Page 38 of Wild Hit (Wild Baseball Romance #3)

MIGUEL

I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this but I also won’t question it because I’m having a blast.

My kid, blood of my blood, who refuses to do things the way others want her to, has found someone who matches her energy in the form of my fake wife.

The two are currently engaged in a singing contest of sorts, to the tune of BTS. Turns out that Audrey’s also a fan of the South Korean boyband, and she knows as many of the hits as Marty.

And by that, I mean they sing the parts they understand in English and Korean, and loudly hum or nanana the parts that they don’t. It’s kind of beautiful even when they go a completely different way from the music.

The current bop is about being an idol, and that’s as much as I catch while still keeping my attention on the road.

Every chance she gets, Audrey turns back to pass an invisible mic to Marty at the back.

We’re at a long red light, so I focus the rearview mirror on my kid, who for the first time in what feels like forever is being a free, careless little girl.

She wiggles her torso and plays a cross between an air guitar and air drums as she shouts music, eyes closed and hair all over the place.

I could cry right damn now. My kid is happy. It wasn’t my own doing so I don’t know how to replicate this, but it doesn’t matter. I just wish this moment would last forever.

Audrey’s happy too. Her cheeks are red as apples.

Strands of hair fly off the bun at the top of her head.

Her bangs are spread out like a fan over her forehead.

She half sings and half laughs. Right now, she tries to pass me the microphone but I can only hum—Marty’s made sure I listen to all the songs, but I don’t know them by heart.

I’m not smart like they are. Too busy being a fool in love.

Oh .

The car behind us starts honking. I do a double take and find that the light is green. Maybe has been for a while.

Swallowing hard, I set us in motion again. We’re close to home, where I’m gonna go into my room to have a thinking session that will consist on hanging upside down from my pull ups bar. Maybe then I’ll have enough blood flow in my brain to figure out if… if I’m really…

Mierda, y más mierda. I think I am. I think I’ve gone and caught real feelings.

The song changes to something that sounds a lot more dramatic, and then the singers are screaming about a fake love. My eye twitches.

There’s still a chance that they’re not really real feelings.

Obviously I care about Audrey as a person.

I wasn’t lying when I asked her to be friends once upon a time.

And I’d be lying if I said that I don’t find her the most attractive woman I’ve ever met, with her green eyes, the sassy curve of her lips, the taste of them, the feeling of her pressed against me?—

I squirm. This is probably it. I’m starting to confuse attraction for something bigger.

“Hey, Audrey?” My kid scoots toward the middle of the backseat as far as the seatbelt lets her. “Wanna come over to sing more?”

This catches my neighbor in the middle of a solo. She clears her throat and turns back a little. “I’d love to, but I’m sure your dad will want some peace and quiet for a bit.”

Actually, this is peace—okay, not quiet, but I’m walking on sunshine right now. Even more than after having won another glass bat. I don’t want this to end. I also don’t think it’s right to act like clingy lint to Audrey’s T-shirt.

I’m still debating how to navigate that after we’re parked by the curb, and all three of us are getting out of the car.

My genius strategy is to stall some more by stretching, which also isn’t entirely an act.

We got stuck on some really bad traffic coming up Semoran after taking Consuelo home, and I was about to become welded to the car seat.

The sound of the back door opening spurs me to action.

“I got it, I got it,” I chant as I hurry. My suitcase is pretty heavy between Marty’s stuff, mine, and All-Star paraphernalia. Audrey’s looked about similar size, so maybe it’s heavy too.

And then something catches my attention. Between evening cicadas and a hot breeze, I hear something like a click. It wouldn’t register if I didn’t hear it again. And again.

I glance around and there it is, a dark figure in a neighbor’s bushes. The thing making the sound? It’s a camera with a very long lens, aimed right at Audrey and my daughter.

I don’t know what happens, one moment I’m about to take care of my family’s luggage. The next I’m sprinting across the residence.

There’s some scrambling. Someone yells. My legs pound the ground with violence. I don’t know if I’m breathing. My entire focus is on catching the paparazzi. No one takes secret pictures of my kid— no one . I hear my name in my brain. I shout back at it— not my family!

The man tries to run. Luck strikes for me, and the bushes tangle him up.

I catch him by an ankle and yank him like a rag doll.

I land one knee on his back, pinning him with no chance of escape.

I’m breathing like a race horse as I reach for his arms. He tries to squirm free, but there is no way in hot hell that I’m letting him loose.

I pin his arms with my legs and lean over him.

“Who the hell are you?” I bark in his ear. “Why are you taking pictures of my family?”

Dude tries to spit some venom at me and I have minus patience for this bullshit.

I free one hand to dig his head deeper in the grass, and speak very low. “Answer or this is gonna get damn uglier.”

“I’ll—I’ll press assault charges,” he squeaks out.

“I’ll keep pressing your face into the dirt and also press charges for stalking a woman and a minor, how about that?”

“Screw you!”

Tip taps echo until two sets of legs appear before me. One is from my daughter, and she’s holding one of my signed wooden bats. The other one is my wife—Audrey, I mean. She’s waving a… spatula?

“I called nine-one-one,” the woman says out of breath, her eyes volleying between the intruder and me, back and forth. “Who is he?”

I lean forward to whisper at the man. “Answer the lady.” The order goes with a bit more force from my hand.

“I’m a PI! I was hired for this job!” he finally spills out, completely catching me off guard.

A private investigator? And not a paparazzi?

Thankfully, Audrey has kept her marbles. “Who sent you?”

“Your momma,” the asshole tries, spitting out some grass blades.

“That’s funny,” Audrey says in a flat voice. “Try again before the cops arrive, and maybe we’ll see if the charges can be lighter.”

The pause indicates that the guy is giving it a thought. But then he says, “I can’t reveal that.”

“Audrey,” I say with some difficulty, not from keeping the guy prisoner, but from keeping my anger and fear in check. “Ch-Check the camera,” I stutter through a tight jaw.

She drops the spatula and scrambles to grab the thing.

When the PI jerk crashed, his equipment went flying off and is possibly broken.

Audrey picks up the camera and the lens stays on the grass.

Even though her expression is confident, bordering on annoyed, I can see the way her hands shake as she fiddles with buttons.

“No! You’re going to break it!” the jackass has the nerve to say.

I lean down again and speak with my lowest voice, so my daughter doesn’t hear. “I’m going to break something else if you don’t tell me who sent you.”

“That—That’s assault!”

“It might become murder depending on what’s in that camera,” I add almost conversationally.

Guy spits out more grass and finally wheezes it out. “Henry Vos hired me.”

Audrey hears the name. She tears her eyes off the camera and lands them on me. There’s real fear in her face now.

Something twists in my gut, visceral and burning rage. I hate that a moment ago she was happy and now this.

“Audrey, Marty.” I swallow down the hot lump in my throat. “Can you wait for me at home?”

“But—” Audrey starts.

“I can hear the sirens already,” I explain, calmer than I really feel. It’s not a lie, either. But I don’t want them to have to deal with the rest of this mess. “Go, please.”

My daughter’s the one who grabs onto Audrey’s hand and pulls her toward the house—our house.

*

It takes a couple of hours to deal with the mess.

Of course the piece of dung tries to convince the cops that I’m the one who assaulted him.

Fortunately, not only Audrey and Marty witnessed the thing, a couple of different neighbors stepped forward as witnesses backing up my account.

I get my cousin involved, anyway. If we have to get legal involved, my agent is the best person to manage that.

What’s stored in his camera also paints the picture.

He’d captured all angles of the house, entrances, where the security cameras were, and even Audrey’s car that’s still parked in her driveway.

It takes no rocket scientist to deduce that he was gonna park around here, capture every moment of our lives, and feed the information to Henry what-the-hell-is-his-problem Vos.

I didn’t share with the cops that the reason the rich man baby is doing this is because he believes my marriage with Audrey is fake. That’s what he was trying to find proof of, and maybe also something that could ruin my reputation as a standup pro baseball player.

Joke’s on him because the marriage is very real—on paper—and the most scandalous thing I do is drink orange juice straight out of the carton. I always keep a separate carton for Marty, anyway, so why dirty any cups?

“Ugh.” I drag my feet home once law enforcement finally drives off.

By this point, even the fortunately nosy neighbors have given up and gone back home. I’m going to make sure Marty and Audrey are okay, and then I’m laying facedown on the nearest surface.