Page 6

Mike

I swore to myself that I would not let a woman be a distraction this year, but I can’t stop thinking about a certain brunette. Even now, I’m scanning the stands for her as Jordan and I toss a ball between us before the game. I should have given Danielle my number. My sisters are always saying they prefer when a guy gives them his phone number rather than asking for theirs. That way they can decide if they want to contact him and not have to worry about some weirdo blowing up their phone with unsolicited messages, or worse, pictures. Gross. I gag. While I’m busy trying not to think about some dude sending my sisters unwanted pictures of his junk, I miss the easy throw Jordan sends me.

“You good, man?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. I’m going to run a few warm-ups with Smithy before we get started.” Jordan jogs away, leaving me with my thoughts.

I didn’t give her my number. I considered it, but at the time I thought I should hold strong and keep it casual. Now I regret that all I did the last time I saw her was mention that the team has a game today, then watch her ride her bike away from Major Dollar in the dark. I hate regrets. Thankfully, she was telling the truth and didn’t need to go far. I watched until she stopped next door, at the brick house with the crooked mailbox.

Now all I can do is wait to see if Danielle, the quirky waitress who kept her bike helmet on the entire time she was in my truck, is coming. She should be easy enough to spot if she does, the stands are practically empty. This is only a scrimmage game against the Navigators, another local team. It doesn’t count toward our record. Even so, I have a job to do and I need to focus. This woman is already taking up a lot of my brain space. This is exactly the kind of distraction I shouldn’t be messing with right now. I’m no stranger to how screwed up things can get when I let myself give in to temptation. I need to get my head on straight for this game. It doesn’t really matter if Danielle Daniels shows up today or not.

So why am I still thinking about her? I bend down to stretch my hamstrings and shake off the memory of how my truck smelled like vanilla for two days after she rode with me.

“Get it together, Miller,” I say to my feet. We’re here for an important reason today.

There are a few scrimmages sprinkled throughout the season, and the ticket sales from these games go to the home team’s selected charity. This year the Blue Crabs are partnered with Planting Hope, a cool organization that collects overstocks of fresh food from grocery stores and restaurants and redistributes them to people suffering from food insecurity. Unfortunately, unless our marketing team managed to bag a lot of corporate donations this week, all these empty seats today are going to equal a disappointingly small check for Planting Hope.

Because today’s game is only a scrimmage, Coach is giving Davis a break and letting me start. This is my chance to show him I have what it takes. I finish stretching, then grab a bat and take a few practice swings on the sidelines.

It’s not long before a voice shouting from behind me breaks my concentration and I turn to follow the sound. Danielle’s here and she brought a friend. The short woman with a pink streak running through her hair is projecting her voice to get my attention.

“Hey, Mike Miller.”

Danielle elbows her friend, then she hides her face behind her own hands. The ladies are standing at the metal railing separating the field from the stands, so I make my way over to say hi.

Danielle’s wearing light wash jeans and a flannel shirt open over a tight white tank top, which I can’t help noticing is doing an amazing job showcasing her chest. Her head is covered with a plain white baseball cap, which is adorable on her, and her long hair is braided and pulled through the hole in the back of her cap. She lowers her hands, smiles, and offers me a tiny wave in the process.

“You made it.” I smile up at them. “I’m Mike,” I say to her friend. “Although, it sounds like you already know that.” We wave at each other because the fence is putting too much distance between us for me to be able to shake her hand.

“I think I prefer Batman, actually. That’s what we’ve been calling you behind your back today. I heard something about seeking vengeance on our local crab population,” the friend teases.

“Oh my god, shut up,” Danielle mutters under her breath. I have to admit I’m really enjoying seeing her flustered about this.

“I’m Alice. The best friend. Always available for Dee’s Wednesday afternoon adventures.” Alice lightly nudges Danielle, and I can tell from that small gesture that, even though I haven’t done much, I’ve already earned her approval.

“Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.”

“We brought some other people, too. That’s our friend Regina and her daughter Emily,” Danielle says. She points to a woman buying cotton candy from a vendor at the end of the row. There’s a little girl next to her wearing a pink tutu and a Blue Crabs baseball hat that is so big that it’s practically swallowing her head. I smile and wave at them as well, and the little girl gets shy and hides behind her mom’s leg. “And just past them you can see Jackson in the blue polo shirt. He would be the one who prepared those crabs for you the other day.”

“Ah. Okay. Please pass my compliments to the chef.”

“You sure about that? You didn’t seem like a huge crab fan.”

“Shhh. That’s blasphemy around here. Are you trying to ruin a man’s career before it starts?” I joke with her, putting up one finger in front of my lips and using the other hand to point at the crabs displayed on both my hat and my jersey. She laughs.

“Miller, let’s go,” Coach Johnson calls to me from the dugout. That’s my cue.

“Well, ladies, I’m glad you made it. Thanks for coming, and thanks for bringing your whole crew. It’s nice to know we have some friendly faces in the stands. I need to get to work.” I wave at them and turn around to jog over to join my team.

Danielle and Alice are whispering and giggling. I’m too far away to hear what they are saying, but I know they are talking about me. It seems to be in a good way, and a little bit of warmth spreads through my chest, making me stand a bit straighter. When I get to where Coach Johnson is standing, he lays a hand on my shoulder.

“All right, son, let’s see what you can do.”

I swallow and ignore the pang of homesickness those words bring. “I’ve got this, Coach.”

“I like the confidence. Now go do your job.”

When he returns his attention to his clipboard, I bounce on my toes a few times and move my head in a circle, feeling the stretch in my neck. I need to focus. I continue my stretches and pull my left arm across my body, wincing just a little bit at the familiar pinch in my shoulder. It isn’t long before the announcer tells everyone to rise for the national anthem and the game begins.

I make the first catch and send it over to first base before the hitter can get there, giving us our first out. Everything is going well until the third inning, when a base runner collides with Jordan and he falls back into the dirt. The Navigator lands on top of him. They go down so hard I can hear the thud from my position, but it happened too fast for me to see much. From what I can tell, Jordan’s outstretched arm seems to have taken the brunt of their fall. He might’ve hit his head, too.

“Shit. Come on, buddy,” I mumble, watching helplessly.

The Navigator player walks away on his own, but Jordan is not getting up. All of the players freeze, and Coach jogs out with the medic to examine him. The longer he lies there answering their questions the more fans start to stand and put their hats over their hearts. Thankfully, after a few minutes Jordan is able to stand and walk off the field, but he’s clutching his elbow, which can be the kiss of death when you throw for a living. He looks at me and I nod at him in solidarity as he is escorted down to the locker room.

We resume play and I’m reabsorbed in the game again. Even with Jordan’s injury on my mind, by the ninth inning I’ve fielded every ball that came my way. I have base hits three out of the four times I’m at bat. The fourth time their pitcher throws too many wide of the plate, and they walk me. I have zero errors in this game, and we are ending with our first win in weeks. Hopefully, this will prove to the coaching staff I have what it takes to be a regular starter. Maybe it will even impress a certain flannel-wearing woman in the stands.

After the game, Jordan and Rodriguez find me in the locker room.

“Hey man, from what I saw, it looked like you played a great game,” Jordan says, walking up to me. He’s holding a pack of ice to his arm.

“Thanks.” I point to his injury. “Do they think it is your UCL? How does it feel? What did they say?”

“Hurts, but I can move it, so it’s not as bad as we first thought. They don’t think anything broke or tore completely. Plan to see how it feels for the next day or two, then I’ll get it checked further if I have to.”

“Good. Just stay on top of it.”

“Yeah, I know. Hey, was that the waitress from the other night we saw you talking to before the game? Rodriguez here says you left with her after the crab feast. Why didn’t you tell me that when you got home, bro?”

“He absolutely did leave with her,” Rodriguez confirms, a huge smile on his face. The two of them fist bump each other. I shake my head.

“Her name is Danielle. Nothing happened. I just gave her a ride and invited her to come out to the game today.”

“Looks like she accepted the invitation. Nice. I can’t lie. I didn’t want to say anything, but I was getting worried that my roommate had no game,” Jordan says.

I don’t know what he’s talking about. He did nothing but say exactly that the entire time we were at the restaurant. That was the whole reason I started talking to Danielle in the first place.

“Right. Sure. You’re great at keeping your mouth shut about stuff like this,” I say sarcastically.

“Worked, didn’t it? She’s here.”

Coach Johnson walks in and congratulates us on the game. “Well-played, gentleman. You looked good out there. Let’s use this energy to keep the momentum going.” After a few more brief remarks, he asks a few of us to stick around. Everyone else is dismissed.

“Jordan, don’t leave until we talk about that elbow. Miller and Rodriguez, I’m sending you both to Virginia Tech to represent the team at the charity gala on Saturday night. Wear a suit and you can present our check for Planting Hope.”

“Um, yes, sir. Sure. But, can I ask why us?” It’s a good cause and I’m happy to show my face for an hour at some stuffy charity fundraiser, but I have no clue why he would pick players he hasn’t started in a single game until today.

“Don’t overthink it, kid. Shockingly, there weren’t many volunteers to drive for three hours to sit through a lecture about food insecurity in a hotel full of rich snobs who don’t understand the irony of gorging themselves on a free buffet. But marketing says we need to show our faces, so a few years ago we starting sending the rookies. It’s your turn. You and Rodriguez will share a room in the hotel for one night. Eat it up with the yuppies, and be back Sunday.”

“Sweet,” Rodriguez says.

“Fair enough, Coach. We’ll be there.”

I’m not about to complain about a free night away with my friend at an all-you-can-eat buffet, especially if the only thing we need to do is take a road trip and listen to some boring speech for a few minutes. Coach nods at us and leaves me standing with Jordan and Rodriguez again.

“Don’t worry, Miller.” Rodriguez says. “I’ll handle all the ladies this weekend so you can save yourself for Danielle.”

I roll my eyes and lightly punch him on the arm.

“It won’t go anywhere with her,” I tell them. “I need to keep my head in the game this season if I want to get a leg up on the competition. And I am including both of you idiots in that competition.”

Jordan shrugs. “Who said it needs to get serious with her? You’re allowed to just have fun sometimes, dude. And so is she.”

“The lovin’s even better when you’re in it together.” Rodriguez laughs at his own dumb joke and elbows me back. He’s playing around, but the dude doesn’t realize his own strength, and it still causes me to grunt. I retaliate and punch his arm again, this time harder than necessary, but he just laughs.

Maybe these guys are onto something. I can’t spend my entire life on the field, and it never hurts to make a new friend, especially because I’m new here and she knows much more about this town than I do. It definitely doesn’t hurt that she has a killer body, smells like vanilla, and fit right in with my teammates the last time we were together. I wonder if Danielle and her crew are still hanging around.

I have an idea.

Still in my uniform, I head out of the locker room and make a bee line for the snack bar. Hopefully she hasn’t left. The line moves quickly and I make my purchase, grabbing a pen from the cup on the counter.

“Excuse me?” A little boy tugs on my pant leg. “Are you a baseball player?”

“I sure am.”

“Can I have your autograph?”

It’s the first time I’ve been asked to sign anything, and the moment feels so monumental I have to clear my throat before I answer him.

“Of course you can, buddy.”

I grab a napkin, scribbling my name for him quickly.

“I’m going to play like you one day.”

“Yeah? You play? That’s awesome.”

Looking up, I see a woman who must be his mom headed toward us. Her arms are full as she tries to balance a baby on her hip, carry a diaper bag, and push a stroller with a toddler sitting in it.

“Can I give you some advice?” I crouch down to get eye-to-eye with the kid. He looks back at me with wide eyes and an open mouth and nods. “Make sure to get your workout in today by helping to carry all of that stuff home. You look pretty strong, and it’s important not to watch a lady like your mom struggle when you have two free hands. Your family is your most important team.”

He listens immediately and runs to take the diaper bag from her, but it’s almost as big as he is. It’s hilarious to watch him try to balance as he walks with it next to the stroller. His mom laughs and only lets him wrestle with it for a second before she tells him they can hang it over the handlebars.

“Mom, look. I got an autograph.”

“Thank you,” the woman mouths to me, and I smile at her briefly before grabbing my snack bar purchase and jogging away. I need to go find Danielle before she leaves.

Hopefully, she’ll think this is cute and not incredibly cheesy. Honestly, it could go either way.

It doesn’t take me long to spot Alice and Danielle standing in the hall outside of the bathrooms, so I jog over to join them. Danielle’s flannel shirt is now tied around her waist, which means her upper half is only covered by my new favorite piece of clothing: that very clingy tank top. It takes me a second longer than it should to redirect my eyes back up to her face. Her left cheek is covered in dark paint that I think is supposed to resemble the Batman logo. I wonder if she did that specifically for me and the thought makes me smile. Why does picturing Danielle visiting the family area for face painting make me so happy? I glance briefly at Alice and see that she is sporting a sunny yellow butterfly on one cheek and the Wonder Woman logo on the other.

“You’re still here.” I smile at them.

“Hi there, Big Guy. Good game.” That’s the second time Danielle’s called me Big Guy and I don’t hate it. Her compliment makes another pool of warmth spread through my chest and I can feel the tips of my ears going red. I rub the back of my neck and look down at my shoes.

“Yeah, nice job,” Alice agrees.

“Thanks.”

“How’s Jordan? That looked pretty bad.” Danielle’s concern for my roommate is touching.

“He’s doing okay, I just saw him. Just needs to take it easy for a few days. I’m glad I found you. I was hoping I would catch you before you left.”

“You found two of us, but Regina had to head out early and put Emily down for a nap. Jackson took them home. Turns out a few hours in the sun after being stuffed full of popcorn and cotton candy can make a kid crash pretty hard.”

“I can imagine. So, um, speaking of junk food, I got you a little something as a thank you for coming. No allergies, right?” I check, feeling awkward, but not as awkward as it would be to hand over a present that sends her straight to the hospital.

“No allergies,” she confirms with a shy smile, so I hand her the pack of peanut M&M’s I purchased. I wrote my phone number on the cardboard box and my initials underneath.

It may be corny, but hopefully she likes it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned growing up with so many sisters, it’s that if you want to impress a woman you can rarely go wrong with chocolate and a small, thoughtful gesture.

“Thanks. Now I have M&M’s signed by M.M.” She’s definitely blushing this time. It’s the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Nice.” Alice gives me a solid nod of approval. I’ll take it.

I tip the brim of my cap to them and thank them one more time for coming before heading back to the locker room.