Page 125 of Playboy Pitcher

The only place you want to be.

“Welcome back, Willow. Is it February already?”

Smiling, I close the door and wave at the waitress in the frilly pink Bo Peep uniform. “Seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it?”

“How’s the Spring Training lineup looking this year? All the vets returning?”

I can’t help but laugh. The woman is as transparent as Saran Wrap. “Don’t give me that. What you really want to know is if Kyle Abbott is returning.”

The pink blush crawling up her neck nearly matches her dress. I’ve given her shit ever since finding out about her hopeless crush on my right fielder.

“Don’t worry,” I say, grinning at her over my shoulder as I make my way toward the bar. “Kyle is at the top of the roster.” Laughing, I continue on to the bar as she returns to waiting tables, both of us pretending to ignore the little squeal she lets out.

Setting my backpack on the bar, I slide into a chair, the weight of the day finally slipping off my shoulders.

“Looks like you’ve had a hard night.”

I smile at that familiar contradictory timbre. The one that skated down my spine from the first moment he opened his mouth and from every word thereafter.

Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I watch him toss back his drink. “You have no idea.”

“Well, I can’t change the past, but I can buy you a drink and make it better.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Does that line ever work for you?”

The cocky smirk that has danced on Ben’s lips since I sat down widens. He’s a playboy used to getting what he wants, and when he lifts the brim of his hat and pins me with a set of narrowed eyes, I know I’ll happily give it to him.

“Depends,” he says, pushing a shot glass toward me.

I glance down at it and smirk.Kick in the Balls.“On what?”

“On whether or not you date baseball players.”

Cocking my chin, I close one eye and squint up at him. “Are you a pitcher?”

Those deadly dimples sink deep into his cheeks. “And if I said yes?”

“Then I’d say no. I don’t date pitchers.” Biting my lip, I stare down at the silver baseball stitched ring on my right hand, and then at the four-point-five-carat diamond one on my left. “I marry them…twice.”

The corners of Ben’s eyes crinkle with a smile that blankets his entire face as he gazes at the engagement ring he gave me last night. “Have you told Emma?”

I shake my head. “No, she doesn’t come home from college until spring break. I thought it’d be better to surprise her in person.” My heart squeezes a little when I think of the seven-hour distance between Miami and Tallahassee, but I know she’s happy at Florida State University. I’m even happier she abandoned her reality telepsychology dreams in favor of a more reasonable major.

Sports broadcast journalism.

A perfect job for her, at least until the day she inherits a Major League Baseball franchise. One Ben and I will gladly hand over knowing it’s in the safe hands of true family. Until then, Ben can continue running the team as acting CEO, and I’ll continue doing what I’ve done for the past two years.

Running Mays Ink. My own South Beach tattoo shop.

Mylegacy.

Turning my head, I stare with pride at my fiancé’s face, remembering the first time I saw him sitting here.The beginning.Even then, I knew this bad boy with the wicked smile and blue eyes would flip my world upside down.

Bottomless ocean blue eyes.

The kind that can pierce right through your soul. Hypnotic. Commanding. Powerful enough to render a woman immobile and then coax her right off a cliff.

Two years ago tonight, I sat in this very chair and met my soulmate. Twenty-eight days may not seem like much to most people, but for me, they changed everything. They gave me the courage to stand at the edge of that cliff and stare down whatever comes my way.

I used to hate pitchers.

But because of a man they called Playboy, for the first time in my life, I’m not afraid to take a running start toward the edge…

And leap.

The End