CHAPTER 26
“What the hell is wrong with your face, Reyes?” Pe?a shouts from across the locker room.
“Is that–is that a smile?” Yamada leans in to pinch my cheeks and laughs as I shove him away to finish lacing my cleats. “What happened to our grumpy old man?”
I hadn’t even realized I was smiling. My attention was hers the moment she walked in the door. Before I heard her name, before she was close enough to lure me in with her scent; I knew she was there before I’d even laid eyes on her.
“I know that look,” Kepler says. “Someone got laid this morning. Must have been a special one for you to let them stay the night.”
“Shut up, Kepler. You wouldn’t know a damn thing about getting some.” Dante’s quick jab distracts our teammates, taking the spotlight off me and turning that ribbing on our left fielder.
Dante’s the only one who doesn’t look away from my face. He raises one eyebrow and his big, round eyes flit toward Ramirez and back pointedly, letting me know exactly what he thinks he knows. I don’t have time to worry about him because I’m starting to worry about the direction the jokes at Kepler’s expense are taking. I wasn’t blowing smoke when I told Ramirez that I wouldn’t tolerate that sort of ‘locker room talk.’
“Oh yeah? How’s married life treating you?” Ramirez teases Dante before I can get too deep in my own worries. She’s nearly crossed the room now, standing only a couple yards from that door that will separate her from the rest of us. She’s close enough that I could stretch my legs out and pull my chair right up to her.
“Very well, thank you for asking,” Dante says with mock seriousness. He clears his throat and adjusts himself in his chair like an old man making himself comfortable in a recliner during the family reunion. “You all should be so lucky.”
I know they’re all joking, but that gives me pause. It’s not directed at me; it isn’t even meant to be an insult. But this is the comment that cuts to my soul.
It’s the reminder that some players–however few and far between–find a way to have it all. Baseball, the career, marriage, a happy family. Sure, I know from a decade as teammates and friends that it’s not all butterflies and roses for Dante. I was there when travel took its toll on his marriage. When counseling was at times the glue straining to hold them together. I know how temptation and jealousy both run rampant on the road, even when nothing inappropriate is going on.
“Damn, Reyes, we didn’t mean to piss in your cereal,” Yamada says.
He says it off-hand and moves onto something more entertaining in the corner with the players his age, but the joke makes me aware of how much my expressions are giving me away. It’s a transparency I can’t afford–one I didn’t have before Ramirez appeared beside me in that dugout.
I miss the rest of the banter that happens before the woman who’s going to be the death of me disappears into her converted closet. With a crucial game looming ahead of us and the wild card spot at stake, now is not the time for distractions.
“Missed you at practice yesterday. All good, bro?” Dante asks as we both relax into the background of the locker room chatter.
“All good. Family came for a surprise visit. You know how it goes.”
“Oh sweet. They here for the game?” he asks, and I wait for the inevitable questions about my mom’s cooking. “Cool. Yvette will be happy to have the company. You know how some of the wives and girlfriends get this far into the season.”
“You mean the ones not so secretly hoping we lose the wild card race because they’re sick of the games and travel?” I ask, knowing exactly the type of partners that push Yvette’s buttons in the team box.
“Can’t really blame them, but yeah. Yvette doesn’t have much patience for that. You know she’s still my biggest cheerleader.”
I know exactly what he means. Part of me knows that happiness couldn’t have happened to a better man. Dante’s the one teammate who’s been with me nearly from the start–both of us lucky enough to have those coveted no-trade clauses–and he’s the best friend I have. Part of me can only feel guilty about that streak of jealousy.
“Fuck, D, how many times do I have to tell you, I don’t want to know about your little sex games?”
Deflect, deflect, deflect. It’s what I’m best at.
“Little? You wound me, man.” Dante plays insulted until I laugh and kick his chair away. “Leila must be excited to see Ramirez pitch.”
It’s a hard pivot, and I know his nosy ass is trying to probe deeper. If there’s anyone I could talk to about Ramirez, I know it’s him, but not now and definitely not here.
“You have no idea. All day, she would not shut up about the rookie.”
“Mhmm. I’m sure talking about your rookie was such an imposition for you.”
I check my phone and answer noncommittally. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I clear the hook-up app notifications that have tided me through the three years since Oliver and I broke up. No sense looking at them now, just like I haven’t checked my DMs in any app since the day she walked into the locker room and caught me naked in the ice bath.
With one last glance at the time, I silence my phone and toss it into my locker. I get up and knock on Ramirez’s door with don’t be suspicious on replay in my head, despite the fact that I’m only trying to talk to my teammate. She answers, fully dressed for the game, right down to the red ribbon in her hair. She pulls her headphones down to hang around her neck and looks at me with brows knit in confusion and her head tilted to the side like a surprised parakeet.
“What are you hiding out in here for? It’s your fault they’re all bullying me,” I say.
“You’d rather they bully me?” Her hooded eyes go wide. She bites her lip and her nose twitches as she grins, and I am a fool for letting myself be affected by her like this. “Wait. How’s that my fault?”
I realize my mistake. I’ve accidentally admitted that she’s the one and only reason they all caught be smiling.
“Are you going to get out here and bond with someone other than me, or not?” We both blush. Somehow, her eyes go even wider, and her lips thin into a tight smile as she reads into the words that are out in the open a split-second before they give me flashbacks to her body underneath mine on the hood of her car. “Not like that. I didn’t mean–”
“Calmate, viejito.”
She steps forward and puts one hand on my chest. I think she’s trying to feel the way my heart races for her, but then she brushes away a bit of nonexistent lint. Her body brushes against mine as she ducks under my arm, and she leaves me standing alone, staring into her room and trying to adjust myself. For the first time since I was a teenager with haywire hormones, I am both grateful to be wearing one and unbearably uncomfortable in my cup. My dick swells against the hard material, and it is a lifetime before I can regain enough control to turn back around.
There she is, sinking down into my chair as if she owns it. As if she owns me, comes the thought unbidden and out of left field. I should give her a hard time and tell her to get out of my seat before someone says something nasty about her getting special treatment, or worse, starts rumors.
I let myself into her room to grab her chair. Pictures and postcards are taped to her mirror. I assume they’re from her mothers, but I don’t know if it’s my place to ask. It’s been so long since I was in a relationship, and now I don’t even know if that’s what this is. Or if it’s what I want it to be.
I like her. There’s no doubt about that, as I’m looking at the framed photo of someone who looks to be a grandfather with a rosary hanging from the corner of the gold frame and a LED tea candle set in a matching gold dish in front of it. I’m in her room alone, and the urge to take it all in, to learn everything about her is almost as strong as the strawberry scent of pervading her space.
Now is not the time to think about any of this. I roll her chair out just in time to catch Williams swaggering his loud mouth into the locker room with the general manager behind him.
The cocky rookie who’s been gunning for my position since the day they brought him up stalks across the room like a predator to cornered prey. With the gall to lean on my locker, he crowds Ramirez and licks his lips while looking her up and down. I’m already on the move, chair forgotten, ready to drag him away from her before I have time to question why I’m so bothered.
Ramirez stares up at him, but nothing about her expression says she feels intimidated. If anything, she looks bored. Her eyes are flat and unyielding, not an ounce of pink tinges her smooth cheeks, and her jaw barely moves as she chews the watermelon bubblegum she favors.
I hesitate, knowing that she can handle herself–knowing that I have to let her handle herself, for her sake as an equal player on this team as much as for my own. Until Williams opens his big mouth and starts flapping those thin lips again.
“Hope you’re ready to pitch to a real star today, mamacita.” He pitches his voice low and strokes his beard like some caricature of a sports diva.
Ramirez looks him up and down and snorts. A huffing, not-quite laugh as her eyes travel slowly from his pristine cleats to that ridiculous haircut that better fits an up-and-coming investment banker than a ballplayer. A small pink bubble grows between her lips, and she lets the gum pop in the uncomfortably quiet locker room before she answers.
“I’m always ready to pitch to Reyes.” Her words are met by our teammates’ snickers and embody a confidence that I wish she could always have in herself.
“We are more than happy to see you settling yourself into the team here,” the general manager interrupts before Williams can think up a retort. Jamie stands in the middle of the room, adjusting his tie and shrugging in his navy suit coat, and clears his throat before he continues. “And we’re sure you’ll bring that same fire with Williams behind the plate today.”
“What?” Ramirez asks with a hint of panic that she can’t afford to have seeping into her voice.
Luckily, her tone is disguised by my own furious, “Excuse me?” I look from Jamie to the coach standing behind him with eyes downcast and face resigned to the decision made by the younger manager and the rest of the stats and finance nerds in the front office. “What the fuck, Skip? We’re two games out from a wild card spot, and my family is in the stands–”
“And they’ll get to see you on first today,” Jamie interrupts. “Well, I’ll leave you all to finish your pre-game rituals. As your captain said, this is a crucial game; though, I’m sure you all know that already.”
I may have a no-trade agreement, but the threat in his measured words is clear.
Don’t fuck this up.