Chapter 15 Shane
FIFTEEN
SHANE
“Out of the baseline, Michaels!” our defensive coach yells.
A growl rumbles through my chest. Fuck.
Stone comes jogging my way.
“I know,” I bite out, and his eyebrows fly up.
My eyes slide shut, and I take a deep breath.
I slip on a smile. “Sorry about that. I know. I’ll be better next time.
” My veins are burning up with my frustration.
Nothing feels right. I’m uncomfortable in what is supposed to be my domain.
I feel like someone flipped my world. Everything that used to be on my left is now on my right.
He stops at second and draws a wide circle around the base in the dirt with his cleat. “This is your boundary. Every catch, I want your footwork leading you outside it immediately.”
I blink at him. “What am I, twelve?”
His face is its typical emotionless mask.
“I’m not trying to be patronizing. Your body has to relearn how to do what it’s been doing for over a decade in the exact opposite direction.
And you’ve got more basework ahead of you at second than you did at short.
Everything goes back to the basics. I want you out of this circle after every catch. Understood?”
I shiver. Yikes. Maybe I should start messing up on purpose, so he’ll tell me what to do more often. That deep, authoritative understood—yeah, I think I could get behind that. In front of it?
“And what are the consequences if I don’t?” I toss back at him. What the fuck, Shane? I snap my mouth shut.
“Um…” His gaze meets mine, brows scrunched together. “Well, you risk a knee or ankle injury being taken out by the runner.”
Right. Not a spanking. Darn. Pull yourself together, Shane.
Those dark eyes are looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t totally. It’s just being controlled by my lower anatomy. This crush is really becoming a problem.
We go over positioning and footwork for another hour, staying later than the rest of the team.
Stone has the right of it; my body has to completely recondition itself.
Out on the field, in those game-speed, split-second situations, there’s no time to think about where to plant my feet or how to angle my body.
It has to be second nature, something ingrained so deep it fires without conscious thought.
And the only way to get there is through brutal, mind-numbing repetition.
People watch practice and see us doing glove work, literally kneeling in front of a machine that shoots grounders at us for a minimum of a hundred reps, and think, This is hard? It looks simple, but those tiny fundamentals are the difference between making a play and blowing it.
Our next game is tomorrow night. We’ll see how much my body can be conditioned in a day. I need to prove to the Clippers they made the right decision in calling me up. As much as I wish I were on the other side of the field, I want this—need this. Triple-A. Next stop the big leagues.
I hurry to grab my things and head back to my apartment.
I skip the showers at the clubhouse in favor of showering at home.
Because seeing Stone’s towel-clad figure was too much for my long-deprived dick to handle, and the last thing I’m going to do is rub one out in the shower stall next to him.
No. I’ll just do that in the shower at home. I have some boundaries.
I am so hard up it’s not funny. This is the longest I’ve gone without getting laid since college, and I’m a little nervous about the lack of blood flow to my brain.
I park my Jeep and head to the front door.
Maybe I should go out and pick up. My stomach squirms. The problem there is, no matter who I pick up, I’ll be thinking about someone else.
That’s not my way. Some guys might not care who they’re getting their dick wet with, but it’s important to me that my partner feels wanted.
I know what it’s like to be used, and I don't ever want the person I’m with to feel like a means to an end, even if we’re both just there to get off.
Back in high school, girls thought I was hot.
I was good enough to mess around with in the dark, but God forbid people know my trailer trash fingers touched them.
Then I hit college, and I was sought after purely because I was one of our star ballplayers.
That didn’t hurt nearly as bad, but there’s a common denominator in both of them.
No one ever wanted me. I will never disrespect my partners like that.
I push into the townhouse, and the hum of voices greets me. More voices than usual. I perk up and toss my drawstring bag into my room as I hurry toward the main area of the apartment. One of those voices sounded feminine, which means…
“Shane!” A small, brown-haired blur comes running at me.
“Oomph.” I squeeze the small woman and then step back. “Hey there, pretty lady.” I duck down and kiss her cheek.
Shelby beams up at me. “It’s been too long. I was so excited when Paulie told me you’d been called up.”
“No joke,” Paulie calls out. “I think I’m deaf in my right ear now from her squealing.”
We walk into the living room, and I hold out my fist to Maddy. “Madz.”
“Good to see you, man.” He shoots me a smile and dabs my fist before dropping it back to play with Easton’s hair—who is lying with his head in Maddy’s lap, eyes closed. I squint. He might be sleeping.
“We’re doing pizza and movie night. Pizza will be here soon—except East, who had poached chicken.” Paulie gags. “Poached. The fuckkkk.”
I chuckle. “Count me in.”
“You can sit next to me,” Frankie says with a wink and pats the couch next to him.
Paulie rolls his eyes, but then he frowns, his gaze sweeping over me. “Dude, you’re disgusting. Why didn’t you shower at the clubhouse?”
“Ahhh…” How to explain that one. I prefer showering in the shitstorm of a bathroom at home shared by three messy ballplayers over the nice, spacious showers at the clubhouse?
Paulie’s face lights up. “Wait, you had to stay back with Stone, right?”
My mouth flattens. “Shut it.”
He cackles.
“It’s not funny.” I pout. “You try having a crush on a teammate. He was all sweaty and sexy and undressing. And fuck me, that tempting nipple piercing… And did you see he just got his right ear pierced? That hoop? Nrghhh. I got the hell out of there.”
“Say fucking what now?” Maddy’s gaze lasers in on me. “First, I can one-hundred percent relate.” He glances down at Easton, and I wince. Truth. “And second. Crush on your teammate? Not to be cliché, but when did you start batting for both teams? You a switch-hitter now?”
I reach up and squeeze the back of my neck, a sheepish smile on my face. “Something like that. Maybe. Haven’t had a chance to, uh…bat lefty yet, if you know what I mean.”
Maddy grins. “Shit, man. I do. Happy for you, Shane.”
And once again I find myself attacked by a petite woman. “So much great news lately,” Shelby says, smiling up at me. “Thank you for sharing with us,” she says softly. Her nose wrinkles. “Also, you really do stink.”
I laugh, but it comes out watery. Damn, I love this crew. “Yeah, I should hit the showers. And I’m starving. Did you guys get—”
“Yes, we got one with ham and pineapple, you weirdo,” Paulie calls as I turn toward the stairs.
“It’s not that weird.” Frankie’s voice fades as I move up the stairs. “It’s just like fig and prosciutto. Just the less classy version.”
Something warm and bubbly fills my chest. I know it’s small. Just a pizza order. But they thought of me. And that means more than they’ll ever realize.
Maybe that’s what has me pausing at my desk after my shower, scribbling a quick letter, sealing and stamping it. The optimism flowing through my veins is like a drug. I’m buzzing on it.
I check online to make sure his address hasn’t changed, and, yup, still in New Cannan.
His picture-perfect family stares back at me, because that’s the kind of family he weaseled his way into.
One where their picture pops up when you do an Internet search.
Old Connecticut money. While my mother was home taking care of me, he was off at college chasing his better life. And once he found it, he left.
I jog the letter down to the apartment's front office. Triple-A will get his attention, right? I slip the letter into the outgoing mail slot. This time will be the one. The one that gets him to show up.