Wild Pitch (Dominating the Diamond Book 1)

CHAPTER 5

Smith brushes past me, checking me with his shoulder just hard enough to bait me into a fight I am not going to give him. I am too old to risk my season over a fight with a younger player who’s got two inches and twenty pounds on me. I am way too old to make a fool of myself in a bar brawl. And I am definitely too old to spend a night behind bars because this asshole underestimated my right hook.

His loud-mouthed buddies follow him out of the restaurant. I drop into my seat with a grunt that disguises my sigh of relief as something my teammates will laughingly interpret as, ‘I’m too old for this shit.’ The throbbing returns behind my eyes, and I pinch the bridge of my nose while the conversation around the table returns to normal.

I’m about to call it an early night and recline on some heating pads when her laughter slices through the crowded bar. It’s loud and full, and considering my building headache, it should be grating. For the same reason that made me insist she come out to dinner, her laugh makes me smile. I don’t even want to examine whatever wild hair up my ass prompted me to drive her twenty minutes out of the way just to see the sunset over the cliffs.

I tell myself it’s only because I don’t want to see a talent like hers extinguished before it has a chance to burn, just for being a woman. I ignore the voice in my head taunting me that, if it were only that, I wouldn’t have to try so hard not to look at her.

Of course, she’s pretty. Gorgeous, if I’m really being honest. Her body is amazing by nature—wide hips, long legs—and crafted by years in weight rooms and on the field. Straight hair the blue-black color of midnight sways down the middle of her back, even pulled up into her high ponytail. Her cheekbones are high and tinged pink from a couple beers, over a wide mouth and sharp jaw. Wearing no makeup and a hoodie that looks like she stole it from a boyfriend, she somehow keeps drawing my attention away from everyone else in the room.

“Well, Reyes, what do you say?” Kitt asks, bumping my shoulder to get my attention.

“The fuck are you talking about?” I rub my eyes and reach for my beer, hoping he doesn’t notice why I was distracted the first however many times he asked the question.

He jerks his head toward the bar, a splash of light from the television illuminating two tall blond bears making eyes at us. Times may be changing—Ramirez is hopefully evidence of that—but progress is slow in the league. Kitt and I are still the only two out players—him gay and me bisexual—and I am grateful as hell for his friendship. For all the times we’ve been each other’s wingmen over the years and for every time one of us needed a shoulder to lean on when the pressure got to be too much in ways our other teammates don’t understand. But I’m not in the mood tonight.

I haven’t been in the mood for a one-night stand for a while. It was one thing, right after Oliver and I broke up. When I was on the rebound and a part of me was enjoying the freedom and attention. After three years of sleeping around instead of falling in love and settling down like he has, meaningless flings have lost most of their excitement.

My career is still my number one, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I don’t regret my choices even if lately I find myself wishing things could be different more and more often.

“Not tonight, man,” I say. Kitt’s on a very short list of people I could explain everything to, but the best part about him is that he doesn’t need me to. “I can be your wingman if you need me, though. Just one more beer.”

“No worries, buddy.” He claps me on the shoulder. “I may not be a derby winner, but I can hold my own just fine.” He finishes his beer and gets up from the table. “Don’t wait up for me.”

I roll my eyes and wave him off. I set the rest of my beer down and push my own chair back, ready to leave when Ramirez catches my attention again. She gets up, and I’m not surprised to see her leaving early considering how hard it was to convince her to come out in the first place. When Dante gets up with her, I have to do a double-take.

He’s happily married, and I’ve never seen the slightest hint of impropriety from him. Not to mention, it would be damned gutsy of him to make a move in front of me, when I’m nearly as good of friends with his wife as I am with him—teammates or not.

They head toward the dance floor instead of the elevators, and my shoulders relax. I’m still tense, but at least they aren’t hovering up around my ears. Keeping an eye on one of my best friends is an excuse to keep watching Ramirez, but they don’t touch each other once. Dante is the king of the dance floor as usual, moving in his own world while people flock to the joy in his orbit. But Ramirez holds her own—music flowing through her lithe body and her hips swaying in ways that could make a man see god.

Not me, obviously. Some other, hypothetical man. Or just about anyone at the bar, from the looks of things.

My phone buzzes. It’s the distraction I need to take my eyes off her before I make a fool of myself.

“Oliver,” I grumble as the name lights up my screen. I’ve long since changed his picture back to a blank avatar, though I’m going to have to update it at some point if I want to be the bigger man. I flip my phone over to silence a call that I know I should take.

“I’d recognize that look anywhere,” says the second baseman sitting a few chairs over. “Ex trouble? Or a groupie that can’t take no for an answer?”

“Neither,” I lie. “It’s no big deal.”

My phone betrays me, buzzing again while the other man laughs.

I shake my head and finally get up from the table for real. Whether I intend to answer Oliver’s call or not, I can’t stay here surrounded by people trying to have a good time. I track down our waitress to cover the bill and avoid taking one last glance at Ramirez as I head into the lobby. I’m halfway tempted to put my phone on do not disturb and go for a walk. There’s nothing like a night breeze and salty ocean air to clear the mind. My phone buzzes again before I get a chance, and my older sister’s smile lights up the screen.

I can avoid a lot, but I can’t ignore her.

“What’s up, Nessa?” I answer as the elevator doors open. “Is Leila good?”

“Is that how it’s gonna be, Matty? You only answer for your niece?” The hurt is evident in Vanessa’s voice.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” I say, and I mean it. “You know you can call me anytime, for any reason.”

“Is that why you let it ring so many times?”

“I was out to dinner with the guys, Nessa. I had to get out of the restaurant. These ears aren’t getting any younger. Do you want me to be the old man yelling with my phone on speaker in the middle of the bar?”

“Right.” Disbelief drips in the single syllable response, but she doesn’t push the argument.

“Wait up!” a voice I’ve been ignoring all night yells from the lobby. Rubber soles slap hardwood floors, picking up the pace as the elevator doors slide shut. “Hey! Hold the doors.”

I ignore Ramirez and lean back against the mirror.

“I know you heard me.” Ramirez slams her hand between the doors seconds before they close. “Oh. It’s you. Thanks for looking out, pendejo.”

I suck my teeth and point to the phone. She meets my expression, raised brow for raised brow, and pushes the button for the twenty-third floor harder than necessary.

“Are you even listening to me?” Vanessa asks while I turn my laugh at Ramirez into a cough. “We used to be so close, Matty. You know I wouldn’t have gone through with this if you had said we didn’t have your blessing—”

“You have my blessing, Nessa. I’m on the elevator, and I got distracted. That’s all, okay? Don’t read into this, something that isn’t there.” I take a deep breath. “It’s going to be a while before I can make it up to the Bay, but we’ve got all home games next week. Why don’t you bring Leila and Mom down, and we can have some family time.”

“I’m planning a wedding and Leila’s debut. And your niece has school.”

“Then take her out Monday or Friday and come down for a long weekend. Bring whatever wedding planning you need with you, and I promise to be supportive. Alright? You know I’ll always take care of you.”

“You know I love you. And Leila and Mom would both kill me if I said no,” Vanessa says. “You’ll get us tickets for your games? You know Mom wouldn’t miss you playing for anything.”

“Like I’d miss a chance to have her there,” I laugh.

“Four tickets, Matty.”

“Vanessa—”

“I promised Leila she could bring her partner, Gray, the next time we had tickets,” my sister cuts me off before I can protest.

“Alright, of course.” I decide to end the call before this can turn back into an argument that I don’t want to have at all, much less in front of a teammate. “Look, I’ve got to go, okay? I’m in the elevator, and I’m calling it an early night. I’ll call you after I get home tomorrow.”

“You’d fucking better,” Vanessa says. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I hang up just as the elevator beeps for the third floor.

“Cute,” Ramirez says without looking at me. She sways to the elevator music with heavy-lidded eyes and flushed cheeks, and I’m not sure she realizes she’s doing it.

“Just talking to my sister.” I stare straight ahead, but catch her reflection in the mirror.

“Not that,” she says. Her voice is playful, if slightly wounded. “Ignoring me when I asked you to hold the door. And let me save you some trouble before you pretend you didn’t hear me.”

“Can you not make a big deal out of nothing? I’m dealing with enough of that already, from people I have to take it from.”

I know my response is disproportionate. That she’s riding high on the win and the little bit of camaraderie she felt tonight—on and off the field. Between Oliver’s missed calls, the bittersweet promise of seeing my family this week, and the physical pain I can’t let anyone see, I am in no place to play nice with the lonely rookie.

“Wow.” She drags out the word, her good mood souring. “What happened to there being more to baseball than what happens on the field? Huh? What was all that about needing to act like part of the team?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, Ramirez, we aren’t teammates,” I say. “Not anymore.”

“Real nice.” She crosses her arms and paces in the corner of the elevator that feels smaller by the second.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors beep by in blessed silence. My headache is back in full force, and the dim light reflecting off the mirrored walls is enough to make my eyes water. The beer I didn’t finish was a poor choice, and I’m already mapping out a route to the nearest ice machine for my knee.

“They weren’t kidding about you being a grumpy old man, were they?”

She moves closer, wrapping me in that intoxicatingly sweet scent. She smells like memories of simpler times—like bubblegum and strawberry milkshakes after a winning game. She is overwhelming and frustrating, and I don’t know how anyone thinks when she gets this close.

My phone buzzes again, and I answer on instinct as the seventh floor beeps.

“What did you forget, Nessa?” I ask, pointedly ignoring Ramirez who has the courtesy to back up, if only a couple steps.

“It’s not Vanessa,” answers the voice I’ve been avoiding all night. “We need to talk.”

“Not tonight, Oliver.” I don’t wait for him to argue. The end call beeps in harmony with the eighth floor, and I am back alone in this elevator with a woman who talks too much, and ghosts that won’t set me free.

“Glad to know I’m not the only one you’re so short with,” Ramirez snorts. It’s a hollow echo compared to her laughter with Dante, but it steals any air Oliver’s call didn’t already smother from my lungs. She steps in front of me as I stare at the nine flashing above the elevator doors. “You look like you should have taken your own advice and loosened up at the bar. Does a little small-talk with me really make you that tense?”

She moves in closer, and the wall of strawberry sweetness around her pushes me back. The handrail presses into my back, and I scowl to hide the pain tightening my face.

“Don’t tell me I freaked you out by admitting I have your rookie card,” she taunts. “Trust me, you’re hardly my type—big, grumpy, old man too busy playing team daddy to have fun with the rest of us—”

She’s too close; her perfume and her dark eyes backing me into a literal corner.

“Back off. I’m not going to warn you again.”

“Or what, viejo?”