Page 33 of Wild Hit (Wild Baseball Romance #3)

MIGUEL

F or a wild second that stretches into forever, I can’t tell where Audrey and I end and begin. I just know that this is what’s right and everything else is a half truth.

Then she’s pulling away, tucking her face against my chest while I just stand there, cold and broken when I have to face reality again. My eyes stay glued shut, a tiny rebellion against the facts.

She’s not really mine. That kiss wasn’t real, even though it sure as hell felt like it.

Slowly my mind reaches out to my senses.

My skin is running on overdrive, tingling in an almost painful way everywhere, especially where she’s pressed up against me.

My chest is working around the clock to catch some air, and my heart is competing for attention.

I swallow hard when I find that my arms are still wrapped around her—tight.

As I begin to loosen them, Audrey takes it as her cue to begin slipping away. Everything I’m made of rejects that concept, but I let her. The lucid part of me unfortunately prevails.

Her hands stay on my chest as she takes a look around. A curtain of her hair obscures her face from my eyes, and I’ll stay forever curious about the expression she’s making.

“He’s really gone,” she says in a sigh, and it takes me far too long to clock why those words matter. After a step back, keeping her head down, she adds, “Be right back, okay?” With that, she turns around and disappears into the women’s restroom.

I backtrack until I slam against the wall behind me, and my entire frame slackens. I run a hand down my face until it stops at my mouth. A groan escapes from my throat.

I’m never gonna forget that kiss, am I?

Now I mess up my hair, waxed as it was. I’m gonna have to get real acquainted with being frustrated with want for this woman.

Light steps echo nearby, and I hide my hands in my pockets like they’re guilty of a crime—which I guess they are, it’s a crime for me to be starving for more of her.

Audrey returns with two tissue bundles in her hands. “Let me?” she asks, like I would ever say no to her. Reaching up, she starts wiping my mouth with the damp bundle. All I can do is blink like an owl. “I, uh, smeared lipstick all over you.”

“Huh,” is all I manage to vocalize.

Her startlingly green eyes are focused only on the task, face drawn into determined lines that give me nothing about what she’s thinking or feeling, and I know for a fact that I’m going to overthink myself to death about this later tonight when I’m trying to sleep.

I hope she doesn’t. I hope she sleeps sound and safe.

“There.” She nods, balling up the tissues. Our eyes meet for all of one second until she turns away to glance at the corner. “The coast is clear, shall we bounce?”

I bob my head in all directions. Luckily she takes it as a yes, and I follow her around the edges of the party on our way out.

The noise of scattered conversations, laughter, glasses clinking, and dissonant music assault my senses, bringing me back to a very rude reality.

I manage to tear my eyes away from the patch of skin at Audrey’s back that her hair lets me glimpse at, and take in our surroundings.

I spot Audrey’s father watching us like a hawk from across the room, with the same kind of hawk-like precision back from me. He’s surrounded by other old men—one I even recognize from the politics section of the news. Not pictured among them is the asshat that harassed Audrey just minutes ago.

He’s nowhere to be found, yet I know just as I know that my full name is Miguel Jose Machado Jimenez that tonight won’t be the last we see of that piece of shit.

We emerge from the crowd uninterrupted, and with Audrey leading the charge she’s the one who reaches the elevators first and presses the button. I hang back, doing my best to keep my eyes forward so they don’t lower back down to her legs.

Nope, heaven forgive me but my eyes stray. Her legs look soft enough to make my hands tingle.

The elevator dings. A few people come out once the doors open, and one of the hotel employees remains inside as Audrey and I step in.

Polite greetings are exchanged, and that would be it if not because the cleaning lady does a double take at me.

Something like an eureka flashes on her face, then she peeks at Audrey, and back to the front.

Audrey nudges me. I return a little shrug and shake my head.

I can’t presume that this lady really knows who I am.

Unlike the prick who traded from the Wild to the Riders to become the team’s flagship pitcher, I don’t go around offering autographs before they’re requested to stroke my ego.

Somehow Audrey seems to understand because she nods, and that’s that.

“Umm, I’m sorry to bother but…” We both turn to the other lady. She’s wringing her hands. “Are you Miguel Machado? My husband is a big fan but I don’t have anything on me to get your autograph.”

Audrey flashes me a smirk before addressing the lady. “That’s not a problem, could I take a picture of you two instead?”

The woman’s face lights up for a second. “Oh, but I shouldn’t impose, I’m so sorry?—”

“It’s okay, carpet the diem!” Audrey exclaims like my daughter once did.

At the lobby, we find a clear background for Audrey to take a picture of the cleaning lady and I. I do my best to smile in a happy way, even though my head is swimming.

Do I have a chance with Audrey? Or is it going to be super creepy to come out and say hey, I said we were friends but actually I want more ?

In contrast, she’s unbothered as she grabs my by the crook of my arm and bids our combined farewell to the nice elevator lady.

We walk together in awkward silence again, stopping at the valet to request our car.

The air outside is hot and humid, fat drops falling all around.

The sky rumbles with a threat, setting up the perfect stage for me to have an existential crisis when I get home.

I just have to keep it together until then.

The sound of the Maserati’s engine alerts me.

I blink awake and notice that the rain is starting to pick up.

Neither of us brought an umbrella, so my jacket will have to do.

Audrey watches me remove it with clear confusion on her face, but then the car is in front of us and I hold the suit jacket over her.

“Shall we?” I ask.

“Ah, yes.”

We shuffle toward the passenger door off tune, bumping into each other a couple of times.

I prompt her to hold the jacket as I open the door for her, cold drops slamming on my head and the back of my neck, helping to cool down the raging volcano heat of my skin.

When she tries to offer the jacket in return, I lay it across her lap and close the door.

I take just a second to look up and close my eyes against the rain. By the time I get into the small enclosure of this sports car, I better be acting like my normal damn self, or else.

Or else I’m gonna be in serious trouble.

I walk around the car at a leisurely pace, receiving the keys from the valet driver and getting in without much ceremony.

“Miguel Jose,” Audrey says in a serious voice and armed with the new ammo of my middle name. “I won’t be responsible for you catching a cold.”

When my lips stretch, I know that the trick worked and I’m back to normal. “You do know that I train and play in the rain too, right?”

She ignores me. “Let’s turn down the A/C, at least.”

I let her fuss with it for a moment. We fasten our seatbelts and I pull out of the hotel parking lot like the night has been completely unremarkable.

From the corner of my eye, I notice that she’s still fussing—now with the sound system.

She stops at a radio station that’s playing some early 2000s classics and leans back.

Right as I’m starting to hum to As Long As You Love Me, Audrey says, “I’m sorry about all that. I shouldn’t have kissed you all of a sudden.”

And just like that, my veneer of normalcy falls off in one swoop.

My hands tighten around the steering wheel. “It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t,” she whispers. “It’s just, he suspects that we’re not married for love and started throwing accusations, and it was all I could think about to shut him up.”

“I understand,” I say somewhat robotically, even as my chest squeezes uncomfortably. I focus on the road, the wipers working hard to clear the rain.

“I know you do. You’re the most understanding person I’ve ever met.” Audrey lets out a dry chuckle. “That’s what makes me feel worse about this whole thing. I’m using you, Miguel, plain and simple.”

I have no problem with that , I nearly spew out, but even when I’m still turned on like a torch I know better than to say that. Just because I don’t mind being her cover with kisses worth of a telenovela, it doesn’t mean it will lead to something real.

However, she’s wrong about something. “You’re not using me when I’m collaborating, you know?”

“Even then.” Sighing, she turns toward the window as we roll to a stop at a red light. “I… I?—”

She gets interrupted by a streak of light in the sky. An explosion-like thunder booms all around us, the kind that makes every hair in your body stand up. And then it’s not raining anymore—rather, buckets of water are pouring over the whole area and it’s near impossible to see.

“Er, is it okay if I park somewhere to wait this out?”

“I—yes, of course,” she responds.

I’d never been more thankful for franchises being so uniform across the board, because even with the diminished visibility I know that what I’m pulling into is a McDonald’s parking lot.

I find an empty corner and park us there to wait out the worst of the storm.

I turn the A/C vents toward her and lean back on my seat.

“What now?” Audrey asks.

I rest my hands across my stomach. “There are a few options. We can just listen to the radio or a playlist. We can chat about everything and nothing, or even take a nap. If you’re hungry, we can actually use the drive through to get something. Up to you.”