Chapter 10
MOLLY
Somehow, in the middle of coaching a nationally televised baseball game, Jeff Rosehill got ahold of my cell phone number.
He texts me at the top of the fifth inning.
Jeff
Tacos or steak?
It’s the kind of question that catches a girl off guard, and I find myself answering honestly before I realize that I’m accepting the premise that we’re going out for dinner.
Molly
Tacos
He doesn’t reply again until the bottom of the seventh.
Jeff
Do you want me to pick you up at home?
Molly
I can meet you there
He doesn’t reply to that, period.
He just shows up in my office after the Outlaws win, a comeback 6–5 victory in the ninth.
His silver-streaked dark hair is damp from a shower, and he’s changed out of the uniform he wears during the game into blue jeans and a faded t-shirt.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him in something other than his uniform or other team gear.
He looks effortlessly handsome. His t-shirt clings to his thick chest in a way that makes it very ironic that I’m so eager to not be married to this man, because I’ve never been interested in dating, but if I had a type, Jeff Rosehill would be it.
Stop lying to yourself, Molly.
Because I do have a type now. It’s a much older man with thick thighs poured into faded blue jeans, apparently.
My heart pounds as I scramble for my purse.
No argument, no debate that we’re not going out for dinner.
Quietly, I let him lead me down to his car in the parking lot.
“The place I was thinking of is a bit of a drive,” he says as he opens the passenger side door for me. “But it’s worth it. Best tacos in the city. And we can get to know each other on the way there.”
The first thing I notice when he closes my door and walks around to the driver’s side is that the car smells like his aftershave, the same fresh scent I caught just a hint of as he opened the door.
And there’s another note too, leather and sun-bleached dirt maybe.
Baseball. His car smells like baseball and the showers a man takes after a long afternoon game, and it’s just …
I take a deep breath as he opens the driver’s side door.
It’s a lot.
I’m suddenly hyperaware that I’m sitting in Jeff Rosehill’s car. Two months ago, I got a job with the Outlaws thinking it might be cool if I met the coach at some point, and now I’m married to him and I’m sitting in his car.
It’s a nice car, but it’s also … ordinary. There’s a travel mug in the cupholder. A pair of sunglasses in the center console. Some of the radio preset buttons are worn down, and there’s a parking pass hanging off his rearview mirror.
He slides into the driver’s seat and the car dips slightly with his weight.
“Seatbelt,” he says, not unkindly. Grinning at me. He smiles a lot more than I thought he would.
“What?”
With a start, I realize I haven’t buckled up yet. I fumble for it, my hands suddenly clumsy. He reaches across me and takes the buckle.
I get another inhale of his aftershave, and my head spins.
“There you go,” he murmurs as he clicks the seat belt into place.
I just stare at him.
He huffs a laugh under his breath. “I’m a take-charge kind of guy.”
I nod.
“But you’re a take-charge kind of girl too, aren’t you?” He puts the car into gear. “I might not know much about you, but you’re bossy. And I say that as a compliment.”
I exhale, laughing nervously. “I guess so. Sometimes, that bossiness is a cover for just being impatient.”
“Oh?” He looks sideways at me with genuine curiosity. “Tell me more about that.”
I make a face.
“Don’t brush it off.” He shoots me another glance before returning his eyes to the road. “I really want to know. You ambushed me in my office and somehow convinced me to marry a giant grapefruit in the span of about five minutes. What was the impatience driving that ambush?”
I blow out my cheeks. “It’s kind of hard to explain.
There are just these ideas I get that are like, we gotta do this right now.
This is an of-the-moment idea. I can see the whole path to executing it well, but I need to get everyone on board, ASAP.
The more confident I am in an idea, the bossier I get.
It’s not that I like being in charge, exactly.
I actually don’t. But I need whoever is in charge to get shit done. ”
“Shit. That’s … impressive.” He grins again. “So what was the spark for the wedding idea?”
“I saw a little video online, a woman talking about how Valentine’s Day would be her one-year anniversary of being officially married to her husband of twenty years.
How they’d never been able to afford to get married for real before, but the city clerk’s office held a free group wedding the year before, and it was the best day of her life.
I thought we could pull some of that same magic in for our fans since our spring training started that same weekend. ”
“And you managed to convince me and a hundred couples, in what, a week’s time?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn, Molly.” He puts so much praise into those two words my cheeks turn hot.
“Thanks,” I whisper. “Some people find it a lot.”
“You’re a whirlwind.” He says it like it’s a fact. But also says it like it’s a compliment. “That’s not going to be for everyone. Fuck anyone who doesn’t like it, though. Because it’s what makes you special.”
I suck in a surprised breath. “I like to think so. I know it sounds cocky, but some people tell me that I shouldn’t rush, that I should let things happen in their own time, and that’s so … passive.”
“That’s pretty wise for a young girl.”
“I’m twenty-three, not twelve. We’re allowed to have insights.”
“Twenty-three.” He says it like he’s testing the words. “Jesus Christ.”
I wince. Crap. I shouldn’t have reminded him of my age. I change the subject. “Now it’s your turn to tell me something I don’t know about you.”
He’s quiet for long enough that I think he might not answer. We pass a shopping center, a gas station, a billboard advertising injury lawyers. The highway stretches ahead of us. He wasn’t kidding when he said the taco place was on the other side of the city.
“I hate how far away my grandson is,” he finally says.
I underestimated him. That sounds like a real share of something honest. “Sinclaire’s son?”
“Yeah, Silas. He’s perfect. And they live in fucking Wyoming.
” He drags in a deep breath. “I look at him and I think about all the ways I fucked up with Sinclaire, all the milestones I missed, all the times being a baseball player meant I couldn’t be there for moments that will only ever happen once.
And now I get a second chance, except I’m even farther away, and I’m still choosing baseball. ”
The rawness in his voice makes my throat tight. “You didn’t fuck up with your daughter. She came to watch you get married to a mascot. She loves you.”
“She forgave me. That’s different.”
“Maybe it’s both. You know I do the team social media content, right?”
He shoots me another one of those sideways glances that I’m starting to realize I’m holding my breath for.
Crap, crap, crap, this crush has deep hooks.
“I think I did know that, yes. I’m not really an online person, though.”
I smile at him. “Sinclaire is your biggest hype girl in the comments. That’s my dad! I don’t know her beyond that, but I don’t think that someone who is just giving their father a second chance is that involved in a space where he doesn’t go.”
His cheeks turn ruddy, and even in the shadows of the car, I can see he’s pleased. Really pleased.
I like that I could give him that. That at the end of this weird day, when we’re supposed to be untangling a stupid mess I made, we’ve also found a way to make each other feel good as human beings.
He reaches across and nudges my knee with his knuckles. “All right, Whirlwind, tell me something else I don’t know about you.”
I try to ignore the spiral of heady heat that twists up my thigh and into my belly at the contact. “Well … I was a theater kid. Learned every word to some of my favorite musicals before I could properly read, tried out for every community production I could get into growing up, that sort of thing.”
He nods as if that makes complete sense. Which I suppose it does. “So how’d you get from theater to sports?”
“I grew out of my love of public performance and discovered a love of media and marketing. Professional sports is just another type of entertainment, no offense.”
“None taken. It’s true. Even if I know I need to outsource the management of that to experts like you.”
“You make it easy, though. You care so much. About the team, about the players, about getting it right. It’s—” I search for the right word. “It’s magnetic. You make people want to be better. Work harder. You made me want to ambush you in your office.”
He laughs out loud. “So it’s my own fault, in a way, that the second time I got married it was to a giant grapefruit?”
“Show some respect for Captain Citrus. He was 100% marrying material. You could have done a lot worse.”
“I’m not denying that. I’ve been married before. Although I was the problem in my first marriage, not my ex-wife.”
“You said that earlier. That you, uh, got divorced before and it was easy.”
He winces. “Did I say it was easy? That might have been an overstatement. But my first marriage was—” He cuts himself off. “Do you want to know about this?”
I twist sideways in the passenger seat so I can train my gaze fully on him. “I do.”
“We’re almost there.” He clears his throat. “Maybe this would be better dinner conversation.”