Chapter 2
Tenny
Present day
Brittany lifted her chin defiantly, leaning so close that Aiden could almost count the tiny freckles arching the bridge of her nose. “I don’t believe that you didn’t report my bakery to the town council. That feels very on brand for my nemesis.”
“I didn’t.” Aiden’s answer was a hard scrape. It was becoming difficult to think with her lips mere inches from his.
She hummed, unconvinced, and the sound sent pinpricks shooting to the soles of his feet.
“That’s why I called you here, to show you.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, showing her the document he certainly wasn’t supposed to see, let alone take a picture of when he’d been treating the mayor’s Doberman for suspected chocolate ingestion.
Brittany’s mouth dropped open as she read the screen. “I guess you’re not as evil as I thought you were.”
“I take care of sick animals all day. How evil can I be?”
“Maybe…” She licked her lips, and Aiden had to fist his hand to keep himself from doing something rash. “Maybe I made a mistake and judged you too harshly.”
“Maybe? I think you owe me more credit than that.”
Brittany scoffed, but the gesture felt empty with her attention fixed on his mouth.
It was too much—Brittany being this close, smelling like sugar and cinnamon, looking at his lips as if they were more delectable than any of her confections.
The second Aiden gripped her waist, her fingers framed his jaw, pulling him—
Someone yanks my corded earbud out of my ear, and I nearly faceplant onto the treadmill’s control panel.
“What the heck?” I ask Trevor, our team’s catcher, as I continue my breakneck stride. “They were just about to kiss. That’s always the best part.”
Since there are no mirrors in the cardio section of this spring training facility, just gorgeous views of the Arizona mountains, I didn’t see my teammate approaching.
I should be running outside, enjoying the mild winter weather, but Patrick, our manager, wanted us to stay on campus this afternoon so we could do media between workouts.
A red-tailed hawk circles in the clear blue sky, and I can’t help but sigh.
It’s good to be home—or as close as I ever got to home growing up.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my newest hometown of Virginia Beach and, more importantly, my baseball family at the Waves, but it’s nice to spend several weeks in one of my favorite cities from my childhood.
Trevor sets his hand on the treadmill rail, a wry smile quirking his lips. “What book are you two reading this time?”
By you two he means me and his wife, Kenzie.
They got married two weeks ago in a spontaneous courthouse ceremony before he whisked her off to a cabin in the woods for a cozy honeymoon of puzzling, staring deeply into each other’s eyes, and professing their love…
or something. I wouldn’t know because I can’t convince a woman to stick with me longer than a few weeks, let alone two years.
Increasing the speed of the treadmill, I ignore the sharp twist in my chest.
It was after complaining about my romantic woes to Kenzie at Trevor’s annual Christmas party that she suggested our two-person book club. She’s an avid audiobook reader and recommended that I listen to a few romance books because, quote “the best men in the world live between the pages of a book.”
Kenzie quickly added, “Trevor is an exception.”
I’d like to think I’m an exception too, but after overhearing my most recent ex complaining about me before she realized I was standing outside her car, I clearly have things to work on. I’m always courteous and respectful, because my momma would smack me upside the head if I wasn’t, but…
I wince, remembering the cutting words.
“Listening to him is like being on the receiving end of a firehose on full blast.” Kiera snorts.
“It’s like, do you have an off switch? And then when we’re out, he has to talk to everyone, wants to do everything.
He bounces from activity to activity like an overstimulated toddler.
I get that he’s loaded and is gone half of the month, but even with that, it’s too much. ”
Too much.
That descriptor had been attached to me before I could even read.
Tenny, you have too much energy.
Tenny, you’re talking too much.
Tenny, quit wiggling. You’re moving too much.
“It’s an enemies-to-lovers rom-com,” I answer my teammate. “From Ann Howard’s small-town series.”
Trevor blows out a breath. “I could never understand how two people who supposedly hate each other could fall in love.”
I shrug, the increased speed of the treadmill making conversation challenging now.
“Anyway”—Trevor double taps the rail with his palm—“Diamond Breakdown’s new beat reporter is ready for you.”
Hitting the red button, I jog until the belt slows enough for me to hop off. “Thanks.”
Trevor wordlessly takes my place as I grab a towel and run it over my sweaty face. Before I can make it to the small office set aside for interviews, I run into our social media manager, Olivia.
“If you could be any kind of bird, what kind would you be?” she asks with her phone camera pointed toward my face.
Liv is always asking us bonkers questions, or offering us a selection of tiny plastic ducks to see which color we’d pick, or giving us friendship bracelets with our names on them.
I wore my friendship bracelet until it broke while throwing to third, and my tiny pink duck still rattles around in the bottom of my duffel bag.
“A red-tailed hawk,” I answer without hesitation, giving her a huge smile.
“Thanks.” She lowers the phone to click a button before bringing it back up. “I’ve got one more. What’s a superstition you definitely believe in?”
I feel a pinch between my shoulder blades but don’t let my smile waver. Most baseball players are superstitious about something—be it, tapping the plate with your bat before hitting, carrying a lucky coin, or touching a necklace before stepping on the field.
My superstitions have gotten a little out of hand over the last few years.
I have to eat a red and green Sour Patch Kid smushed together before I get into uniform.
Then I have to lace my spikes while humming “Born to Run.” Once in the dugout, I need to down a cup of water from the cooler before doing anything else.
Walking up to bat, I need to readjust my batting gloves—right then left.
I always have to wear my alternating aquamarine-and-sapphire tennis necklace, though the other ones don’t matter as much.
And I can only eat sunflower seeds—dill pickle flavor—from the bottom of the bag.
If I miss any of these, I’m doomed to have a terrible game.
And with the Waves clinching a World Series title for the first time in over two decades last season, there’s no way I’m changing anything now.
Everyone in the franchise—from our team owner down to the clubhouse attendants—wants a repeat season.
The pressure already feels like an oppressive hand on the back of my neck.
“I’ll tell you one superstition I don’t believe in.” I lean in while lifting my eyebrows. “Refusing to change your socks on a hitting streak. That’s just gross.”
Liv laughs as she lowers the phone. “Thanks, Tenny.”
“Anytime,” I say, genuinely meaning it.
I know some players begrudgingly put up with the social media part of team marketing, but Liv is just doing her job. There’s no reason to give her a hard time about it. To me, working with Liv is just the same as the interview I’m about to have.
When I enter the small office, a camerawoman in her late forties gives me a nod. I don’t remember her name, though I’m pretty sure it starts with a D.
“Alex will be back in a sec. Would you mind standing over there so I can check the framing?” She glances into the viewfinder as I position myself in front of an MLB-logoed wall. “You’re a lot taller than Trevor.”
I chuckle, half-wishing my teammate was here to hear her offhanded comment so I could rib him about it.
Though, him being one of the shorter team members at six-foot isn’t a big deal when he spends most of the game crouching.
My height, my left-handedness, and my ability to nearly slide into the splits if the play calls for it are an advantage at first base.
“So, how do we feel about this new reporter?” I ask, making friendly conversation. “Is Alex nice to work with, or am I going to have to keep my guard up?”
“Alex is great,” she says, distracted.
“Great as in great at squeezing team secrets out of me?” I chuckle.
“Can you lean forward just a touch?” she asks while adjusting something on her camera. “Perfect. Stay right there.”
Shut up and let the woman do her job.
The voice in my head sounds eerily like my father’s. When my shoulders reflexively tense, I close my eyes and draw in a slow, controlled breath.
Like all Waves players, I’ve been through extensive media training.
Earlier in my career, speaking without thinking got me in trouble a couple of times.
But now I know how to navigate loaded questions, avoid giving opponents extra motivation, stay steady after a bad game, and more importantly, keep extraneous details to myself.
Just look at how I didn’t bombard Liv with facts about red-tailed hawks. I could have told her about how they build massive stick nests, can see their prey from over one hundred feet, and how they mate for life—which is better than most humans.
“Sorry I’m late.”
My eyes pop open to see the back of a woman as she shuts the office door. I’d expected a man, but Alex must be short for Alexandra or Alexis.
“No problem.”
She’s wearing a professional sleeveless dress, her polished blonde hair artfully cascading down her back, but it’s her black bedazzled sneakers that make the side of my mouth quirk.
I like a bit of sparkle myself.
“Nice sho—”
My sentence dies in my open mouth when Alex turns around and her brown eyes collide with mine.
She looks different than the last time I saw her, especially with a full face of camera-ready makeup.
Actually, with her business attire and minimalist jewelry, there’s no hint of the surfer girl I met five years ago.
I shouldn’t be able to remember the woman in front of me after all this time, but a buddy of mine posted pictures of that night.
One of them had been of the two of us smiling at each other.
I’d saved the photo to my phone and looked at it with embarrassing frequency that summer.
Even after being ghosted, I still glanced at it occasionally.
That night was the one time I didn’t completely blow it by bringing “fire-hose energy” when talking to a woman I’d been interested in.
Time seemed to slow the minute she stepped next to me.
Instead of that incessant urge to fill every second of silence with words, I waited—mostly because I couldn’t wait to hear what she’d say next.
That’s why I recognize the narrow slope of her nose, her high cheekbones…her distractingly full lips.
I clear my throat. “Hey. Um, it’s good to see you.”
“I’m Alex Stevens,” she says, crossing to the table to pick up a microphone. “I’ll be interviewing you today. Are you ready?”
“Uh, yeah.” Why does my tongue feel like sandpaper?
“Great.”
Her impassive, professional tone should grate at my pride, but bewilderment has me in a stranglehold. Her name is Alex? All this time, I’d been calling her Rory in my head because it felt weird to refer to her as ‘surfer girl’ or ‘the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met.’
When Alex comes to stand next to me, angling her body toward mine, I catch a whiff of eucalyptus that transports me back to that night. I can almost feel the thrumming bassline of the music in my chest, taste the crisp sweetness of the Sprite on my tongue.
“How does it feel to be back?”
I blink, convinced that my brain is malfunctioning. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. Maybe this woman is simply Rory’s doppelganger.
“Really good,” I tell her, giving myself a mental high five that I don’t sound too winded.
“What’s your mindset coming into camp?”
Though the lay public calls this spring training, everyone in baseball just calls it ‘camp.’
“Um…”
I’ve never been this inarticulate in an interview.
Usually, I’m cracking jokes and giving reporters more than they hoped for while not getting myself—or the team—into trouble.
That’s why I’m hounded at the end of each game.
I’m not going to lie and pretend I don’t love the attention, but more than anything, I just love talking about baseball.
“I, uh…” I scratch my eyebrow, trying to focus. “Build off last year. Clean up the little things. Be ready, stay ready.”
I sound like a robotic numbskull, but my mind is too busy looking for a clue.
She nods. “What areas do you feel need the most attention to make that happen?”
I’m about to dive into an answer about fundamentals and timing at the plate when I remember the wave tattoo.
Faking a cough, I bend slightly to sneak a glance.
Since Alex isn’t wearing socks, the ink behind her right ankle bone is on display.
The fine lines are slightly blurry with age, but they’re still very much there.
My hand unconsciously comes up to clutch my tennis necklace as I snap to standing.
After all these years, Rory—no, Alex—is right in front of me.
And the person who gave me the best kiss of my life has no idea who I am.