Chapter 10 Dani
Dani
According to the pregnancy app on my phone, my baby was officially the size of a Pop-Tart.
Which felt vaguely . . . threatening.
Maybe it was the sharp corners. Or the frosting that never quite reached the edges.
Or the fact that until the last few days, I hadn’t been able to look at my second favorite pantry pastry—because nothing beat Entenmann’s iced honey buns—without feeling like I needed to hurl since finding out I was pregnant.
Thankfully, the constant bouts of nausea had finally started to subside.
Now, I was just hungry, horny, or some combination of the two at all times.
Biology was wild.
Even more wild was trying to pretend like I still had complete control of my hormones while mic’d up at a baseball stadium full of thousands of rabid fans. Fortunately, distraction came in the form of controlled chaos, which was basically my professional love language.
“Your turn, Wes,” I called out, motioning our centerfielder over to the sidelines as the rest of the team wrapped up warm-ups. “Your question is, would you rather fight a hundred goose-sized horses or one horse-sized goose?”
He blinked. “Acho, puneta! What kind of psycho came up with that one?”
I nailed him with a look. “Who do you think?”
His eyes roved the field. It only took him a second to spot Pink not-so-subtly waving to him from the bullpen. Wes flipped him off.
“Put me down for the horses,” he said, dead serious. “You ever seen a goose up close? Like a chupacabra with feathers.”
From behind the camera, Clarke snorted. “Does that mean you don’t want to volunteer for the Swing for the Fences event at the petting zoo?”
Swing for the Fences, the team’s nonprofit organization, aimed to provide opportunities and resources for youth baseball and softball teams in the Pacific Northwest. That included monthly outings with the kids where our players traded batting gloves for picnic baskets, a fishing trip to Tillamook where the kids out-fished the pros, and the infamous sleepover at the stadium that we were all still going to therapy for.
Nonetheless, these little snapshots of joy stuck around longer than any final score.
And the guys loved the kids. Truly, it was a wonder that none of them had any of their own yet.
Wes shook his head. “Not if geese are involved.”
I bit back a smile. “Fair enough. Who do you want us to talk to next, and what do you want us to ask?”
“Diaz. Ask him to pick his favorite Chris Evans movie.”
Clarke gasped at the same time I groaned.
It was no secret that Diaz worshipped at the altar of Chris Evans.
Literally—the guy had a prayer candle with his favorite cable-knit sweater wearing icon and everything.
Asking him to choose his favorite Chris Evans flick was like asking a parent to pick their favorite child.
Except in this case, the “children” were Captain America: The First Avenger, Knives Out, and a surprisingly passionate defense of Not Another Teen Movie.
“Bold choice,” I said, shooting Clarke a look that promised chaos. “You’re really trying to cook something up before the first pitch.”
Wes grinned, unapologetic. “That’s me. Chef Nunez.”
Chef was putting it lightly, more like a god.
Wes’s authentic Puerto Rican cooking was a staple at most team functions, so it went without saying that I envied the woman who would nab a permanent seat at his table.
I blew a few hot puffs of air into my palms when he jogged off.
Chicago in April was a cruel joke. Wind like razor blades, clouds thicker than last night’s cream of cauliflower soup. And I was doing my best impression of a fleece-wrapped marshmallow, layered in thermals, a hoodie, and my well-worn pleather bomber jacket.
It was nothing compared to my partner in crime, though. In fact, the only visible part of her was her face, pinkened from the cold. Her ankle-length team parka had been thoughtfully adorned with two glittery pins—one shaped like lipstick and another that read “Bless your heart.”
“You look like a Jawa,” I teased, tugging on the strings of her fur-lined hood.
“A what?”
“You know, one of those guys from Star Wars.” Curse me and my random knowledge of nerdy fandoms. “The little dudes with the dark cloaks and glowing eyes.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I hate that this weather exists,” she grumbled.
I chuckled under my breath. She even sounded like a Jawa. “You say that at every away game that dips below fifty degrees.”
“And you better believe I’m gonna keep on saying it.” She lowered her voice before adding, “I could dial a rotary phone with my nipples.”
Hm, that’s a new one.
Movement at the edge of the visiting dugout caught my eye.
Diaz jogged over, his jacket half unzipped and his face already bright with curiosity.
Much like his celebrity crush, Diaz had the build of a superhero and the disposition of an actual puppy.
Soren came running up behind him, his cheeks flushed from warm-ups, batting gloves tucked into his back pocket.
“Just a few more,” I told her. “I promise, your nipples will be fine.”
“What’s wrong with your nipples, blondie?
” Soren greeted, sliding in beside Clarke like he’d been summoned by the sheer force of her grumpiness.
Without missing a beat, he unzipped the top of her parka and wrapped his arms around her middle, pulling her against his chest. “Do you need me to take a look at them?”
Clarke made a noise that was half-protest, half-purr. “You’re warm.”
“Perks of hitting grounders for twenty minutes straight,” he said, rubbing his hands over her sides in a way that definitely wasn’t workplace appropriate. “Now, back to your nipples—”
“That’s enough of that,” I interrupted. “Save the nipple talk for somewhere, literally anywhere, that’s not in front of forty-thousand fans.”
I wedged myself between Clarke and the camera set-up.
I was desperately in need of a snack, but first, we needed to finish filming our pregame segment for the team’s social channels.
Today’s was a fun trend that had been circulating around the MLB circuit—just a quickfire Q&A with the guys as they jogged off the field during batting practice.
The twist was that each player decided on the question for me to ask the next player.
Some were softballs, and some were chaos.
Some were about creepy, hypothetical farm animals.
Diaz was already grinning like he knew what was coming. “All right, Diaz. Wes wants to know your favorite Chris Evans movie.”
His eyes widened in mock betrayal. “You really want to get into this?”
I rolled my shoulders, twisted my neck, and pressed record. If we were going to open Pandora’s box, we might as well smash the whole bitch to smithereens.
“Let’s have it.”
Diaz threw up his hands. “You asked for this. First things first, we need to outline the six different eras of Evans. Starting with—”
I tried to stay focused. I really did. Truly, there was almost nothing more entertaining than a verbal dissertation about A-list celebrities.
But my gaze kept pulling toward the dugout like a magnet I didn’t remember pocketing.
I didn’t see him at first.
Usually, Brooks was one of the easiest guys to spot—tall enough to tower over most guys, black frames catching the light, tattoos snaking down both arms. Plenty of the team had the ink, and a few even had the height, but none of them carried the same quiet, coiled energy he did.
An aura you could feel even when he wasn’t looking at you.
And right now, he was looking at a group of kids like they were his own.
He was crouched low, pen in hand, signing a baseball for a boy in an oversized jersey that nearly swallowed him whole. Another two kids were waiting beside him, all wide-eyed and jittery, clutching caps and jerseys.
And Brooks . . . was smiling.
Fucking smiling.
Not the polite, tight-lipped press smile he broke out for photo ops or the half-smirk he used when he thought one of his players was being an idiot. No, this was a real, full-on smile. The kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look like someone I barely recognized.
I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen that in real life and still have fingers left over.
He looked younger, more at ease—a stark contrast from the man who just last weekend had looked like he might rip out his salt-and-pepper hair when he’d found out he was going to be a daddy again.
Not that I could blame him. That wasn’t exactly the pregnancy reveal I had envisioned, and it certainly wasn’t the one either of us deserved. I was still trying to figure out how to make it up to him.
“—and then there’s the ‘lovable fuckboi’ era. Starting with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World—
We hadn’t spoken since Matty’s party.
Partly because our schedules had been a mess, and partly because . . . we were both scared of what came next.
I should have known that he would want to be involved.
That was just who Brooks was—steady, dependable, the guy who was always there to lend a listening ear to any of his players and who remembered the name of every employee in the clubhouse, even the ones he had only met once.
He was a good man, and an even better father.
But knowing that and trusting it were two different things.
I had spent the past two decades taking care of myself, counting on nobody but me, and that kind of wiring didn’t just switch off. Letting someone in—letting them carry even part of the weight—felt like stepping off a ledge without checking if there was ground underneath.
And I had never been a fan of heights.
I glanced toward the dugout again and froze. This time, Brooks was looking straight at me. No smirk, no frown. Just a steady, unreadable gaze that sent something low and sharp through my chest . . . and made me want to rip my thermal underwear off.
Thankfully, Diaz’s voice cut back through the fog.
“—and that’s why if I have to pick, it’s got to be Knives Out.”