Hardball (8 page)

“Is there someone in your life, Apples? A guy type?”

I shook my head.

“Is that a ‘no’?”

I nodded. God almighty, what was wrong with me?

He bent toward me, and I could smell his cologne. Pure heat and crackling ozone. Spice and musk and something that could only be described as lust in a bottle.

“Was that a forward question?” he whispered in my ear. His breath was warm, and with every syllable, I knew how his tongue and lips moved to make the sound.

“No. I don’t think so. I mean, I guess that depends on what your intentions are. If you’re just curious, then it’s forward and inappropriate.”
You’re babbling
. “But if you’re trying to come on to me, it’s probably one of the first questions you should ask because a gentleman would establish consent.”

You implied he wanted to come on to you.

I wasn’t the feisty heroine I imagined I was. The whole conversation had no place in a romance novel, or even life. I was supposed to feel his heat and still parry/thrust with clever comebacks. I was supposed to push him away while I beckoned him closer, all leading him to chase me until I could no longer run. For every hundred times I had been told by my father and my friends that romance novels were fake, life proved it true two hundred times.

“I found the word for that dress,” he said.

God, I hoped it wasn’t
vintage
or something. “Tell me.”

“Molten.”

My insides went as molten as my dress, and I saw him and what he was saying in a narrow tunnel. He liked the dress—and my body in it.

This was the best night of my life. Ever.

I was losing my crackers. I needed a distraction.

“Look,” I cried, pointing at a guy in a top hat and white face paint approaching us with a stack of iPads.

“Play the trivia game!” Top Hat handed me one. “We’re giving away a trip to Cancun.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’ll play!”

“Keep your eyes on the screen!” He pointed at a flat screen behind the Mercedes exhibit, then he handed Dash a tablet and took off for the next willing victims.

“Wait!” Dash held up his tablet and put it back on Top Hat’s stack. “I’ll play with her.”

“Play with me?”

Top Hat took off, and I was left with a shrinking space between me and my double meanings.

“Yeah. Like sackmates.”

Dash seemed to like sexy entendres, and everything I wanted in the world right then was for Dashiell Wallace to like me. I didn’t have to promise him anything, and he didn’t have to deliver after we left the event. All he had to do was stand near me. Let me be in his orbit.

“What if we win?” I said.

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Now…” He leaned over me to look at the screen. “We need a nickname. Apples?”

“Apple Dash.”

“Sounds like a delicious dessert.” The glow of the screen washed the surfaces of his face in blue light as he tapped in the name.

I didn’t even know what the nickname was supposed to mean except we’d become a team while I wasn’t looking.

I was going to die with happiness. It was temporary of course. But I couldn’t stop smiling. I knew then why women threw themselves at the feet of men like Dash. Actors, musicians, athletes, the kings and gods of the world. The social alphas. The gifted ones.

It felt good. Really, really good.

The screen flashed. Ready-Set-Go.

“The suspense is killing me,” he said, glancing sidelong at me.

“You better watch it,” I said. “Trivia’s my thing.”

The screen flashed.

First category. Three questions.

“Really?” he asked.

Literature.

“Yes. Really.”

In what play was the phrase beast with two backs coined?

The word was almost out of my mouth, but I didn’t get past the initial vowel before Dash had typed the answer.

Othello.

I tapped Send, and a big gold star filled the screen.

“Talk about double entendre,” I said.

“He’s the king.”

Who created Lenny and George?

“That’s so vague,” I grumbled.

“Do you know it?” His fingers hovered over the screen as if a batter was switching his stance to send it his way.

I scrunched up my face and let it go when I realized how unattractive that was. I did know, but I didn’t. “Skinny book. Tree on the front.”

“Right. Uh…” He shook his head as if loosening the information. “Unemployment. The Great Depression.”

“Steinbeck.”

“Has to be.” He tapped out
John Steinbeck
.

Gold star.

We high-fived, and for a second, his fingers curled into mine. I pulled my hand away. I would have burst if he’d held my hand. Just exploded into hot, sexy bits of Vivian all over the automotive museum.

What 2012 American novel ended with an unfinished sentence?

It was a hard question because the book wasn’t on any bestseller list, nor was it part of popular culture. It was thirteen-hundred pages long, and the only way to know that was to finish the book, which no one had. Except me. That was where I earned the prize. The other questions were bullshit.

“I got this,” he said.

“Don’t send!”

He couldn’t know. He was going to type in the wrong book entirely. I would correct it before he hit Send, saving the win for us and impressing the hell out of him with how much time I spent alone on my couch with a Kindle.

But his fingers tapped the glass confidently, and the letters that appeared were exactly right.

Eternal Joke.

He knew.

“Right?” he said.

“Right.” I hit Send. “Did you read it?” It was a stupid question. I was supposed to assume he had, but where had he found time to read that monstrous doorstop of a book?

The screen flashed beneath us. I knew why. Gold star.

“I like long books.” He shrugged.

“I’ve never met anyone who finished the whole thing. Did you like it?”

“Loved it. Right up to that last comma.”

Winners will be chosen randomly from players who answered all three questions correctly!

Next Category – Pets!

“It was beautiful,” I said. “Do you read a lot?”

“Yeah. It helps me.”

“Helps you what?”

He didn’t answer but handed me the iPad. “I travel too much for pets. Do you want to do this one?”

Without him? Did I want to answer questions about pets without him? No, I didn’t. I just wanted to ask him what else he’d read, his favorites of all time, everything. I pushed away the iPad.

“Paper or Kindle?” I said.

“Paper.”

“You’re missing out! Look, I have my Kindle in this tiny bag.” I opened my gold clutch, revealing my slim grey device. “I can catch a couple of pages anywhere, any time. It’s the best thing!”

He dropped the iPad on Top Hat’s pile and guided me around the room. “I’m not a couple-of-pages-at-a-time kinda guy. Once I’m in, I’m all in.”

“What are you reading now?”

I practically jumped out of my fancy shoes. I was sure he wasn’t reading about Jax the sexy banker and Harriet the waitress as they explored a hundred ways to have sex, but that was okay. I was sure he was reading something that had come across my path, and the thought… oh, the thought that we could talk about
books
of all things was so exciting I couldn’t contain myself.

“
Reaper’s Weekend
,” he said.

“Oh! That’s…” I caught myself before I said
hard.
“Postmodern.”

“The denser and more opaque, the better for me. Slows me down, or I go too fast.”

We ran into Jim. Michelle was on his arm.

“Hey,” Jim said, pointing at me then Dash. “Shortstop. Dodgers. Three Golden Gloves.”

The men shook hands.

“He was with me the whole time you were in the Batmobile,” I said. “You notice
now
?”

He jerked his thumb toward Michelle. “I was distracted by her beauty.”

She elbowed him playfully. I didn’t know what they’d fought about, but it obviously wasn’t anything a little jealousy couldn’t fix.

Jim turned to Dash. “What’s up with Youder? What are you gonna do when he goes free agent?”

It was a normal question, yet I didn’t know what to expect from Dash since he’d tensed up on me when I asked. He and Youder were great partners. Almost psychically connected. They’d led the league in double plays for three of the last five years, and I just figured if he could do that with Youder, he could do it with anyone.

But no. Dash’s expression was clear. The impending free-agency of his fielding partner bothered him. “I’ll figure it out.”

Youder was a sore spot. Jim hadn’t done anything wrong, but I wanted to pop him.

Michelle nudged Jim, and he said to me, “Meet downstairs when it’s over?”

“Yeah.”

“I can take her home,” Dash said.

My mouth opened. Words came out.

No. Nothing came out. They got caught in a mental bottleneck.

I probably looked like a choking victim.

Sort it out. Fast.

What Dash had intuited was that Jim wanted to go home with Michelle. He was right. Jim didn’t need me dragging him to the west side.

But Gentleman Jim wouldn’t allow me to get in a strange car with a strange man no matter how famous he was.

And what did
I
want?

“No,” Jim said in the split second it took me to separate the mental wheat from chaff. “I brought her. I’ll get her back.”

Michelle interjected her two cents right after. “Girl, he brought you. He delivers you home. Don’t worry about me.”

“Of course.” Dash nodded.

“I’ll take a Ryde.” I waved away their objections. “I’m fine. Thank you, guys. But I got it.”

“It’s decided.” Dash held his arm out for me.

I slipped my hand in the crook of his elbow. The wool of his jacket was warm to the touch, the arm under it hard with muscle. The moment lasted forever. I was at Dashiell Wallace’s side. Thank God I was wearing Mom’s dress. Even if I wasn’t the most glamorous woman in the world, in that dress, I could pretend I was.

Dash pulled me away from the crowd to a less-populated room housing concept cars from the eighties. A solar car. A one-person car. A three-wheeled car.

“I feel like I haven’t earned this nice treatment,” I said. “I haven’t found your glove yet.”

“You will.”

“I can’t guarantee it. There’s not much time until spring break.” I stopped the stroll around and faced him. “I just want to tell you the odds aren’t great. I can’t search everyone’s house. In the end, it’s just us hoping one of the kids is honest.”

He walked a few steps along the guardrail to the card for the wind-powered car, but his eyes didn’t move with the lines. They locked onto the middle distance. I shouldn’t have broken the moment with stupid pessimism. Now I felt like an interloper in this moment.

It was just a glove.

Right?

“I don’t like losing things,” he said before his gaze flicked to me. “It bothers me.”

“Yeah, I understand. It’s disruptive.”

He tilted his head, blinked, looked through me as if my skin were made of glass. “Yes. That’s exactly right.”

I had about four minutes’ worth of babble in me. The cost of attachment to objects. The time spent looking for the old glove versus the time spent getting used to a new one. I discarded all of it in favor of letting him look at me like that.

“How long did you have that glove?” I finally asked.

He took my hand.

He was touching me. Skin to skin. This whole scenario was impossible.

“Not long.” He led me around the perimeter. “I got a new sponsorship at the beginning of the year, so I switched.”

I would have broken in with a question, but he was still holding my hand. I could barely think, much less gently and subtly question why a new glove would mean a damn thing to him.

“It wasn’t the glove,” he continued.

“No?”

“No.”

He led me to the elevator banks. A few other people in eveningwear waited.

“Where are we going?”

“The VIP event’s upstairs.”

The doors slid open. People got out in their black ties and sparkly gowns, tittering and slurring, holding up purple tickets.

A man in a burgundy jacket stood by the elevator control panel. “Do you have a ticket?” he asked me.

“I do.” Dash took out his ticket. “The lady’s with me.”

Burgundy Jacket turned around, took a look at Dash, and nodded. The doors slid closed. “Yes, sir.”

The elevator whooshed, and I felt the enormous pressure under the soles of my stilettos. We stood side by side, facing the door, arms pressed together. He was an immovable wall against me, all muscle under his tux.

“Rule-breaker,” I mumbled.

He leaned down to my ear, and I breathed in his cologne, memorizing it, shifting the angle of my chin just enough to feel the skin of his cheek on my jaw.

“You make me reckless.”

My knees went weak, and I lost the capacity for words just as the elevator stopped. I lost my balance, and Dash put his arm around my waist before I fell, drawing me close.

“You all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” I moved an imaginary piece of hair behind my ear.

“You’re blushing.”

I thought I’d been aroused before, but his words and his physical presence activated every nerve between my legs. I sucked in a breath to keep from moaning at the feeling.

Was he turning a little red again? Because I was for sure. The heat in my cheeks didn’t lie, nor did the deepening color of his.

What a strange man. What a bundle of contradictions. Like that slightly overlapping tooth in front. It was awkward but somehow a necessary part of the whole incredible package.

I wasn’t tall enough. Fit enough. Rich enough. Smart enough. Accomplished enough. Exciting enough. I was a dead weight to a man. Didn’t he know that? Couldn’t he tell I’d drag him down?

I wasn’t supposed to set my sights too high. My mother had told me so. My father—not my real dad but the man who had given me my DNA—had been “beautiful as a Michelangelo and smart as Einstein.” That was what my mother had always said. Even when I was only a first grader, she’d leaned over me as I ate my blueberry oatmeal and was very, very clear about how I was to react to that kind of guy.