Quit Your Pitchin'

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “You want my cock?”

  She shook her head at the same time she shifted her hips in my direction.

  “Your head’s saying no, but your hips are telling me yes,” I teased. “Which one is it?”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it.

  Moments later, her hands were at my jaw as she pulled me down into her. “Oh, fuck it.”

  Chapter 6

  Coffee is a gift to myself. Here’s something that’ll keep you from getting arrested.

  -Coffee Cup

  George

  Six weeks later

  I watched my wife puke for the fifth time that morning, and my gut clenched.

  “This is all your fault!” she moaned miserably into the toilet bowl.

  At least it was clean.

  My housekeeper had come by yesterday and done a head to toe cleaning of my house, leaving no stone unturned.

  “I’m sorry!” I repeated for the fourth time. “I swear to God, Wrigley. I swear, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy!”

  I wouldn’t. Watching her puke, day in and day out, was agonizing.

  Wrigley started to laugh into the toilet. “You’re saying you don’t want me anymore?”

  Did the woman only hear what she wanted to hear?

  I dropped down onto my knees beside her and smoothed her hair back from her face.

  “Baby,” I whispered. “This may not be what you planned, or what I planned,” I told her gently. “But it’s what I want. I want you. I want this baby. I want what we have, and I don’t want it to ever end. Not fucking ever.”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  “You think it’ll be okay?”

  I laughed.

  “I think it’ll be great.”

  She leaned back with a sigh and then tumbled into my arms.

  I caught her, despite the puke I could see on her chin.

  She buried her face into my shirt, and I held her.

  What I did not do was rock her. Rocking her was a no-no. Something in which I’d found out moments after finding out she was pregnant about four days ago.

  “Please tell me you’re not leaving,” she begged.

  I bit my lip.

  “I have practice,” I admitted. “I’m so—”

  “If you say you’re sorry I’m going to nut punch you,” she informed me, then burrowed into my chest a little farther, if that was even possible.

  I grinned.

  We’d been married for a little over six weeks, and all six weeks had definitely been a lesson in understanding.

  After our minor freak out over being married, we’d come to an agreement.

  We’d continue our dating as we had been, and see how it went from there.

  Things had been going great, too.

  Until the puking had started last week.

  Then just four days ago, I’d finally convinced her to go to the doctor, where we’d learned that Wrigley was six weeks pregnant on the dot.

  She hadn’t gone home since.

  Which worked for me, because I fuckin’ hated it when she went home.

  I slept better with her in my arms, and despite her feeling so badly, I’d thoroughly enjoyed having her in my space since we’d gotten the news.

  “Can I go with you?”

  I opened my mouth to say no but frowned. “I mean, I guess you can. Today is only a short practice since we’re flying out tomorrow for Toronto.”

  That’s when she started crying. “Do you think I can ride with you to Toronto?”

  That I doubted, but I would fucking ask.

  I’d do anything for her.

  ***

  “So is today bring your girlfriend to work day?” Gentry, our starting pitcher, teased.

  I flipped him off and kept walking, looking back over my shoulder only once to make sure she was okay.

  She was sitting in the bleachers outside of the practice field, and she was studying the surroundings avidly.

  “I don’t mind,” Hancock grunted.

  I didn’t care even if he did.

  If I wanted to bring somebody to practice, I’d damn well bring somebody to practice.

  Having her so close was a mild distraction, but overall, I liked that she was watching me.

  I liked that she was there, and I liked that I hadn’t had to ride in by myself.

  Driving was boring, and I had to do a whole fucking lot of it seeing as I lived over thirty minutes from the practice fields.

  Having her with me while I could, was the right thing to do. At least for me.

  She looked bored to tears, but I winked at her, causing her to perk up before I returned my gaze to the man in front of me.

  “Step aside so I can hit, little man,” I told him.

  “I’m not little,” Manny countered. “I’m just shorter than you, and only by three inches. Six-foot-three isn’t short. You’re just freakishly tall.”

  I grunted in reply, “Yeah, whatever.”

  The next twenty balls that were pitched to me went well. Six went out of the park, eight were singles. Two doubles. One triple. Three I missed.

  Which was fairly normal since I had tried to stop two of them from getting past me.

  I hated not connecting with the ball.

  It’d been a compulsion since I was younger…since my father had beat the shit out of me if I so much as missed one.

  Still, to this day, it fucking hurt striking out.

  Sure, it usually bothered every ballplayer if they struck out, but when I did it, I got angry and pissed. And, if I was willing to admit it, I got scared.

  Scared because at one point in time, the repercussions for striking out were bad.

  For example, the one time my father had thrown me a terrible pitch at the age of eleven. I’d missed it, then had dropped my bat down to the ground to take my base after ball four.

  However, my father called it a strike.

  After which had come my immediate reply of ‘no, it wasn’t.’

  That was the day I learned never, ever to talk back to my father.

  That was the day that I had to have my jaw wired shut at the age of eleven.

  That was the day that I never spoke another word to my father willingly.

  That was the day that I let my mother see the anger in my eyes at her failure to protect me, because after all, she had been there, watching the entire thing through the kitchen window where she was making my father his dinner.

  Dinner that I’d had to drink through a straw for the entire summer. I’d lost eighteen percent of my body weight and struggled to put it back on for the rest of my childhood.

  “Yo,” Manny called. “You gonna hit again?”

  I stepped back out of the batter’s box and slung the bat over my shoulder. “And if I was?”

  Manny held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa there, Nelly. I’m not looking for a fight with you, Furious George. I’m just wondering if you were gonna hit again. I don’t care if you do or if you don’t.”

  I grinned at Manny.

  He was a hoot, and even though just a few inches shorter than me, he was the only one on the team besides Hancock who could nearly look me in the eyes.

  “Sorry, man,” I apologized, sounding as tired as I felt. “Memories.”

  Manny also knew what I meant when I said ‘memories.’

  Manny and I had quite a bit in common, which he would also have in common with Wrigley when I introduced her to the team and stopped hoarding her all to myself.

  Something I’d rectify today after practice.

  ***

  I caught Wrigley around the waist and pulled her to me from behind, pressing my beard to her neck and rubbing it up and down.

  She began to laugh as she turned, pressing her mouth against my face.

  “You want to meet the boys?”

  She closed her eyes and inhaled, breathing me in, causing my cock to harden.

&nb
sp; Something she noticed almost immediately as she started to wiggle her ass.

  “Yo, you ever gonna introduce us?”

  I looked up to find Gentry and Manny, as well as Hancock a few paces behind them, standing there watching us.

  I grinned and gestured to Gentry. “Gentry, Hancock, and Manny, this is my wife, Wrigley. Wrigley, from left to right you have Hancock, the catcher. Manny, the first baseman, and Gentry, the pitcher.”

  Gentry held his hand out for Wrigley. “Nice to meet you, George’s wife that we didn’t know about.”

  I gave Gentry a glare.

  Gentry didn’t try to act like he was sorry.

  “Uhh,” Wrigley said. “It was in the papers. How did you not know?”

  Something in Gentry’s face changed, but it was there and gone so fast that I wasn’t sure anybody else even noticed. “That would be why I didn’t know. I stay away from the rags. They like to ruin lives.”

  I had to agree. At least, from what I’d seen and heard.

  Little did I know how true that statement would become for me on a personal level.

  “It’s nice to meet y—” Wrigley’s hand covered her mouth, and she started to look around frantically.

  “Trash. Over there.” I pointed in the direction of the trash can.

  Wrigley didn’t waste time running to it, dropping her head over the side of the big blue barrel, and losing what little I’d seen her eat during practice.

  “Sooo…” Manny said. “You got her pregnant.”

  I grinned.

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  Chapter 7

  Nine months of vomiting, nausea, back pain, mood swings, sleepless nights…

  …for you to come out looking exactly like your daddy.

  -Wrigley’s secret thoughts

  Wrigley

  Twelve weeks later

  “Are you nervous?” I whispered, looking over into George’s eyes.

  George shook his head. “Not really. Anxious, yes. Nervous, no.”

  He was my hero.

  Seriously, all I did was worry, and all he did was reassure me.

  We were a match made in heaven.

  “But what if we look at him, and he looks like an alien? How do I bond with an alien life form?” I whisper-yelled into the quiet cab of my truck.

  A truck he’d gone to buy about a week after me finding out I was pregnant with his child.

  Apparently, his muscle car wasn’t suitable for a pregnant lady or his child, so that changed.

  It changed by him buying the biggest, most sturdy truck he could find, and applying every single safety feature he could to the vehicle before he brought it home.

  He even had a ‘Baby on Board’ sticker in the back window…despite there not being a baby on board yet.

  “Our baby isn’t an alien,” he chuckled. “Our baby is a baby.”

  I’d relayed a dream to him earlier in the day, and he’d been assuring me for the last half an hour that our baby wasn’t going to be one of those babies off of the Alien show he’d forced me to watch the night before.

  A show that was about a pregnant woman on a space station. The woman astronaut had slept with a fellow astronaut, who just so happened to be possessed by an alien, creating an alien baby inside of her.

  Hence the dreams.

  “What I’m not going to do is allow you to watch any more shows that have to do with babies,” he replied under his breath.

  I turned away so he wouldn’t see my smile.

  “I watched the Hallmark channel yesterday, and there was this baby that was switched at birth with another baby that was born down the hall. The woman’s actual baby died due to the woman’s neglect, and her ‘baby’ lived. Then, when the hospital realized another child at that same hospital, born on the same day, had been switched, they reviewed records. And records indicated that another pair of babies had been switched as well. The woman lost her ‘baby’ and had to return it to the other woman. Only she didn’t have a baby to get returned and went to court to fight for her ‘baby’s’ custody. It was horrible.”

  George stared at me for a few long seconds, then shook his head at the same time he pulled into the parking lot where we would be having our gender ultrasound.

  My sister was meeting us there, and I could see her bouncing on the balls of her feet the moment we pulled into a spot next to her.

  “Your sister is excited,” George snorted.

  That was more than obvious.

  I looked at her and grinned. “She is. She’s really excited to be an aunt to little Furious George Junior.”

  I’d been calling the baby Junior. Diamond had been calling the baby ‘Furious George Junior.’

  I was fairly positive it was a boy, but secretly George was hoping for a little girl.

  A little girl that could wrap him around her little finger.

  I started to push open the door, but my sister caught it before me and shrieked, “I’m so excited!”

  I slid out of the truck and hugged her.

  “Me, too,” I agreed. “You ready?”

  George offered us both an arm, and we walked into the office like that, side by side.

  “Do you think they’ll think we’re into polygamy?” Diamond whispered.

  George dropped her arm, causing her to snort.

  “I’d really rather not have the paparazzi even getting wind of that,” he told her honestly. “They’re already all up in our business.”

  They were.

  Why?

  That was George’s fault.

  He’d won some big huge trophy at the Home Run Derby the week before, and now everybody in America couldn’t get enough of our life.

  Why?

  Because he’d kissed me on national television, and then had kissed my belly.

  At the time I’d thought it sweet.

  Now, not so much.

  Not because I was embarrassed by George, but because the damn cameras were constantly taking our pictures.

  For instance, the dude in the pickup that was half hanging out of his truck taking pictures of us with a camera lens the length of my forearm.

  “Why doesn’t he just get out?” I questioned. “It would be a lot easier.”

  “Private property. If he’s in his vehicle, he can say he’s just here for a moment. If he’s out, he’s loitering,” George murmured.

  “Man, you sure know a lot of stuff,” Diamond said under her breath.

  “Part of the job, unfortunately,” he muttered.

  I smiled at the girl behind the counter. “Hi! I’m Wrigley, and we’re here for my gender scan.”

  The woman smiled, turning her bright eyes toward my husband.

  Another fan.

  Fuck.

  “Hi!” she chattered nervously. “I’m Wendy. Would any of y’all like a drink?”

  George looked at me.

  I shook my head. “I just had an entire bottle of Mountain Dew so this baby will move. Plus, I have an extremely full bladder. I think if I drank anything right now I might very well pop.”

  George’s smile tipped up at the corner.

  “Okay. Then no.” He turned back to the woman. “Thank you, though.”

  “I’d like a Diet Coke!” Diamond chimed in.

  “I take that back. She’ll have a Diet Coke,” George corrected, turning his laughing eyes at Diamond and me.

  I suppressed a smirk as the woman turned to fetch the drink, looking like she wished she could take her kind offer back.

  I had an idea that she hadn’t really wanted to get us anything but was more than willing to fetch George whatever he wanted.

  Herself included in that offer.

  Five minutes later, Diet Coke in hand, Diamond stood on my left, and George on my right, as the lady—who thankfully was blissfully unaware of who my husband was—at my other side ran the wand over my belly.

  My breath hitched as I got my fi
rst good look at the baby nestled deep in my belly.

  “It does look like an alien,” I accused my husband.

  The woman started to laugh, as did Diamond. My husband, however, put his hand over my mouth.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “She might hear you.”

  “Oh, it’s not a she,” the sonographer said, sounding amused. “It’s most certainly a he.”

  With that, she paused and clicked, circling an area.

  George hooted in excitement. “I have a boy!”

  ***

  Twenty-two weeks later

  I stood up from the couch where I was watching the game with Diamond and shrieked. “That was a strike, my ass!”

  “Jesus,” Diamond said. “You’re like a freakin’ freak show. It was a strike.”

  “It was not. That ball was so far outside the pitcher’s box that it was unreal.”

  Diamond started to laugh.

  “It’s Batter’s Box, sis. And just because you played a few pick-up games of softball with a church that you don’t even attend—which you sucked at by the way—and watch your man play baseball, doesn’t make you an expert on the matter,” she teased. “Who knew that you’d like baseball like you do. I feel like a proud mama with you spouting off all this sports knowledge.”

  I flipped her off, causing her to laugh.

  I had started playing softball, and I did kind of suck. But I was fairly sure that was because I was so new to the game.

  And I missed it.

  I hadn’t played in over ten weeks since I’d become too cumbersome to move swiftly.

  I frowned when a shooting pain ripped down my back, causing me to double over.

  “You okay there, slugger?”

  I stood back up with a grimace. “Yeah, but this pain is killing me every few minutes.”

  “Every few minutes?” Diamond repeated.

  I nodded. “How many have you had?”

  I thought back to the day I’d had.

  It’d started this morning during my phone call with George and had really revved up during the game.

  “I don’t know. A lot?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Is it consistent?”

  I opened my mouth, then snapped it closed. “You think I’m in labor?”

  She raised her eyebrows high. “Duh.”

  I paused, thought about that for a short moment, then started to breathe faster.