Hardball (6 page)

But there was something to the surprise of what was under those slacks. What she’d look like in heels and a dress. And what the heels and dress would look like on the floor.

I was mad about the glove. First at myself because I thought I’d misplaced it, then at whomever took it, then at God and the universe because it was just another sign that shit was going belly-up.

I had my assistant get me the number for Hobart Elementary, then I stared at my phone.

What was I supposed to do? Call the principal’s office and accuse an entire class of underprivileged kids of theft? I made four point three million a year to catch and hit balls. My father would have been ashamed if he was alive to see it.

But I needed that glove back.
That
glove. Daria’s pin was on it. Losing it meant losing her.

I could go to the librarian. The one in the yellow sweatshirt. With the slim neck and the little gold chain around it, curling on her skin where her trapezius rose and fell. That cleft of space between the bulky hood and her body was somehow more sexual than a hundred miles of cleavage.

I had a meeting that afternoon, so I put on a suit. That was what I told myself, but when I pulled my cuffs and matched my socks, I wasn’t thinking about my agent, who didn’t care what I wore. I was thinking about hitting the Hobart Elementary library first.

I was one of LA’s most eligible bachelors. I didn’t let that run my life, but the papers mentioned it frequently enough that it had become a fact. I could have a ton of women, and I did. But when she’d blurted out that I was handsome, it didn’t feel like part of her strategy. It felt like approval I hadn’t known I needed.

So I tried to wait, then I couldn’t.

Hello. I’m checking on the glove. Any word?

Not yet. We’ll find it. I have a thing with the gym teacher tonight. I’ll ask him if he saw anything.

Of course. Why wouldn’t she have a boyfriend? Just because she was wearing a yellow sweatshirt and flats didn’t mean I was the only one who saw a sexy woman. And it was rude to ask. Completely out of line.

A thing?

An event at the Petersen

What kind of answer was that?

An answer to a question you have no business asking.

Sorry. Wasn’t prying. I typed before I thought about it

I get it. Sometimes I’d like to put a cock in my mouth

Wait. What?

That had to be autocorrect.

But I’d done enough dirty texting in my day to not discount her intentions entirely. Putting my cock in her mouth was on a long list of things I wanted to do to her, and my dick stiffened as I thought about it.

If she wanted to play dirty, I was ready, willing, and able to play dirty.

That can be arranged

No! I meant to hit the backdoor butt

I snorted a laugh.

It was autocorrect. She must have meant sock or shoe or foot. Who even knew? But before I could stop laughing and reply, a rapid-fire stream of filthy mistakes buzzed my phone.

backdoor

Goddamnit! Back-space not knees

What? And button not nuts

Butt

Not butt

I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Are you still there?

Still stuck on the cock in the mouth

Kill me now.

Autocorrect has a new fan today

I had to see her. I had a few weeks to kill before spring training, and she was a lot of fun. If she was having a thing with the gym teacher, I’d just back off. Or not. Whatever.

See you at the Petersen

I didn’t wait for a reply. I made a call.

“Jack?”

“That’s my name, Wallace. What do you need?”

“You’re a member at that car museum? The one on Fairfax that looks like a comic strip?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a thing tonight?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you dragging your wife again?”

“She’s trying to get out of it.”

I heard her in the background. “I hate cars, Dash. I hate them!”

“I love them,” I said. “Take me. I’ll buy you dinner and bring you flowers.”

“You gonna try to suck my dick too?”

There was a scuffle as the phone was snatched from Youder’s hand.

“Are you offering to go? Please go. I can put on yoga pants and watch
Scandal
.”

“Deal. Go get your yoga pants on.”

She hung up before her husband could refuse her. Gotta love that woman.

It had all started with the avocado tree.

The first thing it did wrong was make fruit in June instead of September. I hadn’t known about off-bloom years, when a tree just went apeshit a few months early. I’d come back from a losing series in New York to find my front yard had turned into a minefield of squirrel-chewed fruit. That gave me the first inkling that the thirty-foot tree would be a major encroachment on my routine.

I called the same guys I always called to come harvest the fruit. They thanked me and hauled away ten bags, leaving me one I tossed around on the plane the next time we traveled.

That could have been nothing. Really. But I knew it wasn’t. I carried around a kind of discomfort I didn’t have the will to release. Like a tiny rock in a lace-up boot. You figure it’s not so bad, not bad enough to warrant the unlacing and relacing of the entire boot.