Page 9

CHAPTER 9

ROSE

Me

Did you watch the game?!

Mi Mamá

?Sí, mija! It was so good

Your papito would’ve loved it

T hat makes my chest twist painfully. My dad died when I was too young to remember him, but he was still a part of the family growing up.

Pictures of him in his youth line our living room, along with snaps of him and Mom dating, their wedding, and from when I was born. My favorite is from one when I was just shy of twelve months. He held me in his arms and was captured right as he gave me what was probably the biggest kiss in the world. My pudgy little face was scrunched up in joy—there might’ve been a bit of drool dripping down my mouth that Mom says was from the flash.

And he wore an Orlando Wild baseball cap.

Our franchise is pretty new, just a few years older than I am, but apparently one of Dad’s favorite Venezuelan players was drafted to the Wild right as the team started out. It coincided with the timing for Mom and Dad to leave their home country behind and relocate somewhere safer. According to the legend, Dad chose Orlando, Florida, because of the baseball team.

He passed just before my second birthday in a car accident, but so many things about him stayed with us. His music taste, his zest for life, his face in mine… his love of Orlando Wild baseball.

I don’t know him, and even I know he would’ve gone hoarse screaming in the stands during this game. We were just… wild.

I hug my phone to myself and basically skip to my office. The game footage is going to make for some golden posts. By the time I’m done, I’ll more than deserve a bonus. I’ll put in my name in the hat for a promotion.

“What you got for us?” one of the ladies in the digital content team greets me as I step into the marketing office, complete with rubbing her grubby hands in glee.

“I don’t know if to share,” I joke, side-stepping her to head to my cubicle. “You might faint when you see it.”

“Is it something juicy, then?” She wiggles her eyebrows.

Aside from the accidental closeup of Logan Kim pulling out his bunched up pants from the crack of his bubble butt? Yes.

I plop on my chair and say, “I just so happened to be right behind the home plate for the triple play.”

“Whoa.”

“Did someone say triple play?” my boss’s voice echoes from afar, I figure he’s coming into the office.

“It seems like Rosalina got some good stuff for us,” the digital content girl says.

“Oh yeah?” That’s a new voice coming along.

Next thing I know, four people other than me cram in my cubicle to watch as I plug my phone into the screens, and replay some of the best bits for them. Much oh’ing and ah’ing ensues, punctuating ideas from everyone in a creative team that has probably not seen better fodder than this season.

I’m not the only one buzzing from tonight’s game, and yes our opponent hasn’t contended for the World Series in twenty years—but neither have we. And this time it feels very different.

“What if you splice this one… with this one?” my boss asks, pointing at the screen in one hand and holding his seating cushion with the other hand. Poor guy has to use it to sit everywhere until he’s all healed from the surgery.

“I was thinking about that,” I confirm, dragging my mouse to bring a third clip on the screen. “With this one as the finisher. It’d be with some dramatic flares and sombre music up to here, then with the third clip we speed it up and use a more animated song. Something like…”

“We Are The Champions?” another colleague suggests to a round of snickers.

I raise my hand. “No, we’ll save that one for when we win the World Series. We don’t want to jinx it.”

“You’re right.” Dave nods.

Our other colleague opens her eyes wide. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t we?—”

“Is Rosalina Mena here?”

We all freeze at the question.

Or rather, at the voice. Because it’s not one that we hear often around here.

My coworkers are corporate meerkats. They straighten up to look at the interloper from above the walls of my cubicle. But I’m trapped in my seat between them and my chair, so I can’t even ascertain that this isn’t a mass hallucination event.

Otherwise, I can’t fathom why Logan Kim would be here in the marketing office when, er, by my count he should be showering.

But also, I can’t tell my colleagues to say that I’m not here. That would arouse too much interest that I’m unwilling to entertain. As much as I don’t want to deal with him, I have no choice but to let this play out.

“Oh wow,” the digital content creator whispers behind me. “He’s even better to look at in the flesh.”

“You’re starting to drool, Betty,” my boss jokes in an equally quiet voice.

Someone else adds, “Aren’t you married?”

“Well, yeah. But looking is free.”

“It’s a free country, a’ight.”

A round of snickers.

“She’s here,” my boss finally responds, pointing at me even though there’s no way Logan can see his hand through the cubicle walls. “But shouldn’t you be in the showers?”

Thank you , I mouth to myself.

“First, I have some business with Mena.” Ugh. Why does Logan Kim sound so much closer?

The traitors start scooting out of my space, casually standing to the same side and giving room to the newcomer. Sighing, I swivel in my chair to meet him.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just as stunned to see our catcher in the threshold of my cubicle. He’s still in his game uniform, smears of red sand down one knee and the opposite hip, so soaking wet that the fabric sticks to his frame like a second skin.

He’s not wearing his mask or pads, but his hair is loose and even though he’s combed it back with his fingers, a strand still escaped and is stuck to the side of his face. A face that is darkened by a perfectly manicured stubble and?—

A glare.

My eyebrows scrunch. What’s his deal?

Taking a deep breath, I try to approach this from a standpoint of maturity. “The air conditioning here is too strong and you could get sick. Let’s step outside.”

He folds his arms, two works of art between tattoos and muscles that bunch beautifully with the motion. I’m not even being a creep—the guy is objectively a perfect male specimen. At least on the outside.

“I wouldn’t get sick from this,” he grouches, offense obviously taken.

“Then let’s go out for my sake then. I’m freezing.” I grab my cardigan from the back of my chair and get up. My four colleagues have the same look on their faces, like they wish they could record this and put it on social media.

I motion at them to stay in the office like they’re puppies I’m trying to train, before following Logan out.

Then I shrug on my cardigan and take the lead. His steps tag along all the way as I meander us through the corridors and out to the cafeteria. It’s still empty safe for the kitchen staff, since the hungry players haven’t yet descended upon it. But it’s only a matter of time, so I whirl around and mimic his earlier stance.

The fact that his eyes fall on the lavender flowers knitted at the front of my cardigan annoys me. I don’t know why. It just does.

“What can I do for you, Logan?”

Huffing, he runs a massive hand through his hair. “Take down the video.”

My knee jerk reaction is to say no. Somehow I temper it down to a “what video?”

“The one about me making the catch that kept the integrity of your pretty little head, and makes me look like a complete simp.”

I oh and ah just as my colleagues did earlier, then add, “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Are we done here?”

“No, we are not done here.” He scoffs. Or maybe chokes a laugh. Then he shakes his head. “Fine, if you don’t have the authority to remove that video, I’ll go to your boss.”

“Absolutely not.” I offer him my best pageant smile, the one that almost got me the Miss Florida crown when I was twenty. “It’s one of the most viral videos in the account. You can escalate all the way to Cox if you want, and I’m sure not even he would want to stop the momentum our account is getting from it.”

Now he’s sincerely annoyed, and this is when I learn that there’s a difference between normal-grumpy-Logan and about-to-do-violence-Logan.

A muscle in his jaw jumps from how hard he’s gnashing his teeth, and red hot sparks fly out of his eyes. “There is a clause in my contract that prevents the team from publishing anything defamatory or that devalues my own personal image.”

“Which is why I’m not posting the video I got of you with a wedgie.”

“Mena.” He all but growls my last name, and something terrible happens—horrible, absolutely traumatizing…

I break into goosebumps all over.

As I rub my arms over my cardigan, I add, “Listen, as your resident social media manager, I have to learn a thing or two about legalities as well. Defamation means lying, and nothing about that video is a?—”

“There’s a damn saxophone?—”

I try really hard not to laugh as I continue, “—Lie. And also, how is your image being devalued when you’re getting thousands of proposals from marriage, to modeling, to indecent ones you’d probably enjoy?”

“Saxophone,” he repeats through gritted teeth. “I hate wind instruments.”

“I’ll use some piano next time.”

“Next time?” He does an angry double take, his brow darkening by the second.

“My point is that you’re now more popular than ever, and so is the team by default.”

“Exactly!” Logan throws his hands in the air, probably the biggest gesture I’ve ever seen on him. “I save your life and this is what I get? Mockery?”

Mockery?

Is he implying that my job is a joke?

“Um, excuse me. I didn’t ask for it to be you ,” I snap, lava rising up my throat in the form of a barrage of words. “I’d also rather deal with literally any other guy on the team than put up with this crap. And oh by the way, if you’re gonna treat saving my life like it’s a favor, you’re gonna have to wait for me to return it when you’re in the same kind of danger. Good. Freaking. Bye.”

I don’t wait for him to finish blinking. I turn around and head to the other door. Except my shoulder rams into it and the door doesn’t open, which means that my only escape is through the door that Logan is blocking with his massive frame.

Ignoring him, I take the long road circling back the tables, conscious of his laser beams trained on me. But if he thinks that a glare will be enough to make me cave to his will, he has something coming to him. And by coming I mean going—back to my office, leaving him behind and his damn arrogance that has officially soured my night.