Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1

by Sierra Dean

  “Like, on your feet?” Alex suggested. “Did you sustain any head injuries we didn’t see?”

  “No,” she said with forced certainty and took Tucker’s hand, letting him draw her up to a standing position. The front of their bodies brushed against each other, making her cheeks flush. His chest was hard and toned and felt warm through the threadbare material of his shirt.

  Too bad she couldn’t blame her blush on an imaginary bump to the noggin. What had gotten into her? She never got worked up around famous athletes.

  “I have to go.” She pushed herself off him, letting her touch linger a moment longer than was respectable before snatching her hand away and giving herself a stern internal lecture.

  Bad Emmy!

  Her bike hadn’t sustained any serious damage, so when she climbed back on, the frame was still in excellent shape to help her make a speedy getaway, though her knee protested something fierce.

  “Hey,” Tucker called after her. “What’s your…?”

  His voice trailed off as she turned a corner. She realized too late he’d been trying to ask her name, and she’d run off without so much as a backwards glance.

  She’d just completely blown off Tucker Lloyd.

  Chapter Three

  “Maybe running isn’t for us,” Alex said as he and Tucker stood in line at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. “I knew it wasn’t fun, but I didn’t think it was dangerous.”

  “You just want an excuse to get out of exercise. Don’t think I’m not on to you.” Tucker gave Alex a whack in the small paunch he’d acquired over the winter. Tucker was listening, but he wasn’t really listening. He was thinking about their hit-and-ride, but not in the same way Alex was. The catcher was joking about their eventful job, but Tucker was thinking about the long, sun-streaked, light brown hair and big hazel eyes of the lady cyclist who’d literally crashed into his life that morning.

  And stolen his favorite bandana.

  “I get exercise,” Alex contested, as he loaded his plate with scrambled eggs and an assortment of fried meats.

  Tucker rolled he eyes and filled his own plate with poached eggs and fresh fruit. He wasn’t a health nut, but during the season he tried not to eat like crap. Alex was a tank, and he crouched behind the plate during games. Tucker, on the other hand, needed to stay loose. Fat pitchers were few and far between, and they usually didn’t last six or seven innings, let alone play through all nine. If he was getting old, he didn’t think getting fat was also an option.

  Age he had no say in. Flab could be stopped.

  The pair of them moved to an empty table near the window, basking like cats in the bright morning sunlight. A few moments after making themselves comfortable—before they could even dig into their food—another two men joined them. A copper-skinned man in his late twenties who Tucker barely recognized plopped down first, stroking a neatly trimmed black goatee.

  “What happened to your face, Ramon?” Alex rolled the r in the first-baseman’s name with a saucy flourish.

  “You like?” Ramon Escalante smirked broadly, showing them a mouthful of pearly whites made even brighter in contrast to the dark hair of his new mustache.

  “If I was George Michael in 1997, I would be incredibly jealous.”

  Another man, this one younger and quieter, took the empty seat between Tucker and Ramon. The new arrival smiled but said nothing. It was hard to get a word in edgewise when Alex and Ramon were in the same room. The ego tended to eat up all the oxygen.

  “You are jealous because I look like a man and you cannot grow a simple beard.” Ramon’s Spanish accent, originally from the Dominican Republic, tended to get thicker in direct proportion to how much Alex was irritating him at any given moment.

  “Have you seen my face?” Alex ran a palm over his permanent dark stubble. “I have to shave twice a day or I look like Teen Wolf. I can grow a better ’stache in my sleep.”

  Tucker popped a piece of honeydew in his mouth and nodded to the younger man who’d been the last to arrive. Miles Cartwright, the new kid pitcher who was garnering a lot of early buzz, didn’t say anything but looked at Tucker wide-eyed.

  “You think if we leave them alone too long they’ll whip their dicks out and compare measurements?”

  Miles choked on the bite of eggs he’d just stuffed in his mouth.

  “There is not a ruler big enough,” Ramon said with an indignant snort.

  Alex snickered. “Your English is getting rusty. You keep mixing up big and small.”

  “Boys, boys, boys.” Tucker pushed his plate away, unable to stomach the too-sweet fruit. “All this homoeroticism is delightful, but we have a shuttle to catch.”

  It was a perfect day for baseball.

  The sun was bright, the clouds hanging like cotton balls tossed carelessly into an otherwise flawless blue sky. Tucker lived for the half hour leading up to the first day of spring training. All the nervousness of the morning had faded away, replaced with a bubbling excitement reminiscent of his early years.

  Alex and Ramon were trading barbs, but the prattling was drowned out by the whir of the shuttle bus’s wheels against the pavement and the general clubhouse chatter of fifteen other men quietly discussing what they’d done over the off-season or what they thought of a late announcement about a new second-baseman slugger who’d be joining the team.

  Tucker was toying with a Felons stress ball in the shape of a baseball, absentmindedly squeezing and releasing the ball, occasionally tossing it up and bouncing it off his forearm, before catching it again on the pop-up. He could do the same trick with a real baseball, but the snap back tended to leave bruises if he wasn’t careful. This year he’d have to be extra careful with his arm.

  They rolled into a parking lot filled with a few assorted sports cars, kicking up dust and coating the pristine exteriors of the expensive automobiles. The bus came to a shuddering stop, and the door swung open, wafting the overly warm interior with a fresh breeze.

  “E’rybody off,” bellowed the driver, as if he were addressing a school bus full of hormonal adolescents instead of some of the highest paid athletes in the game. The portly man sat back, chewing on something—either gum or tobacco—and eyed them all like they might be up to no good.

  Outside, they collected their duffel bags and made their way across the lush emerald-green grass towards the freshly laid infield, its white lines more blinding than Ramon’s capped teeth. It was too early in the year for the bugs to be bad, but a few lazy black flies darted by, giving the air the illusion of being a living, moving thing.

  Off from the field proper was a mowed track and an extended makeshift bullpen. That was where Tucker, Miles and the rest of the huge pitching roster would loosen up their winter-rusted arms and find out who had what it took to make one of the five starting spots, who would be relegated to a relief position, and who would be fretting over the lingering threat of a dropped contract or a trade.

  Tucker rolled his head in a loose circle, rotating his shoulders to shake off the knot between his scapulae that had a tendency to form whenever the word trade came up. He’d had a lucky career so far, drafted to the Felons farm league fresh out of college. They’d been the only club he’d played for in fourteen years. It wasn’t unheard of for someone with his stats to stay with the same team for most of their major league run, but he wasn’t the same player he’d been at twenty-two.

  Sometimes, the call came through and there wasn’t a damn thing a player could do to change their fate. You could get traded, you could get dropped or sometimes you were just forgotten.

  And Tucker didn’t want any of that. He bled Felons gray-and-orange. His home and his life were in San Francisco—unlike most other players who lived out of state in the off-season—and the last thing he ever wanted was to be forgotten. Maybe there was something to the adage of it being better to burn out than to fade away. He wasn’t sure if he was on the verge of fading away, but he knew he wanted to set fire to the coming season.

  The Felons ha
dn’t won the World Series in twelve years. They’d made it to the finals only three times since then, but hadn’t won. In the last four years they hadn’t made it past the division semi-finals. They weren’t a bad team, always first or second in their division, but they seemed to lose all their focus the closer they got to the end of the season. It was as if the Felons had a consistent fear of success.

  This year would be different. Tucker had it in his head he was going to step up and be the leader the guys needed. Someone to help them take those last few steps and become the champions he knew they could be. If this was going to be one of his last years, he wanted to make it count. He wanted another championship ring. He wanted a shitty orange T-shirt that said San Francisco Felons—2013 World Series Champions.

  Fuck yeah, he did.

  And nothing was going to distract him from making that dream a reality. It had to be his single-minded purpose. It had been the thing driving him on through the tough months of physio, when he thought his arm would never be back in throwing condition.

  Dropping their bags in the dugout, the players rallied near the center of the field where the coaching staff had come together. Tucker joined his teammates in preparation for Chuck’s big pep talk. If this one was anything like the talks their coach had given over the last decade, he’d reprimand them for being triumphant fuckups the year before, and then remind them this was a new season. Full of new opportunities to fuck up. At that point he’d threaten to end their lives if they ruined another season.

  Chuck Calvin would have made a hell of a war general.

  True to form he launched into his big managerial spiel while the batting, pitching and base coaches watched on with expressions somewhere between amusement and pain. When Chuck sarcastically applauded their previous season’s “fuckups-to-wins” ratio, the first-base coach handed a ten-dollar bill to the pitching coach with a resigned headshake.

  Behind the coaching staff the trainers were unloading their own gear, preparing for the first war wounds of the season, ready to offer healing and advice—whatever the situation dictated. Tucker cast an uninterested glance their way, then froze. His heart hammered so loudly all he could hear was his pulse.

  In the midst of last season’s familiar old trainers and a few fresh-faced new recruits stood the woman who’d almost run him and Alex over that morning. She was smiling as she gave directions to the trainers, pointing out where things should be laid out. Her long, gold-streaked hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and she wore simple black yoga pants with an orange Felons polo T-shirt. In spite of her wardrobe change, he had no doubt it was the same woman.

  “All right,” barked Chuck. “I want to introduce you boys to our newest staff member.” He spun on his heel and gave a sharp whistle. The woman looked up, a momentary frown passing over her lips at being beckoned like a dog, but she crossed the field at a slow jog.

  Once she’d arrived, Chuck put an arm around her slender shoulders, and she pushed her mirrored aviators off her face. Tucker’s mouth went dry when she smiled.

  “Boys, I’d like you to meet our new head athletic trainer. This is Mrs. Emmy Kasper.”

  “Miss,” she corrected immediately, meeting Tucker’s rapt gaze for the first time. She gave him a meek, almost apologetic smile and offered a half wave.

  Calvin was saying something about her credentials, and Tucker was sure it was all very fascinating, but he had a bigger concern on his mind.

  He was supposed to be a man on a mission this season. Single-minded focus and all that jazz.

  There was no way in hell he was going to be able to focus if the woman he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about all morning was going to be the same one icing his wounds and spending every damn day with him. The added bonus of coming off Tommy John surgery was all sorts of extra time and attention from the head A.T.

  She was his new A.T.

  He was so screwed.

  Chapter Four

  Emmy wasn’t sure what she expected Tucker’s response to be, but the dumbfounded look he was giving her now hadn’t been it.

  “Hey,” she said, kicking herself for sounding so meek. “Sorry again about earlier.”

  “Huh?”

  “The whole bike-accident thing?” She raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if maybe he had suffered a bump to the head.

  The manager stuffed a wad of chewing tobacco into his upper lip and cast a wary glance between the two of them. Emmy had noticed he tended to regard everything like it was a problem waiting to happen. At least when it came to her. She knew hiring a woman hadn’t been his choice because he was as old-school boys’ club as they came in the league. It had been a progressive-thinking assistant general manager who’d seen her resume instead of her boobs and convinced the rest of them to give her the head trainer job.

  When Chuck decided it didn’t appear they were going to do anything nefarious, he wandered away to yell at someone else.

  “Oh, right,” Tucker said, bringing her back to the utterly awkward conversation they were engaged in. “Here’s my question. Since you knew who I was then, why didn’t you say something?”

  She blushed, the familiar unwelcome heat flooding her cheeks. Even as a child she’d blushed too easily, which made it impossible for her to lie without giving an obvious tell. It also proved to be an embarrassing giveaway when she was aroused. Hard to play it cool when your cheeks and ears were as pink as a girly baby shower.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve mentioned that a few times now.” The smile he gave her wasn’t his big, toothy, press-conference smile, but it was sweeter. Just a small curve of the lips that set her heart aflutter.

  “I was shocked, I guess. I mean, it’s not every day a girl almost kills a two-time Cy Young winner, you know,” Emmy teased, then blushed upon mentioning the prestigious pitching award. Now she sounded more like a groupie than a professional.

  “So you figured your best bet was to run away and hope I didn’t recognize you?”

  “Uh, yeah. Don’t you like my clever disguise?” She pointed to her ponytail and hoped he’d laugh. When he did, the pit of anxiety in her belly loosened. “This morning wasn’t at all how I pictured meeting you.”

  “Probably left more of an impression, though.”

  “No doubt. Now I’ll forever be that woman who can’t ride a bike.”

  “I prefer to think of you as that woman who stole my lucky bandana.”

  Emmy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh crap. You mean the bandana I threw out when I got back to my rental?” She maintained her serious expression long enough for Tucker to look like he might cry, then winked at him. “I’m kidding. But I did throw it in the wash. I hope you don’t mind. I wasn’t sure I should return it to you covered in my blood.”

  Tucker smiled again, and she was really starting to like this toned-down version. He was well-known for his big grin and dimples, but there was an earnest charm to the closed-lip grin he was favoring her with.

  She got distracted by his eyes the same way she had earlier, switching her focus from the blue one to the brown one and back again. After a moment, she realized she was staring, and when you’re staring at someone’s eyes, it’s hard for them not to notice.

  When she was obviously busted, he gave her a wink. They began to walk towards the rest of the players where the outfielders had already begun throwing drills.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Nah, I’m used to it. People stare a lot.”

  Considering he stood over six feet tall, was handsome to the point of absurdity, and also happened to be one of the most famous—and well paid—players in baseball, Emmy was willing to bet his eyes weren’t what made most people stare.

  “It’s cool,” she admitted. “I used to notice it on TV when I watched you play.” Once again, she was sounding like a groupie. “I mean…when I’d catch a Felons game. From time to time.”

  “You a Felons fan?” he prodded.

  Technically, the correct answer should
have been of course. But Emmy was a baseball girl and had been her whole life. She’d also been raised in Chicago and wasn’t about to lie to him about where her fandom allegiance was.

  “Chicago Cubs.” She offered an apologetic shrug. They were almost to the bullpen, where a few of the other guys were firing warm-up throws to their catchers.

  Alex was fastening his Nike catcher’s vest, waiting for Tucker’s arrival.

  “Cubs?” Tucker wrinkled up his nose. “That’s…unfortunate for you.”

  “Tell me about it. But their time is coming.”

  Since the Cubs were a National League team and the Felons played in the American League, they weren’t in competition during the regular season, so Emmy didn’t feel too guilty for her admission.

  “I don’t count on seeing them up against us in the World Series this year,” he told her. “Sorry to break your heart.”

  “I’m a Chicago Cubs fan,” she reminded him. “I’m accustomed to a broken heart.”

  “Yeah, that’s the fate of a baseball fan, ain’t it?”

  “Broken hearts?”

  “Lowered expectations.”

  Emmy chuckled. “I guess so. But the sports columns all seem to have pretty high expectations for you this year.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “How’s the arm?” Now in full-on professional trainer mode, she jutted her chin in the direction of his right arm. There was a curved pink scar over his inner elbow, and he seemed fascinated by it as he bent his arm to show her.

  “Never better.”

  “Let’s keep it that way, okay?”

  Tucker nodded. “You’d better be good,” he teased. “After throwing one-hundreds through nine innings, I tend to need extra TLC on this baby.” He gave a joking flex of his arm then jogged off towards Alex. He’d almost reached the catcher when he turned back and shouted, “Welcome to the team.”

  Emmy’s heart did a little flip-flop when she thought about Tucker needing her TLC.