by Sierra Dean
“No, you don’t get it, Alex.”
“What don’t I get?”
“This whole thing is a mistake. We can’t do this. Not ever again. I shouldn’t have been this stupid in the first place.”
“Alice, you’re making way too big a deal out of this. Nothing bad happened. What we did, that’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“I don’t understand why you’re freaking out about this. Can’t we, I don’t know, laugh or something? I mean, it’s going to make a pretty funny story in hindsight.”
And there it was, the thing she feared most. Becoming some guy’s funny story.
“Well, go ahead and have a good chuckle about it, then. Because it’s never happening again.”
She must have seemed crazy, shouting at him in a parking lot without her bra on only minutes after he’d been inside her. What had she been thinking? She knew she could make some stupid decisions with the help of alcohol, but she had to have been out of her goddamn mind to think this had been a smart plan.
It didn’t matter how awesome the sex had been—and oh, it had been so freaking awesome—because this was it for them. End of story.
“I’m sorry.” She hugged her arms more tightly around herself and looked from him to the bar.
“This is nuts. We were having fun. I don’t—”
“It can’t just be fun, Alex. I don’t have the luxury of being somebody’s good time. I have too many responsibilities. Like I said, this was a mistake.”
“Are you seriously playing the kid card right now?”
“It’s not a card, it’s my life. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“How am I supposed to if you lose your shit and storm off? How is that fair? I like you, Alice. In spite of what you think, I don’t have a girl in every port or whatever. I’m not that guy.”
“I think you are.”
“If you really thought so little of me, I don’t think you ever would have done this. I think you like me, and I think that’s what’s freaking you out right now. Not your kid. Not your job. You.”
“Think whatever you want. I’m going home.” She reached into her car to grab her purse and stuffed her wayward bra into it, holding it to her chest as she turned her back on him to return to the bar. She didn’t want to take to heart anything he’d said, but his words followed her inside. They taunted her as she pulled out her cell and called a cab. Sure, she could have done that outside, but then she’d have had to stand around with him while they waited for it to come. He was the kind of man who would insist on waiting.
And like that, with one passing thought about gentlemanly behavior, she knew he was right. She didn’t think he was a scumbag. She didn’t think he was like Matt at all.
Which scared her ten times more than if she’d been convinced he was a good-for-nothing jerk.
She’d been fooled in the past by a kind smile and a handsome face, and Alex had her pegged. The reason she was running wasn’t Olivia. It wasn’t her job, either, though that was a genuine concern. What she feared the most was being wrong again. Of thinking the best about a man and having her romantic optimism shoved right back in her face when the worst came true.
How was it possible to be a cynic and a hopeless romantic all at the same time?
When her phone buzzed a few minutes later to announce the arrival of her cab, she made her way back outside. She scanned the parking lot, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but he was gone.
Chapter Ten
Women were nuts.
Alex couldn’t think of anything else to explain Alice going from, well, coming to leaving all in the matter of minutes. The police interruption might have spurred her on, but there was definitely more going on than simple embarrassment.
He knew a lot of women, but that didn’t mean he understood them. Alex accepted that some things in life he would never be able to comprehend. Astrophysics. The metric system. Fun runs. And women.
In the Felons dugout, he chewed the skin around his thumbnail thoughtfully and stared at the outfield. The backup catcher, a spunky Cuban named Angel, was giving Alex a few innings off. Tucker sat on Alex’s left, while Miles flanked his right. Neither of the pitchers—one a seasoned vet, the other so new he was practically green—said anything. They were both watching the team’s closer throw a series of pitches over one hundred miles per hour. Tucker whistled every time. Meanwhile, Miles looked nervous.
Under normal circumstances Alex might have comforted the kid, reminding him his spot in the starting rotation was all but assured. Right then, though, he wasn’t feeling his role as the older-brother figure. Alice was cemented in his brain like a girl-shaped Rubik’s cube, and he couldn’t get any of the sides to match up no matter how he spun the puzzle.
Angel flashed the pitcher a signal, his neon-green-painted fingernails gleaming in the sun. Since he was a new addition to the clubhouse, the pitchers were all adjusting to his way of calling pitches. To help ease the plays along, some catchers painted their nails in bright white, orange or green to make things easier to see. It had been a long time since Alex had needed to employ this technique, having worked with most of the Felons’ pitching roster for several years. Miles had been a quick study, meaning Alex got to avoid digging through his locker for nail polish.
Secretly he kind of missed it. There was something fun about the looks he got post-game when he sported Felons-appropriate neon orange on only one hand.
He shifted his attention to the infield play, trying to get a read on what Angel and the pitcher were plotting together. If he could mind the game instead of getting lost in his own thoughts, maybe he’d forget about the whole messy situation with Alice.
Baseball was something he understood, something that made sense. In baseball you weren’t called out unless you struck out. Or flied out. Or grounded out. Okay, bad metaphor. The point, he rationalized, was that outs in baseball always happened for a reason. There was a set logic to them, a surefire way to tell if you were going to be headed back to the bench or staying in the game.
Women didn’t operate in the same way as baseball rules, and Alex was beyond help in figuring out what kind of system they were working with. If growing up with five sisters hadn’t helped him, there was no damned way he was going to sort it out now.
But he wanted to.
He wanted to understand why Alice had flipped out and bailed. Was the sex not good? He’d thought it had been phenomenal, but maybe he was deluding himself. Even still, bad sex was an excuse not to call someone the next day, but it wasn’t a valid reason to leave a dude in a parking lot with his fly down.
There was a chance he’d been too harsh on her when he told her she was inventing problems. Her job was a real concern for her. He knew well enough from Tucker and Emmy how tricky it could be to date within the family when it came to baseball, and umpires tended to be held at a higher regard. He’d never shared a beer with an ump before, let alone orgasms. It was new territory for him, and likely for her too.
It wasn’t fair of him to brush her concerns off and call her a coward.
God, he’d been a real dick, hadn’t he?
“Earth to Ross,” a voice called, distracting him from the circle jerk of his thoughts. “Think you might put on your pads and actually play today, or should I just give you my roster and let you manage things?” The field manager, Chuck Calvin, was chewing on a mouthful of Big League Chew, the wadded pink gum doing little to diminish his menace.
Alex hadn’t realized Angel’s time was winding down.
In early season matches it wasn’t unusual for position players to swap out two or three times a game. Since the final forty-man roster hadn’t yet been selected, the coaches and managers needed to see all the prospective players in action before narrowing down their choices and making the final selections.
Alex had assumed since he’d bruised his knuckles the previous day he might get a full game to rest up, but Emmy must have given him a clean bill of health if the skipper was throwi
ng him in now.
“Sorry, Skip.”
He shucked off his warm-up jacket and tossed it over the back of the bench between Tucker and Miles. Getting his pads on was a mindless routine for him, something he was able to do within a minute. The act of going through such familiar motions was enough to take his mind off things.
Getting onto the field was like stepping through an invisible curtain. On one side of it were his problems and everything he was dealing with with Alice; on the other, pure joy. Being on a baseball diamond erased any negativity and replaced it with a perfect calm. How could you be in a bad mood when you were living out your little league fantasy on a daily basis?
Even the drama from the previous day’s fight didn’t put a damper on Alex’s love of the game and his Pavlovian attachment to the field.
As he crouched behind the plate, a simple, brilliant thought snuck through his haze of happiness.
Nothing bad could happen in a ballpark. It was like Switzerland. Neutral territory. With that in mind, he knew exactly what he had to do to charm Alice.
If she loved baseball half as much as he did, he speculated the key to her heart would be a diamond.
A baseball diamond.
Chapter Eleven
It had been a hellish day for Alice.
After a three-hour game she’d had to drive an hour each way to get to, she’d gotten a call from the diner asking her to come in and cover a shift. With assurances from Kevin that he didn’t mind canceling his evening plans to watch Olivia, Alice had grudgingly agreed to go in to the restaurant.
She didn’t want to work. Spending three hours in the baking sun watching a Rangers vs. Tigers game had been plenty taxing without adding another five hours on her feet in the midst of the dinner rush. There was no hope in hell of it being a quiet night. It was never quiet during the spring training season, when tourists were constant.
That was the only reason she’d agreed to take the shift, because otherwise Carmello would be screwed, and the other girls she worked with would end up with twice as many tables. No way would she do that to people she liked just because she’d rather be in a bubble bath with a huge glass of wine.
The suds and booze would have to wait.
Five hours of demanding jerks and indecisive middle-aged tourists later, Alice was wishing she’d opted to bail. Her feet were sore, her back was throbbing and she was covered in a thin coat of grease-scented sweat. The air conditioning at the diner had broken down shortly before she arrived, so they’d had to make due with two small oscillating fans.
Thank goodness it was only the first week of March, otherwise they’d have been screwed. Hot hadn’t yet given way to unbearable.
Alice mopped her forehead on her apron before chucking it into her car. All that and she’d barely made a hundred bucks in tips. Not enough to cover anything useful, but definitely enough to get her to the liquor store for the wine she’d wanted earlier.
It was already after Olivia’s bedtime, so there was no sense in rushing home. She might as well make a stop, grab some cabernet and unwind before subjecting Kevin to her ire. Usually he did something to earn her bad attitude, but tonight he’d done her a favor, and she didn’t want to make him regret it.
As Alice turned onto her block, her bottle of red wine in its brown paper bag rolled dangerously close to the edge of the seat. She reached down to grab it, taking her eyes off the road for a second. When she looked up again, she almost drove past her house because of the unfamiliar car in the driveway.
No, not unfamiliar. All too familiar.
Her heart leapt into her throat at the sight of the Porsche. Its rear tire had been replaced, no longer relying on the spare she’d put on. Part of her was sad to see he’d changed it, like it was a silent affront to her. How stupid.
She stopped at the foot of her driveway and stared at the house. Alex was sitting in the Adirondack chair on her front porch, his legs stretched out in front of him and a Felons baseball cap lowered over his eyes.
Was he sleeping?
And why wasn’t he in the house?
She battled with her emotions. The stupid schoolgirl part of her was thrilled to see him, excited he’d come back to her in spite of the tantrum she’d thrown the previous night.
The grown adult part of her, though, was furious he’d shown up at her house unannounced. Did Kevin know he was there? Had Olivia seen the car in the drive?
Alice’s mind started spinning up lies she could use to deflect any questions they might ask her in the morning over breakfast. Nothing she came up with sounded particularly convincing, even to her.
She pulled in beside his car and killed the engine, then sat for what felt like a very long time, watching him. She debated putting the car into reverse and taking off in the opposite direction, but reminded herself this was her house. If anyone should run, it ought to be him.
Grabbing the wine, she got out of the car. Before she’d shut the car door he lifted the bill of his cap, his warm brown eyes fixating on her. He hadn’t been asleep at all. He’d been waiting for her.
“Hey,” he greeted.
Motherfucker, did his voice have to be so soft, with just the slightest hint of a rasp, reminding her of the way his breath had hitched up when he slid inside her? Her pussy clenched at the memory, a pang of longing riding her like a shiver on a cold day.
“What are you doing here?” She hoped her voice wouldn’t give too much away, but it sounded husky to her ears. Maybe he wouldn’t know the difference between tired Alice and horny Alice.
“I know you said no more. Never again. All that stuff.”
“So…again. Why are you here?”
“Because I think you’re wrong. And I want a chance to prove it to you.”
“You think I’m…wrong? You came to my house uninvited to tell me I’m wrong? You’re not off to the best start if you want to convince me you’re a good guy, Alex.”
“No, you misunderstand. I think I freaked you out yesterday, or we freaked each other out, or something. There was mutual freaking.” At her raised eyebrow he added, “Unintentional double entendre, I swear.”
“Okaaaay.”
“I think maybe you’re convinced I only want one thing from you.”
“And you got it. So get off my porch.” Had she really become someone who said get off my porch? In that moment she felt old and more than a little pathetic. Worse still, she didn’t want him to leave. What she wanted was to sit in his lap and breathe in the smell of him. But that was crazy.
Right? It was crazy, wasn’t it?
Alice no longer had a firm grasp on where her desires departed from what was right. She’d thought of herself as smart and practical, so it was strange for her to no longer trust her own wants.
“I’m not just in it for the sex. I swear to you. If I was in it for the sex, why would I be here? I mean, not to say the sex wasn’t phenomenal, because it was,” he assured her. “But the point is, if sex was all I wanted, you gave me a pretty clear out yesterday. I could have taken it. But here I am.”
“Okay.” She wasn’t quite ready to demand he leave again. He’d appealed to her logical side, and now she was curious. “I’m listening.”
“I want to take you out tomorrow. Somewhere private.”
“Uh-huh.” She crossed her arms the best she could with a wine bottle in one hand, and scowled at him. Private was code for booty call. She hadn’t been living under a rock for ten years just because she had a kid.
“I want you to bring Olivia.”
That threw her. “What?”
“I want you to bring her. You can bring your brother too, if you want. I promise I won’t try to make a move on you the entire night. It can be purely platonic. Think of them as insurance of a sex-free night.”
“You want me to bring my daughter on a date?”
“I want to prove to you I’m interested in more than sex. When I told you yesterday I like you, I meant it, but we barely know each other. I’d like to change that
. I mean, normally I like to get the question-and-answer stuff out of the way before sleeping with a girl, but if we’re doing things out of order, that’s okay too.”
“And then what? Say it goes great. Say I like you and you like me, and we spend the next three weeks together and it’s all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. Maybe Olivia thinks you’re great. Maybe I do too.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Right up until you leave it would be great. What happens after? You run off to California and we’re still here. Forgotten.”
“Alice…”
“Don’t pretend like this can have some fairytale ending. I’ve met baseball players. There’s not a single white knight among you.”
Alex recoiled as if she’d struck him. “Okay, we want hypotheticals? How’s this? I only live in San Fran during the season, and for half of that time I’m on the road. Do you know where I live the other half of the year?”
Alice said nothing.
“I live in Georgia. Do you want me to get Google Maps out? It’s not exactly an insurmountable distance.”
“Now you want to talk about the potential for a relationship?”
“Oh my God, Alice, why are you making this so difficult? I like you, I want to know you better, and I don’t want you using something like my job—my summer only job—to be your excuse not to spend time with me.”
The full shame of her outburst settled over her. She’d been badgering him as if he intended to propose, yet angry because she expected him to hit it and quit it. She was bouncing back and forth between her excuses so frequently they had gotten all jumbled, and none of them made sense anymore.
“Stay here.” She made the short jog up the stairs and handed him the paper bag she’d been clutching, then vanished into the house.
Inside, the living room was flooded with blue light from the television, and she popped her head into the space. Kevin was sprawled on the couch, a beer in one hand and an unsmiling expression on his face. He glanced up when she entered, and lifted his brows by way of greeting. “Hey.”
