had them in his possession—made me hot and wet. I ached with desire for him.

  “I thought I made it clear that what we did was a one-night thing, Cody.”

  “You don’t believe that bullshit and neither do I. We’re too good together to only have one night.”

  I wanted to argue, but everything died on my lips. He was right.

  Damn him.

  “Well, I’m not sending you naked pics, and I sure as hell am not going to get on video chat with you and get freaky.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “It has nothing to do with that and you know it,” I argued. I didn’t think Cody would blast my photos or videos all over the place, but he was a celebrity. Someone could get access to his computer and then I’d be ruined. “I make children’s computer games and apps for a living. It wouldn’t look good for me to be caught sending sexts and homemade porn to some famous baseball guy.”

  Cody laughed. “I guess that’s true. It doesn’t matter. I’d rather have the real thing anyway.”

  I sucked in a breath at the promise in his voice and wished I could see his eyes. I knew exactly what they would look like. Large dark pupils, a sparkling blaze, and a hungry, lusty desire. They would linger on me—every curve and hollow—making me feel exposed, vulnerable, and sexy all at the same time.

  “I was thinking seven o’clock tomorrow night. That way I can get in a shower and wash away all that nasty ass airplane air. Gotta be fresh for my lady.”

  I snapped back to reality. “Seven? Tomorrow? Wait, what?”

  Had I agreed to a date while off in la-la land?

  “You. Me. Tomorrow. Seven.”

  “Cody, I—”

  “Chelsea, come on, stop fighting me on this. You want me. I want you. There’s no reason to hide it. Okay? The cat’s already out of the fuckin’ bag and halfway down the street, all right?”