Page 16 of Taking the Pitch (Love & Baseball #2)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
amelia
The bell above Latte Daze jingles, announcing my arrival. Hazel peeks over her shoulder at the sound. “Hey girl, get us a table and I’ll be over in a jiff. I’m just putting the last of the scones in the oven.”
“Please tell me they’re your cranberry white chocolate ones,” I beg, my mouth already watering at the prospect of tart cranberries and rich white chocolate blessing my tastebuds.
“‘Tis the season,” she says, giving me a wink.
“Thank you, baby Jesus,” I mutter, claiming a table near the back close to the counter so Hazel can still chat with Charlie and I while she putters around behind the counter. Even though Hazel has employees to run the counter when we have our coffee dates, she still has a hard time sitting down and just relaxing, so Charlie and I sit and enjoy our coffee while Hazel bounces around the back like a rabbit on crack.
I’m settling into my seat when my phone buzzes in my back pocket. I set my bag on the table and pull it out, seeing a text from Charlie.
Charlie
Be there in 5! Don’t start without me.
Me
Hurry up! I can’t promise there will still be scones left. I’m starving.
Hazel
I’ll save you some scones Char. You want the usual?
Charlie
THANK YOU BEST FRIEND HAZEL! Yes, the usual please.
I smirk at my screen and set my phone down as Hazel sets my large gingerbread cold brew and a plate of cranberry scones in front of me. “Bless you,” I tell her, picking up the coffee and taking a sip. “It’s like Christmas came in my mouth.”
Hazel snorts. “I thought you didn’t like to swallow?”
I shrug. “If it tasted like this, I would.”
Hazel laughs and goes back behind the counter, busying herself with making Charlie’s drink. I look around and see there’s a handful of people spread out among the tables and couches. One person is sitting in the little reading nook Hazel put in last year at my suggestion. I always imagined myself opening up a little café/bookstore. I even majored in business in college, where I met Charlie. But after losing my parents, I found myself lost. At the suggestion of my therapist, I started writing down my feelings because voicing them was too much. Writing seemed to be the only thing that helped me process my emotions and escape from my reality.
My thoughts became short stories, which became books. One of my professors read a short story that I wrote for class and suggested I submit it in a contest where the top ten submissions would be published. I hesitated at first. I didn’t think it was good enough, and I wasn’t sure I wanted people reading my inner thoughts. When I told Charlie, she said the worst that could happen was that it didn’t win. No harm, no foul. I voiced my fear of people reading my thoughts and she said people didn’t need to know my writing was my inner dialogue. To them, it was just a story someone wrote. So, I submitted it.
I ended up winning the contest, and my first piece was published. Turns out using humor to process my pain worked, not only for me, but for other people, too. Even though there were nine other stories published, mine was the one readers resonated with the most, resulting in publishing agencies contacting me for book deals.
But winning the contest sent me into a downward spiral. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy that I won, excited even. I opened my phone to call my parents and realized I couldn’t…because they were gone, and their deaths were the reason I had won in the first place. That was the first time in almost a year that I had forgotten, just for a second, that I was an orphan.
What happened after that is what led me to being hospitalized and in an intense therapy program for six months. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s a part of my journey and I had to learn to accept that I have to take the bad days with the good.
The bell brings me out of my thoughts, and I see Charlie hurrying over. Short, wavy dark brown hair mused from the wind. She pats her hair down as she makes her way over to me.
“Sorry, I’m late,” she huffs out, plopping down in the empty chair and giving Bruno a pat when he stands and sticks his head in her lap. “What did I miss?”
I reach forward and pluck a leaf out of her hair. “Nothing, Hazel’s busy making her confectionery goodness, so I’ve just been sitting here sifting through my emails.” It’s not a complete lie. Hazel is busy baking. I’m just not telling her what I was thinking about. I don’t need to worry her; I’ve done enough of that for one lifetime.
Hearing her name, Hazel pops out from the back, bringing Charlie her coffee and carrying one of her own. She eyes the plate and looks up at me. “All the scones are still here. Are you sick?” she asks, putting her hand on the back of my forehead.
I knock her hand away and laugh. “I was checking my emails and got distracted,” I tell her.
“Mmmm,” she hums, not believing me but letting it slide.
“So, I heard the interview was rescheduled to next week,” Charlie says, peering over her cup at me while she sips on her coffee.
“Hello to you too, Charlie. How have you been? Me? Great, great, just living the dream,” I tease.
Charlie rolls her eyes. “Good morning. How is everyone? Great? Awesome. Now tell me why Judd texted me, asking what you ate when you had a migraine and were sick.”
Busted .
I forgot Judd did that. Knowing I won’t get out of explaining what went down, I gulp down a fourth of my drink and sigh. “He drove me home from the library. Ran me a bath that was the perfect temperature by the way and then went and got my car that we had to leave behind. All without complaint. Then he brought me hot and sour soup, made me drink a Gatorade because he just somehow knew I was dehydrated and gave me the best shoulder massage I’ve ever had in my life. Oh, and we agreed to be friends.”
The girls stare at me in varying degrees of surprise.
“Friends?” Hazel asks, like the word is foreign to her tongue.
I nod.
Charlie picks up a scone and bites the corner. “I give it a week,” she says around the pastry.
I raise an eyebrow at her. “A week for what?” I ask, grabbing my own scone, biting into the flaky, buttery goodness. Tart cranberries making my taste buds dance.
“A week until the sexual tension between you two is so great that you can’t deny it anymore.”
Hazel tips her head to the side and looks at me. “Nah, I think Millie will make him wait at least two just to spite us.”
“No. We’re friends. Friends don’t bone.”
“Friends with benefits do,” Charlie suggests.
Hazel points her scone at Charlie. “Yes, agreed.” She turns to me. “Use all his benefits. I bet he has a lot of benefits.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, sighing. “No, no benefits. And can we stop saying benefits, please?”
“Come on, Millie. You can’t tell me having his hands on you last night didn’t bring up some feelings?” Hazel challenges.
That’s the problem. Having his hands on me brought up too many feelings. Feelings I haven’t had for someone in a long time, if ever. Imagining his hands venturing beyond my shoulders left me achy and needy. Let’s just say my vibrator got a good workout after I went to bed.
“That’s what I thought,” Hazel says, taking my silence as an admission.
“Okay, fine. I may have felt…things, but that doesn’t mean it has to go anywhere beyond friendship. It can’t go anywhere beyond friendship. I’m not interested.” I sit back and cross my arms, almost believing the lie myself. “Look, can we just drop this, please? I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Judd and I are friends. End of discussion.”
Charlie sets her scone down and brushes the crumbs from her hands. Leaning forward, she lays one hand across the table and grabs my free one. “It’s ok to be scared, Millie,” she says softly, giving my hand a squeeze.
“I’m not scared. I just don’t have time. And this is a bad time of the year for me to be getting involved with anyone, anyway.” I look between my two best friends, my constants, the only ones who have never given up on me, even in my darkest times. “No one ever stays, and I don’t blame them. I’m a lot.”
Hazel’s hand darts forward and lands on top of mine and Charlie’s connected ones. “No one worthy ever stayed,” she says, bright-hazel eyes boring into mine. “And that’s their loss. You’re amazing Millie, and I think Judd sees that too. You just have to decide if you want to let him in.”
“What if I do and he decides I’m not worth it?”
“Then he wasn’t the right one for you, but you’ll never know unless you try,” Charlie chimes in.
I take a deep breath and blow it out. “I don’t have enough coffee in my system to be making these decisions right now, but I’ll think about it.” They both give my hand a squeeze and pull away. “Enough about me. What’s happening with you two?” I ask, needing a change of subject.
“Nothing really with me, just trying to get ahead of all the holiday orders I’m going to be hit with in the next few weeks,” Hazel says, sipping on her coffee. Hazel’s holiday treats sell out every year. She already has a preorder list a mile long.
“When do you sleep?” I ask, knowing she’s working long hours.
Hazel snorts. “I don’t. I got home at nine last night, fell asleep in the middle of sexting Jason, and was up and out the door by three. My sex life is suffering,” she pouts.
Charlie and I both snort. Hazel has the most sex out of all of us. “A day or two without an orgasm isn’t going to kill you,” Charlie mutters.
“It might! An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.” She points her finger between Charlie and me. “You two bitches are just jealous I’m getting it on the regular.”
“Yeah, we are,” Charlie and I say at the same time. We all erupt in giggles, like high schoolers talking about our crushes, earning a few quizzical looks from other patrons in the shop.
Once we recover from our giggle fit, I turn to Charlie, who’s wiping tears from under her eyes. “What about you, Char?”
“Nothing new really, just packing for the cruise and making sure nothing implodes at work while I’m gone for almost three weeks.” She looks at me and scrunches her nose. “I still wish you could come. It’s going to be weird not spending Thanksgiving with you.”
After I lost my parents, Charlie’s mom and dad took me in, even though I was twenty-one and an adult. Charlie’s mom, Diana, helped me with my parents’ funerals, settling their estate, everything. I still have a room at their house. I spend every holiday with them, except this year. Diana has been wanting to take a cruise for years. But because baseball is from February through October, and Chuck is the manager for the Silverbacks, she’s never been able to book one. So when Charlie found a cruise that runs through Thanksgiving, she showed her dad and they bought tickets and gave them to Diana for her birthday this last spring. Charlie asked if I wanted to go, but there’s no way I could leave Bruno for that long and having a dog on the ship wouldn’t work. So this year I’m flying solo for Thanksgiving.
“I know. But it’ll be fine. I’m already planning on spending the day in my pajamas, binge watching Sweet Magnolias on Netflix, and ordering way too much Chinese food. It’ll be great,” I say cheerily, trying not only to convince Charlie, but myself.
“You could always come and spend it with us,” Hazel chimes in with her offer again. She usually spends Thanksgiving at her aunt’s in Eastern Washington, with her dad and Jason. I love Hazel’s dad, but I’m not a huge fan of Jason. He makes Hazel happy, but there’s something about him I just don’t like, and I’d rather not spend more time with him than I already have to.
“Thanks Haze, but I need to do this on my own. I can’t rely on you guys forever. Plus, I booked a session with my therapist for that Tuesday, so I’ll be good.”
“You can always rely on us, no matter what,” Charlie says.
“Yeah, we’re ride or die bitches for life,” Hazel adds, holding up her scone. Charlie and I each grab another scone and tap them together in a cheers.
I truly hit the jackpot with these ladies.
My thumb hovers over the contact I swore I wouldn’t text first, but here I am, texting him first. Damn him.
Me
I have a question for you.
Sexiest Man Alive
Shoot, Shortcake.
Me
How much does getting a tattoo hurt? Like on a scale of 1-10. 1 being not at all and 10 being fuck it’s excruciating.
Sexiest Man Alive
It really depends on where you get it and what your pain tolerance is. Based on the boulders you call knots I massaged the other night. I’d say you have a high pain tolerance so it probably wouldn’t hurt as much as it might other people.
Sexiest Man Alive
Why? Are you wanting a tattoo?
Me
Yes, thanks for the information.
Sexiest Man Alive
Wait, that’s it? You’re not going to tell me what or WHERE?
Me
NOPE, *twiddles fingers*
Sexiest Man Alive
Tease.
Me
:::winking face emoji:::