Page 14 of Wild Hit (Wild Baseball Romance #3)

MIGUEL

B eing mic’ed up at a game is both an honor and a curse.

Consuelo had just sent me a text when the broadcast team came into the dugout to outfit me with the mic equipment before the next inning.

I know that this treatment is given to favorite players who are also not going to drop accidental f-bombs on live broadcast, but I really wanted to see what the text said.

Is Marty okay? Did something happen? Or is it a simpler thing like running out of toilet paper? Although that would also be horrifying.

“—Don’t you think?”

Mierda, I wasn’t paying attention to what the broadcast guy was saying. My lucky star is shining though, because this is exactly when the ball is hit my way.

“This is going long!” the announcer says in my ear and to everyone watching at home. “Machado takes off and?—”

I stop listening, every fiber of my being focused on making the play.

I can read the exact trajectory of the ball arching in the air, and after years and years of mapping the outfield of every stadium in the league, I know just where the projectile’s going to land.

The runner on first is shooting to second and even though there’s no one on third, if I don’t catch this damn ball they’re going to get excited.

Not on my watch, son.

My thighs pump with the force of sledgehammers, my steps light on the green while I track the ball.

I don’t even reason it out—I launch myself at the padded fence, finding purchase against it to propel myself up one step, two.

This is one of the softer fences in the pro stadiums, which makes this child’s play.

I reach with my glove at a full stretch, right in time for the ball to nestle inside my glove.

I’m not sure how high I am, so I soften my knees for the landing and roll with it.

The world spins and I let it, in the meantime reaching for the ball in my glove.

The second that the green is below me and not above, I throw the ball at Lucky Rivera’s general direction with all the power of my hips.

The ball is a white streak and the clever shortstop reads the play like we’re of one mind. He makes the catch and slides head first to tag the runner trying for third. Laying on the base, he throws to first and with that gets the batter out too.

Noise explodes all around.

This never gets old—the rush of dopamine and serotonin and any other happy hormone that engraves every successful play in my soul. I can’t believe I get to do this for a living.

“Unbelievable!” the guy exclaims in my ear, reminding me that I’m mic’ed up. “This is going to make the highlight reels for a week, and it all started with your superhero catch! How are you feeling right now, Machado?”

“Hungry.” It’s probably a better answer than saying how pleased I am to retire the inning this way, even if my shit-eating grin doesn’t hide it.

The second announcer laughs. “You definitely deserve a snack for that play.”

Something I’ve learned about the Orlando Wild is that, since Spring Training, this is a team that is highly motivated by pizza —especially if it’s paid for by the main catcher. I’m sure this inning will qualify for that special treat, and that alone is wroth bragging about.

However, if you’ve been a professional baseball player for longer than two games, you know that there’s an unwritten code of conduct. You simply don’t show other guys up, not even if you’ve just done something that’s going to be part of baseball history.

That’s the tricky part about being mic’ed up, that it makes it a lot harder to contain your own self-satisfied glee and not alienate everyone else in the league.

I already have enough with how irrational some fans are on social media, so I have to rein myself in and be as bland as possible right now.

“Thank you, guys,” I respond with a good natured chuckle, and pull out the receiver from my waistband as I head toward the dugout. As I turn it off, I breathe a relieved sigh out that I didn’t screw up—the game or the broadcast.

And now for the main thing—I grab onto the pendant hanging from my neck.

Players and staff alike manhandle me as I enter the dugout, and by rote I return the high fives, the ass pats, the chest bumps, slowly making my way deeper to the shelves that house the batting gloves and pads, where I also left my cellphone.

“Dude, that was freaking amazing!”

“You flew like two meters, bro.”

“What are two meters?” someone asks. “I don’t math.”

Me neither, I want to say. Instead, I swipe my phone screen and find Consuelo’s chat.

The pretty blonde neighbor is teaching math to your daughter , it reads.

I blink real slow. My body should relax now that I know this isn’t life or death, but for some reason I can’t. My blood stays running as hot as if I was still in the outfield about to fly two meters in the air.

“It’s like six feet and a half and there’s no way Machado jumped that high,” a familiar voice says nearby—Logan Kim, who is joining the team again for the first time today.

“Someone should measure it because that looked pretty impressive,” another familiar voice adds—Cade Starr, who’s officially done pitching for the night after conceding only one run.

“You know,” Lucky Rivera asks in an amused tone, “Those are pretty dangerous words in a dugout full of red-blooded and extremely competitive assholes.”

That tears a snort out of me, and next thing I know a beefy arm is thrown around my shoulders. “Besides,” Lucky laughs in my ear, “Tall guys have an unfair advantage, but it’s all about proportions.”

“Are we still talking about jumps or something else?” I ask.

He gasps in an exaggerated way. “Jumps, of course. Mind out of the gutter, you perv.”

I shake my head, though a glimpse at the words pretty blonde neighbor on the corner of my eye gives me pause. Did she see my big, big jump?

Wait, the whole nation’s gonna see it on repeat in any sports outlet, and I’m sure everyone employed by the team will too, from Charlie Cox to the guys who open and close the stadium doors everyday.

Why would it matter if Audrey Winters specifically sees that I’m capable of an athleticism feat like this?

I tuck my tongue against my cheek. I’m not one of those guys who are in the business of denial. I know exactly why her opinion matters more than the team owner’s or anyone else. She is pretty. She is good to my daughter. And I am a very simple guy.

This is bad.

*

“Be rational, Miguel,” I tell myself while driving home after the game. It’s well past midnight and the commute from the park downtown to home is calm. “Biologically speaking, you know exactly what was going on at that moment.”

A cocktail of macho manly man hormones swirled in my belly, dimming my brain function.

What little I had was fully spent on not screwing up during broadcast. I can’t be blamed for making a new brain synapsis between my pretty blonde neighbor who was teaching math to my daughter, and feeling good after a bold play.

I haven’t read all the parenting and psychology books I have to pretend like I don’t know what’s happening.

“She’s an attractive woman,” I continue explaining to the quiet inside my vehicle, just as I turn into my street. “You’ve known that from day one.”

And by that I mean the day she punched me in the eye. It was just reconfirmed when I saw her the next time, when she somehow ended up in my arms for a dance.

My chest does a thing. I thump it to stop it.

“Realistically, you’d be feeling the same way if you were exposed to another attractive, single woman.”

Would I?

My eyebrows tighten a little. Yeah, admitting that makes me a jerk because women aren’t interchangeable.

I force myself to think of other beautiful women I’ve met before, from Marty’s mom, to celebrities like the singer Celina, to the woman who asked for my autograph at Trader Joe’s last weekend, and the fans who sometimes show a lot of cleavage to get players’s attention.

My chest doesn’t do the thing with any of them.

“Okay, so I find her more attractive than others.” I shrug. “So what? No big deal.”

I park my SUV outside of the garage, trying to make as little noise as possible since Marty must be asleep.

On days like this, when I took care of Marty’s morning routine, Consuelo stays until late and waits for me awake.

We’ve fallen into a good cadence and I know we’re so fortunate to have found a nanny who not only is reliable and safe, but also flexible.

Gathering my duffel bag from the back, I shut the car door as carefully as possible and my attention strays to the duplex next door.

The downstairs lights are on, which isn’t surprising knowing that all the residents work for the same team that I do, which just finished a home game.

Maybe Audrey saw the entire action from the comfort of her living room. I wonder if she’s impressed.

“Stop. You’re acting like a teenager.” I shake my head.

I force myself to veer toward my door. With my free hand, I key in the remote code on an app that unlocks my house. Makes it a lot easier to elbow and shoulder my way in when I’m tired and sleepy after a game.

But then I freeze at the foyer. Consuelo waits awake for me, all right—across from my pretty blonde neighbor at the dining table.

Steaming mugs of what smells like chamomile sit between them, and they stop mid laughter to turn to me.

Yeah. That sound you hear? My chest doing the thing again.

This time it stays doing it, though, almost alarming me. It takes me a moment to remember that this is what it feels like when I’m nervous and I clutch at my necklace.

“There he is,” Consuelo says, motioning toward me with a motherly smile.

Audrey pushes a gold strand behind her ear. “Welcome home, Miguel.”

The strap of the duffel bag slides off my shoulder, and it falls on the carpet with a dull thud.