Slugger (Wildbrook University #1)

Chapter 1

Nobody went to O’Malley’s for the ambiance.

The floors were always coated with an unholy amount of spilled beer. The bathrooms were worse. And the bouncers at the door had not, in three years of Thursday nights, ever once acknowledged my existence.

I was nursing my third beer at a high-top near the back when Hunter Campbell shook in his seat beside me. The guy was incapable of sitting still. His knee bounced against the table leg, making our drinks shudder, and his eyes kept drifting across the room.

I followed his gaze to a cluster of guys in Wildbrook baseball caps that had commandeered two pool tables and most of the surrounding oxygen.

“You should go say hi,” Hunter said, for what I was fairly certain was the fourth time since we’d arrived. He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair, all earnest enthusiasm and good intentions. “Brock’s over there. And Reed. They’re cool.”

“I know they’re cool.” I took a long sip of my beer. It was flat, warm, and perfectly on-brand. “I hand them bats five days a week. I’m well aware of their personalities.”

“So go talk to them.” He nudged my shoulder. Hard. An occupational hazard of being friends with a wide receiver. “It’d be good for you.”

I set my beer down and met his eyes, which were warm, brown, and perpetually crinkled. “My job is to hand out bats. Nowhere in my job description does it say ‘fraternize with the athletes at dive bars.’”

He blinked at me. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve listened to you defend gas station sushi.”

“I stand by that.”

“Tommy.” He leaned forward, his forearms sticking to the table. “I talk to our waterboy all the time. Darnell’s great. We went bowling last week.”

“You can’t compare football hydration logistics to the sanctity of the bat rack, Hunter. It’s apples and oranges.”

He squinted, trying to follow the logic. “Our equipment manager drinks with the quarterback. Does that also violate this sacred natural order of yours?”

“Here’s the thing, Hunter. Football is chaos. Baseball is all about superstition. The batboy does not drink with the first baseman. It’s like, rule number one.”

“You’re making this up,” he said.

I absolutely was. The alternative—explaining that the thought of sitting with the guys while they wondered why their coach’s weird son was hovering—was bad enough.

Sitting three feet from Evan Brock, the star first baseman, sounded as appealing as sketching a drawer full of Hunter’s jockstraps.

And speaking of my best friend, God bless him, but he would try to fix it.

He’d march me over there and give them a rundown of everything he knows about me, and it would be excruciating for everyone involved—but mostly me.

“I’m not making it up,” I told him flatly.

He stared at me for too long, that crease between his eyebrows deepening as he searched for an angle I hadn’t blocked. “Is this about your dad?” he asked, his voice softer now.

I flinched as if he’d slapped me across the face. The easy answer was yes. The honest answer was something more tangled than that. But explaining the difference felt like trying to describe a color I didn’t have a name for.

He held my gaze for a beat, then let it go with a sigh. “Fine. But I think you’re wrong.”

“Noted.”

Hunter changed the subject to the defensive coordinator retiring, but his voice was quickly swallowed by the bar’s rising tide as happy hour turned into late hour. A roar of laughter went up from the corner, and my eyes found him without trying.

Evan leaned back in his chair, one ankle crossed over the other knee. He was wearing a backward baseball cap, his dirty blond hair poking out from beneath the strap. His shirt was a dark blue that brought out the bright blue in his eyes, and his jeans were skin-tight.

I told myself I wasn’t staring. It was a busy bar. Then Evan turned his head an inch, and our eyes locked. I picked up my beer and looked at the label, acting as if it were the most interesting thing I’d ever read.

Once I was certain his attention was back on his teammates, I slid off my stool and zipped up my jacket. “I’m heading out.”

“What?” Hunter, who had been focusing on the sports game on the TV on the wall, whipped his head toward me. “It’s barely ten.”

“I’m beat, man. I have a paper due Monday, and all I’ve written is my name.”

“Alright, give me two minutes. Gotta hit the head.” Hunter jumped off his stool and downed the rest of his beer.

“You don’t have to leave with me.”

“Tommy.” He flashed me a look that said he thought I was being willfully dense, but he loved me anyway. “It’s a twenty-minute walk back to campus, and it’s dark, and you weigh about a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“I weigh a hundred and twenty.”

“I’d never forgive myself,” he repeated.

“Fine,” I said. “But we’re stopping at the gas station. I want some sushi.”

He grinned, wide and easy. “Deal.”

He fist-bumped my shoulder and headed for the restroom while I made my way past Evan and the guys, absolutely not checking him out from the corner of my eye.