Wild Pitch (Dominating the Diamond Book 1)

CHAPTER 4

I don’t make the mistake of eavesdropping when I return to my makeshift locker room after the game. For the first time since the minors, I trusted my catcher wholly, and—snark aside—Reyes didn’t let me down once.

I half-expect to wake up from the dream of pitching in the All-Star Game. Being here at all is still unreal—let alone believing that my pitching actually helped us win. I keep my music loud and sing to myself under my breath to block the rest of the team out. The last thing I need is to be smashed back down to earth by men who should be celebrating our win with me.

It doesn’t take me long to change and pack up my bag. I knew better than to expect an actual shower in this janitorial closet they’ve turned into a temporary locker room for me. A few wipes, face wash, and some deodorant are enough to clean the important bits, which is as good as it’s going to get. It’s not like I’m going anywhere except the closest place to get fish tacos, the nearest beach to eat them at, then straight back to my hotel. I tie my high-tops over my black yoga pants and shrug into a clean bra and tank top underneath an oversized Scorpions hoodie.

From the deep breath I take as I raise my head high, it’s as if I’m preparing to face a coliseum of old, not my own winning team. I keep my headphones on and cross the locker room in efficient strides. It isn’t going to help my reputation as an ice queen, but it hurts less than listening to them blatantly invite everyone else out to celebrate except me. I tell myself it hurts less if I initiate it.

It’s a lie.

“Where do you think you’re going so fast, Texas?” Reyes shouts loud enough I can’t pretend to have missed it.

I pivot to see him watching me from his locker. He leans back in his chair with long legs kicked out in front of him, wearing joggers that cling to thighs thick from years of squatting for pitches. I choose to ignore the fact that he’s shirtless, with his hands behind his head.

His hands drop in front of him, and his muscles bunch as he shrugs.

“Are you trying to beat us to dinner, or what?” he asks, and all but a few guys have the decency not to complain loud enough for me to hear them.

“I have an early flight,” I say, giving us all a way out, no matter how badly I want to be treated like every other teammate. It took a while, but even in the minors, they accepted me eventually. All I can do is hope that if I keep my head down and let them do it on their own terms, my teammates on the newly rebranded Texas Scorpions will too.

“You and eighty percent of the guys loitering in here.” Reyes leans forward with his elbows on his widespread knees. He waits until the rest of the team starts filing out with their attention focused on anything but me, for once. “Your call. But if you want to be part of the team, you’ve got to act like part of the team. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“That’s all?” I ask. “Really? No big speech to convince me to go somewhere we both know I’m not actually wanted? Not even by you, you’re just the only one decent enough to be a good captain.”

“Don’t ever tell me what I want,” Reyes says. He pushes himself out of his chair and turns toward his locker.

The fatigue and post-game adrenaline drop must be worse than I thought. I all but stare at him with my jaw hanging open; his back is far more impressive than his abs, thick ropes of muscle dancing beneath golden-brown skin as he yanks on his shirt.

“Anyway, we’re just going to the hotel restaurant. You can leave any time, so what do you have to lose?”

“Why do you care?” I ask. It sounds sarcastic out of defensiveness, but I genuinely want to understand.

“I don’t, really.” He grabs his bag and gestures me toward the door. “Hell, I’m usually the first to leave these things. But I’ve had my years of celebratory dinners and bonding over beers. I don’t need this. You do.”

“Don’t tell me what I need,” I paraphrase his words back at him.

“After all your years of Little League, college ball, minors, tell me you don’t already know that this sport is about more than what happens on the field. You can’t be a team if you only ever stare at each other across the diamond, Ramirez.”

I hate that he’s right. Hate that I know he’s right.

“Are you done with the speeches for the night?” I ask as I pull out my phone to look up the nearest fish taco place and order a ride.

“Don’t bother,” he says, pointing to my phone and ignoring my jab. “Promise not to touch the radio, and you can ride with me.”

“The hotel is less than a quarter-mile away,” I point out.

“And we’re making a pit-stop,” he says matter-of-factly. He opens the door to the parking structure and taps his foot in mock impatience.

“Are you going to tell me where?”

“You played in San Diego yet?” he asks. I shake my head and he keeps going. “Exactly. Now, what I’m not going to let you do, is come all the way out here, and not see the beach because you’re too preoccupied with baseball.”

His car alarm beeps twice, and I hesitate for only a second before dropping my phone in my bag and climbing in.

“Why do you even have a car here?” I ask as I buckle my seat belt and ignore the way he winces as he turns on his seat heater in the middle of summer. “Or is the legendary Mateo Reyes too good to bus it from Anaheim to San Diego with the rest of his team?”

“I’m an arrogant asshole, but not that much of one,” he says with a laugh that does very uncomfortable things to my insides. “Just enough of an asshole to have a buddy at a local dealership let me borrow something when we’re in town.”

“I’m sorry, what part of that made you less of an ass?” I ask, and he laughs that damned laugh again.

We may not have to face the horrendous parking lot congestion that thousands of fans are sitting in, but the twenty-minute drive to the beach quickly becomes a slow experiment in torture. Knowing that my attraction to the man in the driver’s seat is just the result of a long-standing teenage crush on a sports hero and has nothing to do with the man himself, doesn’t make it any less unsettling. It doesn’t make the heat in my cheeks or between my legs any less noticeable.

“Um, tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure we passed like five beaches,” I say after ten minutes of trying to find something to break the silence.

“Trust me. You want to see this spot,” he says. “It’s not much further.”

He isn’t wrong. We catch the final sunset rays hitting the cliffs and setting the crystalline waves on fire. We stare down at the beach together, and our silence feels a lot less awkward against the backdrop of crashing waves and barking of sea lions. The sky fades through shades of pink and purple, and stars flicker to life above us before we head back to the car in silence.

The car eases back onto the road, and I go back to tamping down my unwarranted crush. Reyes is back to his usual quiet self, seemingly oblivious to my personal hell in the passenger’s seat. The only sound is the purring of the engine, and the low bass pumping through the speakers. His hand changes gears between us, and I’m forced to crack the window for a little fresh air.

“Shut that,” he grumbles. “Turn the air up if you need to.”

I can’t exactly tell him that it’s fresh air I need—thanks to the way his forearm muscles flex when his long fingers curl around the gear shifter—so I shut the window and cross my legs.

Neither of us speaks again. We pull into the hotel before I explode—from the awkwardness, or misguided lust, or both, I’m not sure which.

We enter the hotel restaurant almost an hour after leaving the park, but the dining room is still as loud as it is dark, illuminated primarily by screens playing highlight reels of our game. The space is full of ballplayers celebrating or commiserating before early flights and long bus rides in the morning and a few dedicated fans—mostly of the looking-for-a-good-time-and-a-night-to-tell-stories-about variety, considering the venue.

It’s not a new scene for me, but it usually isn’t my scene at all. Though that’s more for lack of invitation than lack of interest. I stand to the side while Reyes makes the rounds—doing all of the odd things men do to have physical contact without having physical contact, as if he didn’t see them all ten minutes ago.

“Don’t worry, I don’t bite.” Dante Santos pats the back of the seat next to him, and I wait for him to add something suggestive about only biting when I ask for it. “I know you said you have an early flight—” the Dominican third baseman continues, and I brace myself, “but if you get a chance, you’ve got to check out Shrimp Heads. Like, honestly, if it’s the only thing you do before you take off tomorrow, you’ll thank me for it.”

An earnest restaurant recommendation was the last thing I expected. And it is entirely delightful, especially since my plans for late-night fish tacos on the beach have been derailed. I take the seat, feeling like I’ve made my first friend in the majors, and hating that he’s on a rival team halfway across the country from my own. If this exchange is anything to judge him by, my life would feel a lot less lonely if I had even a single teammate like Santos back home in Texas.

“Want a beer?” he offers, already holding up the pitcher. I nod and watch Reyes take the furthest seat from me while Dante pours. “You had a hell of a game today, Ramirez.”

“What?” I say out of habit, before giving his question time to register. I barrel forward before he feels the need to repeat himself. “I mean, thanks. You were incredible out there, too.”

I try to focus on Santos, but even when I turn toward him, I can’t help watching Reyes out of the corner of my eye. He’s relaxed, sleeves rolled up and a beer in one hand, but he isn’t any more talkative with the guys than he was with me in the car. Maybe I shouldn’t care so much—I probably shouldn’t care at all—but it still makes me feel better.

Dante carries the conversation, for which my introverted ass is eternally grateful. He asks me about Texas—whether I grew up there and whether I like playing there. He gives me some friendly rivalry bullshit, and tells a joke that would have seemed clever if I could focus. He is the first teammate to make this much effort to talk to me, and I am being a distracted ass.

Don’t ask about Reyes. Don’t ask about Reyes. Don’t ask about Reyes.

“You’ve played with him a long time, haven’t you?”

“Who, Reyes? Yeah, I’ve been playing with that asshole about twelve years now,” Santos answers without the slightest annoyance at my abrupt change of subject. “Mm, mm, mm.” He smacks his lips dramatically and kisses his fingers. “It”s no Crab Bite, but this calamari’s still pretty damned good. You’ve got to get in on this, Ramirez.”

I avoid the tentacle-looking ones while Santos holds the plate for me. He very vocally makes sure I get plenty of the assorted sauces before he passes the appetizer dish on to the players sitting between us and a scowling Smith.

“Is he always that good with pitchers, or was he just taking pity on the girl?” I ask, popping an aioli-covered ring in my mouth.

“Maybe he was just on his best behavior for the All-Star game,” Dante says completely deadpan. I’m about to apologize for saying something wrong when a grin breaks across his face. “I’m kidding. He hasn’t gotten this far just for being an old grump with a good batting average. He’s damned good at reading batters and even better at communicating with his pitchers.”

“Right. Duh.” I take a long swig from my beer, hoping no one will notice me blushing.

“Feel better?” Dante asks, pitching his voice low and even.

“Yeah, of course. I just got a little lost in my head, no big deal.”

“Don’t worry. It happens to the best of us.” Dante leans over to nudge me with his elbow. “Here, get some of these before the rest of the boys wolf everything down.”

Dante and I continue to bond over appetizers. He’s got a hawk eye for the servers, slipping them a generous tip to make sure each plate goes by us first when it hits the table, which is only one of many things that makes me laugh with him until my cheeks hurt. Slowly, a few other teammates join in our conversation, and for the first time in months, I don’t feel alone while surrounded by people.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and Smith has more talent for ruining things than he does with a bat. He’s been eyeing me harder with every drink, getting louder and harder to ignore the deeper he gets into the bottle. My only relief as he raises his voice over the din of the music and chatter is how few of our teammates are responding.

The waitress brings him another drink that he doesn’t need and will definitely regret on his flight tomorrow. He whispers something to her when she leans over him. From the way the guys on either side of him laugh, he isn’t all that quiet about it. Tension bunches my shoulders, but I keep my mouth shut as the woman giggles.

My ability to keep quiet vanishes when he slaps her ass. I kiss being one of the guys goodbye and open my mouth to say god only knows what. Someone else beats me to it.

“Hey.” Reyes’ tone makes that one syllable say it all. The hard look in his brown eyes, the stern set of his eyebrows, and the complete lack of his dimples as he frowns leave no room for argument.

“My bad. Did I miss you calling dibs?” Smith pushes back. “Or, oh damn, have you already hit that? Worried about me taking your sloppy seconds—”

“That’s enough, Smith.” Reyes’ smooth voice is chilling. “Why don’t you get some food in you? Soak some of that booze up before you say something you should regret.”

“I get it. Can’t have any fun with the girl around, can we?” Smith raises his glass toward me while stuffing a roll in his mouth. He takes a giant bite and doesn’t bother to swallow before he starts talking again. “Are you trying to act like a nice guy because you’re afraid to hurt the league’s new cash cow’s feelings—or are you trying to sleep with her, too?”

“You are on very thin ice right now,” Reyes says. “I’d think long and hard about whatever comes out of your mouth next.”

“I’m just saying. Waitress is hot enough; maybe we should throw a uniform on her and put her out on the field. Since apparently no one cares about talent anymore as long as we’re making headlines.”

Reyes stands so quickly, Kitt has to catch the chair before it tips over. He stalks around the table, muscles flexing beneath the heathered-gray cotton clinging to his body. Smith doesn’t say anything, but his Adam’s apple bobs harder than a buoy before a tropical storm.

“I think it’s time for you to go upstairs and sober up,” Reyes says. “Before you embarrass the rest of us with your behavior.”

“Chill, Reyes,” Smith says, but his response has all the bite of a cornered chihuahua. “It’s just locker room talk—”

“First of all, look around. Does this look like a goddamned locker room to you? Huh? More importantly. Not the fuck in my locker room,” Reyes growls. “You pull this shit back in Florida; it’s not my business. But not here, and not while I’m around.”