CHAPTER 8
“It may not look like much for now, but we’ll do whatever you need to make it feel like your new home,” the general manager tells me, snapping me out of my distraction.
Jamie pops open my locker to display my brand new uniforms—bold red to replace my old royal blue. I may not miss the Texas heat or the boys’ club of a team that was probably never going to accept me, but as I trace the A embroidered on the red ball cap, I can’t help missing the scorpion just a little bit.
It may not be anything to compare with the main locker room, but Jamie is selling them all short when he says this space isn’t much. I stand in the center of a converted office that’s more than enough for me. My locker is spacious and stocked. The room is well-lit, there’s a wooden bench and a leather chair of my own, and there’s even a shower in the corner. I’ve barely been here a minute, and it’s already more than I would ever have dared ask for back in Texas.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Jamie says by way of excusing himself.
“Take your time getting settled,” Skip says in the fatherly way that better matches Hollywood baseball movies than reality, at least in my experience. “Reyes will be your catcher tomorrow, and he’s your team captain, which I’m sure you already know. He’s all yours for the day, whenever you’re ready for him.”
“Thanks, Skip.”
He opens the door and pauses while the sounds of men horsing around and giving each other hell streams in.
“Welcome to the team, kid.”
The door clicks shut, doing a surprisingly effective job of shutting out the banter in the locker room. There’s a part of me that wishes it didn’t do such a good job of cancelling the noise—the part of me that knows I’m really the one being shut out. I take a deep breath and try to focus on savoring this moment. As much as I want this to be the start of an illustrious career, I know that every game could be my last.
It would be a lot easier to focus if I could stop picturing Reyes’ dripping body every time I blink.
“Pull yourself together,” I mutter under my breath.
The last thing my silly crush needed was to see that man naked, especially after those alcohol-induced few minutes in the elevator. I shake my head hard enough to see sparks, but I can’t shake the image of golden-brown skin with the faintest farmer’s tan. The longer I replay the image of his goose-pebbled arms, the dimples in his low back, and his high, tight ass, the more vivid my imagination gets. I have to take a seat when my mouth starts to water—imagining what it would taste like to lick icy droplets from the deep valleys between his rippling back muscles.
“So, the man has a body—it’s not like you didn’t already know that.” I hang my head between my hands and try to walk myself back from this ridiculous ledge.
I practically fall off the leather padding when my door rattles beneath a heavy fist. Scrambling to my feet in a hurry, I knock my gym bag to the floor and launch myself over the mess.
“You good in here?” Reyes asks. I flinch at the clatter of steel water bottles, cleats, and mobility tools. Without leaning forward or encroaching on my space, the painfully good-looking catcher crosses his arms, raises his brows, and lifts his chin, as if trying to look over my shoulder.
The possibility that he heard me muttering about him leaves me absolutely mortified. But after his little show and the hint of color I saw on his cheeks when he realized he had an unexpected audience, there is no way I’m going to let him take all the power back this quickly.
“So much for not in my locker room.” I lean against the doorframe and narrow his view into my space.
“Yeah, well.” He scratches his chin. His white jersey clings to his shoulder when he runs his fingers through the jet-black hair at his temple. “I could say that I wasn’t expecting a woman in my locker room. Or tell you to wait and see what it’s like to get benched to some arrogant piece of work who should be backing you up. Or just admit that I’m pissed and embarrassed that my family drove all the way down from the bay to watch me ride the bench at this point in my career.” He crosses his arms again and looks me straight in the eyes. “At the end of the day, those may all be explanations, but they’re also excuses.”
“They’ll get to see you play tomorrow,” I say, even though I know it’s not the point and hardly a consolation.
He huffs. The silence drags on, as if he’s forgotten why he came over in the first place. Or maybe he’s waiting for me to speak first. Either way, I’m already starting to see a trend with him—charismatically talkative until the moment he isn’t. His mood turns on a dime, and his silence screams louder than a sold-out stadium.
“About the other night—” I break the silence, but my words stall in my chest when his brows sprint for his hairline, and his eyes widen.
“Too much alcohol and adrenaline,” he says. “It’s nothing to talk about. I’ve got my work cut out for me, catching you up on signs and batters before tomorrow if you want to have any chance of a postseason.”
“Hey.” I step half out of my room when he looks away. When he turns back to me this time, his eyes are hard, the last of the playfulness gone from their dark depths. “I wasn’t done.”
“Well,” he drags out the word as well as a Californian can. “By all means. Take your time.”
“I don’t date ballplayers,” I blurt out, my hands finding my hips in response to his crossed-arms.
“Good,” he says as if we’ve already beaten this conversation to death. “Neither do I.”
“Oh,” I say. An afternoon of brilliant comebacks. “Okay. Well—”
“Get your head in the game where it belongs, Ramirez. We’re good.” Reyes reaches over me to press his big palm flat on my door. “Hurry up and get ready.”
I back up and try not to swallow loud enough for him to hear me. I don’t say anything when Reyes turns away from me again. My door is nearly shut behind me when his voice stops me in my tracks, and I curse the effect he has on me.
“Oh, and rookie?” He tosses me a stopwatch, and I barely turn in time to catch it. I watch black numbers flash against the dim gray screen and look up to see him pulling a second stopwatch over his hat. “You’ve got five minutes.”
“Or what?” I shoot back. I forget we have an audience until the moment the locker room goes uncomfortably silent.
“Good thing we aren’t going to have to find out, are we?”