Summer Swing (8 page)

“I don’t expect you to make those. Some of them are a couple of hours away.”

I shrugged. “I’ll just have to see
, I guess.” I dropped onto his bed stomach first and began entering his schedule on my phone. “Your first game is on
Monday
?”

He
dropped onto
the bed right next to me. “Yeah. I thought I told you that.”

With a chuckle I said, “I thought you meant the
next
Monday. Sorry, I guess now I know what you meant about meshing in just a week. You literally meant
one week
before games started.”

“Yep,” he replied, turning onto his side to face me. He ran a hand through my hair and then gathered it into a loose ponytail. “And all these guys range from ages eighteen to twenty-two, they’ve all had different high school and college experiences… It’ll be interesting,” he concluded with a smile.

“Did everyone end up getting housed? You said the league relies on host families, right?”

“Yeah, everyone has somewhere to stay for now. There are two guys that are stuffed in with another pair of guys for the time being until they can find another host family, but I think they’ve got it figured out.”

“Or you can stuff ‘em in here,” I joked, glancing around the bedroom. “Wyatt can adopt a couple more ball players.”

“He actually said he didn’t care,” he shrugged. “I know they haven’t found a host family for the two guys coming up from California yet, and they might have to take up a couch here for the time being.”

“Have Wyatt clear out that office by the family room.”

“Yeah I mentioned that. Right now it just stores his junk. He said it could be used as an extra bedroom if they needed it, but I doubt he’ll ever get to clearing it out.”

“Hmm, I can help do it if that’s what it takes.”

“We’d need
to fit two beds to go in there, too.
”

“
No problem
. My parents have a set of bunk beds that they’re saving for ‘grandkids,’ ” I said with a smile. “But the beds come apart and make two separate twin beds if those would fit in there. Well, unless the guys
prefer
to have them as bunk beds…”

Gage chuckled. “It’s not that they’re stacked as bunk beds. It’s the fact that
because
they’re bunk beds, they have both a headboard and a footboard. Not too comfortable when you’re over six-foot.”

“Well it’s either that or they can sleep on the floor.”

“Yep, beggars can’t be choosers. I kind of got lucky because I got the guestroom in my cousin’s house. None of the other guys have both a big bed
and
a room to themselves.”

“This is a
double
-sized bed. You don’t want to snuggle up to another player on your team?”

He scowled. “No way. Maybe if it were you,” he added, raising a brow.

“Oh but I’m sure there would definitely be a ‘no co-ed’ rule enforced,” I teased.

“Ah, very true, so I’m glad you’re not on my team then.”

He was still playing with my hair
, but he stopped when I turned to face him. I scooted myself closer to him until we were only inches apart. “So what determines which games you pitch and which games you don’t?” I asked against his lips.

He smiled as he kissed me back and replied, “Um, the starting rotation and…yeah.”

I smiled at his lost train of thought.
“I don’t know what that means.”

“I can’t think straight when you’re this close to me
with your mouth on mine
.”

“Do you want me to move?”

“No.”

He put his hand behind my head and laid me onto my bac
k, and while he was
still
leaning
on his elbow, continue
d
to kiss me. I slid my hands to his back and ended u
p pulling him a littl
e closer
—

“I’m telling mom.”

Gage immediately pulled himself away from me
and
Da
wn laughed from the doorway.

“Jeez
Gage, I’m not
your
mom,” she told him. She looked at me and said, “Just thought I’d tell you that I’m heading home.”

I sat up and asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. The guys are just going to play cards, and you know what a great poker face
I
have,” she rolled her eyes. “Oh and Gage, they wanted me to ask you if you’d play.”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’d rather make out with Ellie if I were you, too. Have a good night kid
die
s,” she waved over her shoulder.

Gage looked at me and said, “That means pick up where we left off.”

I laughed and
had to agree.

Chapter Five

I planned on going to Gage’s first game that Monday, whether he pitched or not, but it just so happened to be that he was pitching. I got off work at three that day, headed home, ate, changed, and made it to the ballpark by six. I kind of got a taste of why Dawn was always excited to watch Wyatt’s games because I felt really
giddy
to be there.

Most of the team was out in the grass, stretching and warming up, and Gage pretty much saw me right away. At first I just kind of stood where I was because I didn’t know where to sit, but then I saw a few of the guys from his team in the dugout to my left, so I decided that was the side to sit on. Gage made his way over, just as I was sitting down.

“Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey.” I
left
my things on the bleachers
and joined him by the railing. “My first sighting of you in a baseball uniform,” I observed. “Very nice.”

He smiled and said, “Nice sweatshirt.”

“Yeah, you like that?” I chuckled. “It was on the seat of my car. Some random person must have left me a
Bears
sweatshirt while I was at work.”

Most of his team began heading our way for the dugout, and I noticed several eyes looking us over.

“Well some random sister of yours gave me a key to your car.”

“If you were at the radio station, how come you didn’t come see me?”

“Am I allowed to?”

“Sure. Just ask for me at the f
ront desk and they’ll call me.”

“Hmm, I’ll keep that in mind. O
h and by the way,” he smiled, “Y
ou sounded great this morning.”

“Did you listen?”

“Mmhmm. How could I not?”

I laughed and said, “I don’t know. So it sounded okay?”

“Yeah, it was really good, Ell
i
e. I
think you’ll
get a good response. But I think if the listeners knew what you looked like, they’d enjoy picturing your beautiful face right along with listening to your beautiful voice.
Just like I did.
”

“Hmm, I think you’re just biased.”

“Oh, no,” he insisted with a shake of his head. “This entire city would agree with me. And I think my teammates are
also
havi
ng a good time looking you over right now
.”

He wasn’t even looking at any of them, but I glanced over to the dugout and several of them were standing there staring at us and having little conversations with eac
h other. I wished he hadn’t brought it to my attention because it made me feel
really insecure.

“Well you’d better go set things straight and inform them that staring is rude.”

“Is it? Then I apologize because I can’t ever
stop
staring at you.”

“Pssh, get out of here,” I told him, playfully shoving him away. “You’d better focus on that catcher’s glove. Mitt?”

He chuckled. “Kiss me so I can start focusing.”

I did kiss him, but I couldn’t help but wonder how many people were actually watching. “Do your best,” I told him.

With a smile he nodded, and then joined his team in the dugout.

I sat down by myself, except for the other people that were scattered along the bleachers around me. My sister
and Wyatt
sat down next to me just as the ga
me was about to start, and I was glad they were there.
For one, I just liked having my sister with me, and another, they answered any questions I had about the game.

Gage was doing really well through the third inning. The other team hadn’t even gotten a hit off of him, and he’d struck out
four
batters already. I was
returning his smile
when he
came back
to the dugout before the bottom of the third, but just as he disappeared
to his bench
, another face appeared in my line of sight. It was Dr.
Farrell
, and I was scared that he thought I was smiling at
him
when he saw me.

With his own smile, he made his way
up
the
three rows of bleachers
and actually sat down right next to
me
.
I was all by myself at the moment because Wyatt and Dawn had left for a trip to the concession stand.

“Hello, Ellie. It’s a small world,
eh
? My little brother is on the opposing team.”

“Hmm
, really?
Don’t Europeans play cricket or something? Not baseball?”

He laughed. “Are you really going to stereotype us?” When I didn’t respond he asked, “So I see the boyfriend’s arm is doing okay. It doesn’t seem to be giving him any trouble.”

“Yeah, it’s doing fine.”

“His doctor’s clearance was sufficient?” he asked with a tiny smile. I barely smiled as a reply and he added, “Ah, so he didn’t really need it.”

“No, he did.
His coach kind of ha
d a cow when he saw Gage’s arm. H
e’s
a real hot-tempered sort of guy
and was going to make him see a
nother
doctor.”

“They were stitches, for bloody sake,” he chuckled.

“It looked disgusting,” I scowled.

“Well, I was almost disappointed that you held yourself together so well in the ER. I was hoping to tend you as a patient as well.”

“And how old are you?” I had to know. “Because aren’t most doctors—when they have that ‘doctor’ title—
in
their thirties or something?”

He chuckled. “Possibly. But when you start your schooling early enough, you
find
yourself ge
tting your feet wet soon enough
as well. I finished university and began in the ER right away. I’ve only lived in the states for about a year. Brought my little brother with me so he could play the manly American version of cricket.”

“I’m amused, but you still didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, my age. I’m somewhere between twenty and thirty.”

“Thanks for narrowing that down.”

He smiled and said, “Okay, I’m
exactly
between twenty and thirty.”

I didn’t respond as I considered the piece of information. I watched the game for a minute before I turned to him and asked, “Did you really tell Gage that you thought I wasn’t that into him?”

He lightly laughed. “I suppose in a way I did.”

“What do you mean ‘in a way’? You either did or didn’t, right?”

“Well, here is what I said… After you left I just sort of said something like, ‘Oh, I guess I read your relationship wrong,’ and I apologized. I told him that I just assumed you were his girlfriend—
you know, good-
looking fellow
and a beautiful woman. He said you ‘kind of’ were. So…we began
speaking
about that. I prefer patients to be busy
with other thoughts than of what I’m actually doing to their flesh.”

He smiled when I involuntarily shivered with disgust.

“I could tell he really liked you,
though,
” he continued. “But he seemed kind of unsure about
your
take on
him
. I only mentioned a way to find out for sure, and that was to see how you reacted if I asked you out.”

“Ah, I see. So instead of being the conceited, egotistical jerk I thought you were, you were only trying to help a fellow
mate
?”

“Well, yes and no. Sure I wanted to help him out, but I was secretly hoping to
acquire
your phone number instead.
So yes, I really am the egotistical jerk you thought I was.
”