Page 9 of Framing the Pitch (Red Dirt Romance #1)
He literally got me through some of the hardest years of my life, and I repay that by respecting his privacy and not blasting to anyone who will listen that I’m best friends with TikTok’s hottest football player.
He gets enough attention from the media and the world at large; the least I can do is provide him with the knowledge that none of my casual acquaintances will be knocking on his door for an autograph.
And maybe it makes me a tad selfish, but I want to keep him to myself for a little bit longer before the whole team finds out that we’re “dating.”
“I can’t believe my future boyfriend is out there, and Coach won’t even let us say hi!
” Deja exclaims. We’ve played together since my first year on the team, and most of us are familiar with her theatrics by now.
It’s all in good fun, and she’s always the one to go to when you need a good laugh.
While we like to keep things light on the team, we all know the importance of taking practice seriously.
How you practice is how you play, and with our abbreviated schedule, all of our limited practices need to be quality.
On any given day, Deja has about six future boyfriends, and none of them knows she exists. She says she’s holding out for the right man—a real man —but it doesn’t hurt to daydream about the ones she doesn’t have a chance with.
“Deja, you’ve got to stop drooling, he’s a taken man now!” Lennox, our centerfielder, says, right on her tail.
“Noooo,” Deja whines, tossing her mitt into her cubby above the bench. “I was going to marry him!”
Monica, the final piece to the outfield trio, softly sets her mitt in her cubby, trading it for a water bottle. “Where did you hear he was dating somebody?”
Lennox tucks her glove under her arm and dives into her bag, looking for something. “It was all over his social media this morning. He posted something, and then like three other official accounts shared it. Everyone’s been going wild with speculation about who it is, though.”
Erica kicks at my foot before turning and heading to leave, and I quickly double check the clasps on my shin guards before grabbing my helmet and mitt off the bench and following her back into the late morning sun.
“There’s my favorite girl!” Trace’s voice calls from above.
I stop in my tracks, a smile jumping to my face before I have the sense to stop it, and I turn to find Trace leaning against the fencing above the dugout.
His gray Dallas team shirt pulls in just the right places as his arms reach above his head, long fingers linking through the chain fence.
His blond hair is covered by his trademark worn Alabama hat, and my favorite megawatt smile is aimed directly at me.
There’s some part of me that forgot—or maybe just didn’t want to acknowledge—how good-looking Trace is.
There’s a reason he’s known as the Dallas Darling and his butt has gone viral multiple times over on TikTok, but friends—especially best friends —don’t think about how attractive they find each other.
Not that I find Trace attractive. I mean, everyone finds him attractive. He’s objectively hot. The boyish good looks I remember from when we first met have aged into drop dead sexy now that he rocks a permanent five o’clock shadow and religiously takes care of his body.
But now that all of his charm is focused on me, that tiny…microscopic… miniscule crush from years ago is peeking its head out, asking if it can come back to play again.
A murmur runs through a few of my teammates as they rejoin Erica and me on the field.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, moving away from the dugout opening, not wanting to impede the flow of traffic, and toward the fence that separates us.
The concrete floor of the stadium seats is about even with the top of my head, and the walls on the inside of the field are lined with navy blue backstop padding.
A chain link fence sits on top of the concrete, forming the top portion of the backstop that extends down the baseline to third base.
Trace lets go of the fencing, following me farther down the third baseline, and squats down, getting his face as close to mine as he can without lying on the concrete. “I told you I’d take care of it.” He smiles and winks, and it’s so Trace that I roll my eyes.
“And interrupting my practice was your best plan?” I tuck my helmet under an arm, letting my mitt dangle from my fingertips, while I reach up to slip the tips of my fingers through the fence.
“No, my best plan is taking you to dinner tonight, but I thought the surprise was the cherry on top.” Trace touches his fingertips to mine, and a sense of calm spreads into me through his touch.
I don’t know why I was worried when Scarlett asked me about my boyfriend because faking a relationship with Trace is going to be easy .
A chorus of aww s erupts behind me as more of my teammates file out of the dugout. Kissy noises and good-hearted teasing follow in their wake, and I wave them away with a shake of my head and a smile.
“Ladies!” Coach Golding calls from where she’s waiting in shallow left field with Monique and London, the assistant coaches. The team starts heading in that direction, and I throw a look over my shoulder to see how many more words I can squeeze in with Trace before I have to join my teammates.
“Are you going to stay for practice?” I ask, turning back to him.
“Of course, Sugar.” There’s the barest change in Trace’s inflection when he calls me Sugar, and I tuck it away to examine later. Right now, I’ve got a job to do.
“Great.” Another glance over my shoulder. I’m not the last one to the huddle yet. I catch Deja staring at me with her mouth open. “Because I have a teammate who would absolutely die to meet you.”
Trace’s grin turns mischievous before his eyes flick up above my head. “You should probably get going. I’ll see you after.”
I take a few steps backward and almost trip over the edge of the outfield grass when Trace brings his hand to his mouth and blows me a kiss. I can’t return the gesture even if I wanted to. Purely because my hands are full and certainly not because my brain is short circuiting.
It’s a platonic kiss , I tell myself. An air kiss between best friends.
Just because everyone on the field behind me thinks Trace wants to kiss my actual face does not mean he really does .
I recover my footing before falling onto my butt and settle for a quick pucker and air kiss in his direction before turning around and jogging to the rest of my team.
“Naomi! You’ve been holding out on us!” Deja playfully swats me with her mitt when I get to the circle of players. The rest of the team erupts in quiet chatter while Coach Golding and Monique put their heads together for a second while we wait for the last of the players.
“You had a very good off season, I take it,” says the infielder on my other side, nudging me in the arm with her elbow. Her wink and sly smile insinuate everything that very good off season had to offer, and I pinch my lips together to keep from laughing out loud.
But for the next three months, I have to lean into every assumption and make people really believe Trace and I are a couple.
“The best.”
Deja cranes her neck around to look back at Trace. “Do you think he’d take a picture with me?”
“After practice,” Coach Golding says, straightening to face the team, “you can ask him, but for now, Mr. Davenport is merely a spectator and should not be a distraction for you ladies today.” She makes eye contact with all of us around the circle, and we all nod, suddenly sobering up from our playful warmup.
As she dives into explaining our drill rotation for the day, I get the sense that she wasn’t surprised at Trace’s appearance, and I make a mental note to ask him about it later. In the meantime, we’re here to get work done, so that’s what we do.
The team splits up for some defensive drills, and while the outfielders and infielders take reps of ground balls and pop flies, Erica and I join Haven and Scarlett, another pitcher-catcher combo, in the bullpen for warmups .
Trace’s presence is barely noticeable until we run a short scrimmage at the end of practice.
Erica gets some live pitching practice, and the rest of the team gets game-like situations.
While he’s been quiet for the rest of the drills, he decides this is the time to start heckling Erica and Lexi, our other main pitcher, as well as catcalling me every time I have to go to the backstop for a missed pitch.
I shake my head at him, but even Coach London, who is standing in for a home plate umpire, is laughing at his taunts.
After our final team cheer, we all begin gathering our gear and team equipment out of the dugout. Deja’s squeal when she walks back onto the field is all I need to know that Trace has made his way onto the field from the stands.
I’m routinely the last person out of the dugout, and I linger to make sure we’re not missing any stray balls or bats, but really, I’m using my double check as an excuse to figure out my game plan.
My reaction to Trace’s surprise was genuine, and after running it through my head, I feel like it was in line with how a girlfriend might act when surprised by her boyfriend. But now, I’m knowingly walking onto that field as Trace’s fake girlfriend.
He blew a kiss at me, for heaven’s sake. We’re entering uncharted territory.
Not uncharted , I remind myself as I drag my bag up the steps. We hug all the time. Neither one of us is foreign to a little physical touch. This doesn’t have to be weird.
A few teammates have stopped where Trace is standing with Coach Golding. Deja has found a scrap of something in her bag for Trace to sign, and I watch as he offers to take a picture with her.
“Y’all, my dad is going to flip when he sees this.
” She grins as she looks down at the picture on her phone of the two of them.
Her fingers fly over her screen, and I can only imagine that she’s sending it to her dad right now .
A few seconds later, she tucks her phone away and looks back up at Trace, her dark cheeks warming with a blush.
“Thank you again, Trace. It was so nice to meet you.”
Trace’s smile for Deja is genuine, and it widens even further when I join the group of teammates standing around for a chance to meet him.
“There’s my girl.” He extends his hand and makes eye contact with me, a whole conversation happening in a moment.
We haven’t talked about the details of our fake relationship, but in this moment, I know what I need to do.
Slipping into the guise of Trace’s girlfriend is easy.
Easier than it should be, maybe, but avoidance is the name of the game today, and I shove that thought in the same little box I put Trace’s Sugar into earlier.
I loop around the outside of the circle to interlock my hand with his. He pulls me close but doesn’t do anything more lovey dovey than that.
Surprisingly, his presence here is comforting, and I smile, grateful that this hasn’t immediately devolved into some super awkward they’re totally going to know moment.
Deja’s eyes flick over to me, her eyes softening, before she looks back at Trace.
The wonder in her eyes is quickly replaced with a little bit of steel.
“You take good care of our girl now, y’hear?
” she says to Trace, a playful threat in her voice.
She leans in slightly when Trace nods, going along with her.
“Because if you don’t, you have seventeen of us who will take our bats to your car. ”
Trace laughs, and I roll my eyes. Coach Golding, who has been quiet up until now, joins in and says, “Hit the showers, Deja,” with affection in her voice.
Deja immediately flips back to the bubbly teammate we all know and love. Backing away, she waves at me and Trace. “See y’all tomorrow!”