Page 28

STRIKE ZONE BY MIGNON MYKEL

TRIPP

November — Off Season

Well, I’ll be damned.

Seeing the woman who’s had the starring role in my dirty fantasies for the better part of a year, 1600 miles away from the city I know her in, wasn't on my bingo card—but there she is.

Chey—

"Cheyenne! Your chai tea latte with two shots of espresso is ready for pickup!" is called from the end of the coffee kiosk, at the same time the barista in front of me asks if I need more time to decide.

Oh. Right. I was ordering a drink.

"Um. No, I'm good," I answer, tearing my gaze away from the bubbly blonde who shouldn't be in Arizona. "I'll just have a large caramel macchiato, please. Iced."

Holding my phone over the card reader to pay, I hope this exchange goes quickly because I can't lose her...

But then the scent of summer sidles beside me. "Well, I'll be damned," Cheyenne whispers the very words that were on my mind moments before. "As I live and breathe. It's...you."

"Your receipt?" The barista sounds exasperated with my lack of attention but I give her my classic, crooked grin and shake my head.

"No, but thank you, Rina." For good measure, I pull a bill from my pocket and stuff it in the tip jar, not really caring if it's a one, five, or twenty.

"First name basis with the baristas?" Cheyenne teases, taking a step to the side. Her coffee cup is raised to her lips but she doesn't sip from the lid.

"She wore a name tag," I point out, glancing down at the photographer assigned to the team I've spent the majority of my professional baseball career with. Her tiny stature brings the top of her head just below my chin, but what she lacks in height, she makes up with curves—curves on nice display today, thanks to the fitted shirt and jeans that look like they were made specifically for her hips and thighs.

And fuck, that blinding smile that is so notably her. I don't know if I've ever seen her without it.

"What brings you to Arizona? Our warm winters?"

Is that a blush on her cheeks?

"I live here," she answers with a shrug. "Well, for a few months out of the year, anyway. I'm a desert girl, didn't you know? A ‘native,’ as so many Arizonans like to say." She finally takes a cautious sip from her cup, wincing almost immediately. "Frick, that's hot." She sucks her top lip into her mouth, pressing her finger there as well, and a frown mars her brows.

"They should fix those machines."

"Fix them?" It takes her a moment to catch on to the dad joke my own father has been spouting in some form or fashion since I can remember. "Ha. That's funny." The words are flat and monotonous, but it isn't long before she shakes her head and that gorgeous smile is back on her face.

"I've been known to tell a joke or two." I cross my arms and scan the coffee kiosk. It's not terribly busy. It's why I chose to stop here at the one inside the grocery store, instead of the standalone drive-thru cafe on the other side of the parking lot. "Have we talked about you being from Arizona?" I would have remembered that detail.

I remember the day I met her, on a road game to Miami. At the time, that's where the league assigned her. One of her primary tasks on game day is to shoot images of the players entering the clubhouse. We usually travel in groups on away game days so a lot of the work credited to her is of the home team, but this particular day, I was solo.

"All by yourself today, Tripp Nash?"

The voice came from behind a large camera lens and I grinned for the photo. When the camera was lowered, I got my first look at the face that went with the voice, and if I waxed poetic, I'd say the world stopped spinning and angels sang.

The first thing I noticed was her blinding smile. Then, the way her eyes danced with the same joy that radiated from her entire being.

"Just early today," I answered, instead of giving in to the desire to stop and have a conversation with the woman. She wore black from shoulders to ankles, only breaking up the dark color with white crew socks and tennis shoes.

"Well, welcome back from your injury. Have fun out there!"

It was the only time I saw her that season...but then there was last season's home opener.

"Hey, I know you."

I looked toward the familiar voice and saw the face that’d been popping up in my dreams off and on over the last eight months. My smile had nothing to do with her bringing her camera to her face and everything to do with, well...

Her.

"I never caught your name," I told her, slowing my stride down the hallway as I neared. Unlike in Florida, today she sat on the floor—still in all black with white feet—and after she placed the camera gently on the concrete beside her hip, she wrapped her hands around a raised knee.

"Cheyenne." She said it with a small nod of her chin but a wide smile on her face. Did the woman ever not smile?

I wanted nothing more than to stop right there and ask her questions—how long had she been doing photography; was sports photography always her goal or did she have other pictures she liked to take; what did she do in her freetime…maybe I could “accidentally” cross her path—but I had a meeting with the coaching staff before hitting the weight room to focus on hip mobility. Ever since my injury the previous season, I’d been feeling my age. Keeping every joint warm and ready was a high priority.

Instead of stopping, I smiled down at her as I neared, then passed, her. "Nice to meet you, Cheyenne. Officially. You ours this season?" I added over my shoulder, and a quick thrill hit my chest to see her twisted, watching as I headed down the cold, gray hall, and toward the bright hallways that made up the clubhouse.

"I am."

I remember when she and another photographer taste-tested Hi-Chew candies during arrivals, and that she prefers the strawberry ones.

That she sometimes dances in the hallway when she doesn’t think any players or staff are around.

And I remember the way she celebrated with the guys when we clinched a division spot last season.

The other photographers were in the locker room with us, of course, but Cheyenne's joy, her smile that night, is definitely one of those core memories everyone talks about.

"No," Cheyenne says now, bringing me back to the present. "We haven't. But I know you're from Arizona, kinda sorta. Went to high school in Deer Valley, and then college out in Tempe." Her face pinches. "Probably shouldn't have admitted that. But in my defense, it's on your stats page. Well, college anyhow. And you're one of the hottest catchers of our generation." That blush from before deepens. "Hot, as in, top of your game. Everyone knows you. Wants you. On the field!" Her eyes widen as her speech quickens. I should stop her, give her an out, but I'm enjoying this too damn much. "They want you on the field. On their team. Behind their..." she winces and her voice finally comes down to a near whisper, "plate. Gosh, that was?—"

"Order for Cassidy!"

I wink at Cheyenne. "Saved by the barista." My face is recognizable enough that using my given name isn’t doing me any favors in the incognito department, but I try to keep the fanfare to a minimum.

After picking up my iced drink and accepting the straw the barista holds out, I turn and find Cheyenne isn't nearby anymore. A moment of panic courses through me—I can't do anything about my attraction to her during the season, but here? In the off-season and not even in Tennessee? This is my opportunity, and it can't just be...gone—but then I spot her around the corner at the condiment bar.

It's my turn to step beside her. She doesn't glance at me, but I'm pretty sure the hand holding the cinnamon shaker trembles slightly. Nerves? This bubbly woman who talks a mile a minute damn near 100-percent of the time?

"I have one of my fundraisers this weekend,” I answer her earlier question. “That's why I'm here."

"Ah." She nods and places the shaker back in the space labeled for it. "I'm hanging out with my parents' tortoise before I head out on a trip."

"Tortoise?" I absently swirl my plastic cup, holding it from the top with the straw sticking out from between my index and middle fingers.

"Bowser the Sulcata." Cheyenne finally glances up at me and for the first time since knowing her, I catalog her eyes. I always thought they were light brown, but in reality, the browns and greens mesh with yellow, making a nearly golden hazel. "He's fifty-three, and my mom got him from a fair when she was four. She didn't want the goldfish, and my grandparents didn't think the teeny tiny turtle was going to end up as an eighty-pound monster, so they said okay."

"Damn," I chuckle lightly. "That's a commitment. Don't they live for a hundred years or something close to that?"

Cheyenne's attention goes back to her chai as she replaces the lid. "I'm pretty sure Bowser's sections on their estate and will are higher than mine.” She reaches for a napkin to clean nearly unnoticeable latte droplets from the counter. "But it's important to have a plan in place when you have pets that live that long. I always wanted an African grey parrot, but their lifespan is something like twenty, twenty-five years, and that's a long time to keep something else alive."

"Especially when they act like they pay their vet bills," I add, recalling the many … spirited … horses I grew up with, with similar lifespans.

"For sure."

This time when she looks at me, I can feel the goodbye between us and I'm not ready for it yet. "I was going to grab a few things. Walk with me? Or do you have places to be?"

Her eyes stay locked on mine for a solid three heartbeats before she nods. "Okay. I need to grab some airplane snacks while here. Don't let me forget."

* * *

Turned out, she didn't just need airplane snacks, but some hiking sustenance pointers, as well.

"I can't believe you thought peanuts and peanut butter M&Ms would be 'good enough' when backpacking New Zealand," I tease lightly, pushing a half-full shopping cart out of the store and toward my rental. She also said she was picking things up in-country and stopping to enjoy local spots, but there was no way her meager choices were going to be enough.

"Then it's a good thing I ran into you this afternoon." Cheyenne swings two plastic bags from her right hand as she walks beside me. Our coffees, forgotten about, are both in cup holders attached to the cart, and when the wheels bump over the concrete curb, some of her chai bubbles from the sipping hole. "Who'd have guessed there were better protein options for traveling." I sense a hint of sarcasm in her words, but there's zero annoyance.

The rented Yukon I’m driving this week is at the far end of the lot, but Cheyenne walks beside me the entire way. She even helps place my groceries into the back.

"Where are you parked?" I ask, handing her the still-warm latte. It had to have been steamed extra hot before.

No wonder she burned her lip.

"Oh, I walked. My parents only live a few blocks away."

"Can I give you a ride there?"

"It's okay, you don't have to."

"Please?"

With a playful sigh, Cheyenne shakes her head. "If you must."

"I must." I hit the unlock button on the key fob. "Hop in. I'm just going to return the cart."

When I pull myself into the cab a few moments later, I set my iced macchiato in the available cup holder but notice Cheyenne still holds hers. "You can put it in here, if you want."

"I'm okay, thank you."

After hooking my arm around the headrest behind her, I check my surroundings, as well as the mirrors and camera, to reverse from the parking spot, then head toward the main road. "Which way?"

She gives basic directions and I nod, committing them to memory. This isn't the exact area I spent my teenage years, but the major crossroads that travel east and west are the same regardless of which side of the Phoenix valley you're in.

Yuma is always south of the 10, with McDowell above it—at least, until you run into the 51—and Camelback is Camelback, regardless if you're nearing Verrado to the west, or running straight into the mountain the road is named for, over on the east side.

"The fundraiser this weekend," Cheyenne breaks the small silence between us, "is this the one you do for youth baseball programs?"

I nod, and explain the weekend in depth. There's a hit-a-thon for local high school baseball players, and then a mini-tournament with different teams who pay a small $50 fee to be part of the brackets. There are a few high school teams signed up, but also, two of the local fire stations, a police department, and even the Maricopa sheriff's department, that are expected to play. It's meant to be a fun tournament, and funds are raised from tickets to the games, but also from raffles people purchase tickets for.

"Last year, this event raised about ten-grand and was split between three programs. This year, I'm focusing more on at-risk youth and I found two programs that specialize in the population."

"Is there a reason for at-risk youth?"

"Personally? No," I shake my head as I reach for my macchiato, sipping from the straw before returning the cup. "I'm just very aware I grew up in a privileged environment, even when we were on my family's ranch in Montana. Not every family can just up and leave their home state so their kid can get a better chance for a future in the sport he loves." I shrug my shoulder as I hit my turn signal. "Just trying to leave good behind."

After turning right into her parents' neighborhood, Cheyenne gives more detailed instructions to get to their house.

"The two-story at the end of the cul-de-sac."

"Got it." As I drive closer and closer to the Spanish-style home, the thought this impromptu afternoon went way too fast hits hard.

I should ask if she wants to come by my place. Grill out. Watch a movie.

Tell me more about this backpacking trip she's going on, her plans for the holidays, when she’s heading back to Tennessee...

Instead, I pull the large SUV to a stop in front of the house. "It was fun seeing you without a camera attached to your face," I joke, trying to keep things light.

This time, her smile isn't as bright and bubbly as it typically is. "Of all places to run into you..."

"See you this spring?" It hadn’t dawned on me that she might not be ours next season. It should have. Maybe she gets a new assignment every season.

But she nods, cutting off the sudden worry that this might be it, for real. "Yeah. I'll be there. Bells and whistles."

Thank fuck. I may not be able to do a damn thing about my attraction to her during the season, but seeing her face is a bright spot in my otherwise monotonous daily schedule.

"Will you be assigned to spring training, too?"

"I won't find that out for a few more months. If I recall correctly, the league invited me around January this past year. Pre-season assignments aren’t usually the same as regular season, but I'm for sure assigned to the Terrors for regular season. So, if I don’t see you in February, then definitely March."

I badly want to come up with something else to talk about, more reasons for her to stay sitting beside me, but I'm coming up blank.

Well, hell.

"Have a good night, Cheyenne, and enjoy your trip. Stay safe."

At 'trip,' I swear she dips her eyes briefly toward my mouth. I almost wonder if I imagined the brief moment, but then her lips tighten slightly as she swallows hard.

It's not just me who's attracted to the other.

I'd kiss her in a heartbeat if I was sure it was what she actually wanted.

Attraction is one thing.

But I'm not sure what kind of gray area there is in her contract with the league.

Sure, it's the off-season right now…but I have a feeling I'm not going to want to pump the brakes, stop whatever good thing we have going, come February when all those rules are in place once more.

"Have so much fun with your fundraiser,” her voice is soft, as if she’s also digging deep for words when she isn’t ready to leave. I know I’m not imagining it. “I know it's going to be a hit."

She puts her hand on the door to push out, but before she slips out of the vehicle and away from me, she turns her head, a contemplative look on her features. "Do you maybe want to do dinner or something tonight?"