42. CADE
CHAPTER 42
CADE
“ H ow the hell are you so good at this?”
I don’t allow myself to laugh because it would break my concentration. Instead, I wait for the machine to pitch a baseball at me and let my muscle memory take over. It’s funny how as a batter I’m on my tippy toes just the same way I am as a pitcher, but it works. I get enough momentum as I turn, and connect the bat right on the sweet spot to send the ball flying into the tarp, hitting the home run zone.
Dropping the tip of the bat on the floor, I look up at Hope. She’s in the lane beside mine, separated by a chainlink fence that she grabs onto with her fingers.
“I may not be a designated batter now, but I did have to bat when I was in school.”
“Seems like a waste.” She’s frowning like she’s annoyed. “You’re pretty damn good.”
“Wow, you truly know the way to a man’s heart.”
Hope points somewhere low with her lips. “However, you should use your hips more.” I refrain from pointing out what those words can do to a man. “You’re relying too much on your shoulders and I don’t want you getting hurt on my watch.”
I touch my hand to the bill of my protective helmet. “Yes, ma’am. How about this?” I get back in positing, swinging the bat at the air and more aware of what my hips are doing than ever in my life.
“Much better.”
Yeah, not sure about that.
Fortunately, she rescues me from my own fog by resuming her batting. This place has brand new machines that you can just pause with a button, rather than having to wait for a predetermined number of balls to be pitched in succession and eat up all your coins if you’re not ready. Credit to Lucky for suggesting it when I was researching first date ideas.
I wanted to do fun stuff that Hope would appreciate, rather than sit across each other at some table in a swanky restaurant, where nerves could get the best of her again.
Although apparently I didn’t need to worry about that. She’s comfortable around me.
If I polled the team about that half of them would say that’s a bad thing, that it means I’m boring and predictable. The other half—probably consisting mostly of the married guys—would say it’s entirely the opposite. That it means she knows I’m not a dirtbag who is going to hurt her.
When she confirmed it’s the latter for her, I felt like the luckiest guy alive. Like somehow, in all my many shortcomings, I managed to prove that I’m not one such a dirtbag. And maybe twenty seven years of treading this world alone were worth it if it means they shaped me into a decent enough person to be worthy of Hope Garcia’s time.
Goner. That’s what I am.
I take a step back and bump my elbow with the button that stops my pitching machine, just so I can go hang out by the chainlink fence to stare as she gets in position for batting.
Listen, I may be a decent guy but the operating word in there is actually guy . I’m hard wired to admire how she spreads her legs apart into a firm stance, her butt facing me as she bends her knees loosely. Her sweatshirt has bunched above said butt, framing it perfectly for inspection. My eyes travel lower, down the length of one of her thighs. I collapse into the fence and have to grab onto it so I don’t double over.
Shit, she’s so freaking hot. I can’t deal with myself.
Her hips swing as she connects the bat with the ball, a perfect clang echoing from the impact. I don’t care where the ball goes, not when I’m fantasizing about her legs.
“Did you see?” She whirls around, her loose hair fanning around her torso, and bounces a little. “Home run, baby!”
“Come here.”
Hope tilts her head. “Why?”
“Just come here.”
I can tell she’s warring with the desire to rebel just because it’s in her nature, but she relents. Pausing her machine, she takes another side step to stand in front of me. “What?”
“So,” I start in a casual tone of voice. “Has anyone ever told you just how mind bendingly hot you are?”
“What?” Her whole body springs in surprise.
Somewhere in the distance, other people bat more balls and voices mix with the faint arcade noises from the front of the establishment. All of that fades as I look at her.
“I’m trying really hard to be a gentleman here, Hope. But my eyes keep straying.”
“Is that so?” She smiles while her teeth scrape over her bottom lip and, ah, shit. I feel that everywhere. “Well, where do they stray?”
Breathing out roughly, I respond factually, “I’m very, very weak for your thighs.”
She bends forward to look down at herself. “What about them?”
“Hmm.” I tuck my tongue against my cheek as she straightens up again. “I’m not sure I can answer that honestly with so many families nearby.”
Hope gasps. “Oh my gosh, Cade!”
“I’ll just say this…” I grin. “They’re a work of art that I’m really glad they’re not in a museum, because that way I get to touch them.”
“Cade.” She smacks the fence as if it was me. “You’re bananas.”
“So, what’s your favorite part of me? Surely there’s something that makes you, er, bananas.”
Narrowing her eyes, she asks, “What do you intend to do with that knowledge?”
“To show off, of course.” I shrug.
A corner of her lips lifts into a little smirk. “I appreciate the honesty. However, the issue is that it’s not just one part.”
I retreat one step to put my hands up. “Okay, don’t get me wrong. I don’t salivate just over your thighs either—they just happen to make me putty. But I assure you the rest of you makes my blood boil too.”
Hope throws her head back and laughs from her belly. The gorgeous, gorgeous sound floats me from the ground and maybe I start losing oxygen from the altitude, because I keep running my big mouth.
“I’m very partial to how your butt fits in my hands too, but honestly I almost lose it at the dip in the small of your back. And you know I love your hair too.” I demonstrate with my hands. “Next time I kiss you I intend to wrap it around my hand like this.”
Her breath hitches.
My face splits into a grin. “And let’s not even talk about your lips because it’ll get me kicked out of this family friendly place.”
“I’m sure you can come up with ways to keep it PG.”
I curl my finger and she steps closer. I lean down until we’re more level and I can whisper. “I can’t stop staring at them and remembering what they taste like. The fact that I have this knowledge now feels like a miracle.”
“See? That’s pretty safe for work,” Hope says slowly, sounding out of air.
“But my favorite part is your eyes.” I lean my helmet into the fence, observing precisely those brown eyes deeper than an ocean, just as alluring in the uneven lighting of a batting cage in the nighttime as they are when the sunlight hits them directly, making them transform into spun gold. I don’t know how to translate that feeling into words that give them any justice, so all I say is, “I don’t want to stop staring at them.”
She sighs long and hard, one of her hands rising to curl her fingers around the chainlink fence but right below mine. “Geez, no need for so many compliments.”
“On contrary. This is nowhere near enough.”
Her eyes shift down, cheeks pink enough that I know she’s embarrassed. Clearing her throat, she admits, “I like your butt.”
My eyebrows take off. “Huh?”
“It’s just—baseball boys’s butts are the most perfect butts in sports. This is a hill I’m willing to die on.”
I choke back a laugh. “Wait, baseball boys’s or my butt?”
“Yours is pretty superior, not gonna lie.” Slowly, she lifts an almost shy grin. “I can’t wait for your SPORTY issue to come out so I can study it in detail.”
“Why wait?” I shrug. “You can visually and tactfully inspect it any time.”
Her jaw drops. “You’re kidding?”
“Am I laughing?” I pause. “At least on the outside, I mean. This is really tickling me on the inside.”
“Fine, let’s see if you mean it. Come here.” She lifts her chin in a blatant challenge I have zero interest in turning down.
I remove my gloves and stuff them in one pocket, then take off my helmet and leave it on the floor before walking out of my cage. Hope watches me intently as I shoulder the door of her cage open, eyes roaming up and down my body in a way that is most definitely not PG.
Finally, I stop one step from her and spread my arms wide. “Frisk me, officer.”
She blows a raspberry. “Cade Starr, I can’t just grab your butt in public. But points for the willingness.”
“How about…” I grab the bill of her helmet and take it off. Some strands of her hair catch on the foam inside the helmet, and I run my fingers through her hair to comb it back down. “How about you just kiss me and casually let your hands travel?”
“Just like that?”
“I may or not intend to do the same. Deal?”
Hope bites her lip until she allows the smile to break free. “Deal. But first…” She rips her gloves off and tosses them where they fall.
Then she grabs my face, forcing me to lower down to her and I’m a willing participant. My arms cinch around her waist and I bring her closer until there’s literally only the fabric of our clothes between us.
For a moment she focuses too much on the movement of our mouths, her hands only going as far as my jaw where she can no doubt feel my muscles working. But finally she remembers that this kiss is just an excuse for her to feel me up and she gets with the program. I already have to fight off a groan when her hands are just at my neck. Something about her firm touch, the deliberateness of it, is already making me lose my grip on reality.
Before I lose the last of my presence of mind, I turn us slightly so her back faces the rest of the battling lanes. Behind me is only my empty one, which is the very last one on the corner. And beyond there’s only a wall to witness her hands brushing over my shoulders, sneaking down to my chest.
I’m unable to feel so many things at once while in public, and I release her lips so I can process how her hands run down my chest to my stomach. Yesterday, we were in this same position for a second, except my skin was bare. I blame that for how high my pulse rises as she carefully feels every ridge of muscle against the pads of her fingers.
“I have to admit,” she whispers against my lips, “I also like this a lot.”
“Making a mental note to flash my abs more often,” I joke, though we both know by my voice that I’m more turned on than the Olympic torch.
My breath hitches as she reaches the waistband of my joggers, but instead of keeping in that dangerous direction, she circles her hands around my waist to my back, and then they’re on my cheeks. The posterior ones.
“Wow,” she marvels against my mouth. “It’s like marble.”
“Yeah, I don’t skip leg day.”
“I’m proud of you.” She gives a little squeeze that turns the rest of my body into marble. “Too much?”
“Not really, but an attendant is giving us a funny look.” Unfortunately this is true. I can see the sour look on his face from over Hope’s head.
Sighing, she drops her face into my chest. “Just when it was getting good.”
I chuckle and place a kiss at the top of her head. “Don’t worry, darlin’. My marble behind is going to be there for you any time.”
“I’m creating a monster,” she says muffled against my chest before raising her head again, and bringing her hands up to my back. “Should we behave for a bit and put a food court table between us for a bit?”
I scrunch up my face. “Ugh, fine.”
The attendant’s demeanor relaxes the hell down as Hope and I clean up our cages and return the equipment to the shelves. He pretends not to see us as we walk by him back into the building, hand in hand.
We join a line for cheap hot dogs and order enough to almost shut the place down. Each one of them is tiny, though, so Hope and I take seats at a table near the air hockey area, and get to work on our food.
Her phone on the table vibrates and Hope sets down a halfway eaten dog to unzip it and retrieve the device. Something about how her lips twists prompts me to ask, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah…” She drags the word as she sets the phone back down, without responding to either call or text, I don’t know.
“That doesn’t sound like a firm yes. Is it your dad?”
“No.” She picks up her hot dog again. “It’s a little blast from the past that I had almost forgotten about these days.” Seeing my confusion, she decides to elaborate. “My friend Kelly reminded me that the freaking engagement party is this weekend. She wants to know if I’m going.”
“Oh shit.” I set down my sweet ice tea. “What are you gonna do?”
“Nothing.” She takes a ginormous bite of the hot dog and I look down at my tray. Maybe they’re not so small after all, and it’s just that I’m big.
Shaking my head, I put my attention back on her. “But wasn’t that what we were doing the whole dating coach thing for?”
Her shoulders rise. “I’ve changed my mind. I was definitely looking for someone to date more out of pettiness than any real desire to find a good person to share my life with. You’re way better than I ever dreamed of, Cade. I’m not going to use you for my pride’s sake.”
I hang tight in the exact same position, bite of hot dog against my cheek like a squirrel, glass of tea in one hand and new hot dog in my other hand. All that outside calm hides how hard my heart beats in my throat.
Slowly, I set everything down and wipe my hands. I resume chewing until there’s no food in my mouth and I can talk like a civilized human.
“I have a story to share,” I start, speaking low enough that she leans closer, though the confusion is evident on her face. “I’ve only ever done the boyfriend gig once and it didn’t go well.”
Her eyes widen but she doesn’t interrupt.
“It was in high school. This girl I had a huge crush on finally gave me the time of the day for all of two weeks.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t have to…”
But I nod that yes, I have to, and continue, “She said she couldn’t date an orphan, it was just too weird because I didn’t even have an allowance to take her out on dates. And the very next day she showed up to school as the arm accessory of this asshole who was bullying me.”
“Oh, Cade.” The sympathy in her face melts almost as fast as it comes. “You just say the name and I’ll find her.”
“I have no doubt she’d regret meeting you.” I clear my throat. “But anyway, my point is that I have plenty of experience with the casual thing, but not the real thing. I’ve never really been proudly presented as someone’s boyfriend.”
“Ohh.” She leans back, understanding dawning. “So you want to do this? Like, genuinely?”
“Hell yeah. I want you to show me off like a freaking trophy. Not to make me feel better than that douchebag ex of yours, but so you show him you could replace him at the drop of a hat.”
“But—”
Calmly, I take one of the hot dogs from my tray and take it to her mouth. She cooperates by biting into it. “I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” she mumbles while chewing.
“Trust me, there’s nothing I want to see more than that dipshit’s face when we show up hand in hand.”
Her eyebrows rise while she swallows. “So, we’re doing this?”
“We’re in this together, darlin’.” In this and anything she ever wants.