Page 26 of Curveball: The Baby and the Grump

She folds her arms. “You know nothing about the how this works, do you? You won’t be doing anything like playing sports until they think you’re better enough.”

“How long’s it going to take before I can play?” I ask desperately.

She shrugs, her face softening in pity. “I wouldn’t bet on it being less than another month.”

I groan. “But we’re getting towards playoffs by then! I need my arm to be back in action now.”

“And I’m telling you, you can’t have it,” Freya says sternly, nurse mode activating again.

I know I’m acting like a baby by sulking, but in my defense, baseball is my whole life. This is like me telling her that she’s not allowed to be a nurse anymore. That she’s not allowed to care for other people. It hurts.

Then something occurs to me. “Wait,” I say. “You’ve brought this from work.”

“Yes,” she says, her brow furrowing in confusion.

“That means you’re off for the rest of the day now, right?”

“Technically, yeah. Matt’s staying at a friend’s tonight, so I’m in no rush, but I do have a lot of chores that I need to catch up on.”

“But you have time to stay for dinner?” I ask hopefully.

Freya hesitates for a second, and I think she’s going to say no, that all of this is going to be over and I’m going to mean nothing to her for the rest of time, but then she nods. “Okay. What have you got? Impress me and I’ll think about it.”

“I think my chef left a curry in the fridge. Otherwise I can order pizza. With mozzarella sticks. And fries. And garlic bread.”

She stares hard at me for a moment, but then her face cracks into that warm smile I’ve come to adore. “You had me at curry.”

It’s at that exact moment that I know I have to be brave and make this the best dinner I’ve ever served a woman. If I don’t impress her with this, then that’s going to be the end of our relationship, such as it is. If I don’t tell her how I feel, she’s going to slip away from me before we even begin to tap into our potential.

“Do you want to watch a movie first?” I ask, all but batting my eyelids at her.

“No,” she says, and I do a double take. That was not the answer I was expecting, and especially not said so bluntly. “I don’t want to watch any more baseball movies. But if you pull up News Room, I’ll watch that with you all day long.”

I sigh audibly, slumping in relief. She really had me going then. “All right. Awesome.”

We wander into the living room, and I flop onto the sofa, grabbing the remote to flip on the TV so I can open one of the seven thousand streaming services I subscribe to.

Lately, we’ve been watching this show, News Room, a mockumentary about TV journalists in an office doing their thing and getting caught up in the usual drama of romance and careers and whatever. It’s pretty funny, and the episodes aren’t very long either, so it’s been good whenever she’s been in a hurry.

It comes up fast, and I hit play on the next episode. As I settle back into the seat, I try not to notice my heart beating faster at the idea of sitting next to her. Doesn’t help that I swear I feel her move towards me a little too, shuffling in as if she’s debating whether or not to lean onto me, like she wants to settle into my arms.

I barely manage to concentrate on the show at all because I’m too busy thinking about holding her, about stroking her hair and caressing her body. And then my mind turns down a route I’ve been trying to avoid; I start imagining pressing my lips to her skin — and then I can’t stop, the fantasy turning into slipping my hand under her shirt and feeling her soft belly, then roaming up to her firm breasts, which I’ve been trying not to notice at all.

I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts that it feels like only a second has passed before the end credits are rolling. I glance down at my smartwatch and blink. “This is an acceptable time to eat now, right?”

“Maybe, if you make it slowly,” she says, sticking her tongue out teasingly. I have to look away to stop that thought process going any further.

“How about a glass of wine to entice you?”

“I shouldn’t. I’m driving.”

“You can always stay in the spare room,” I say, then clamp my mouth shut hard. I can’t believe I let that slip out. Better, I guess, than saying well, you can always stay in my room, which is what my thought actually was.

She flushes bright red, and I feel like I’ve made a horrible mistake. “Let’s go find that curry,” I say quickly, trying to cover my gaffe. Freya nods and follows without a word, her face still flushed.

I’m dying to ask her what’s going on in her mind, to put me out of my misery about the way I feel, but, like a good coward, I don’t say anything at all.

I grab the curry from the fridge, glad that I wasn’t remembering wrong, then dump it unceremoniously into a bowl. Freya watches me closely, hawkishly, like she’s afraid I might not know how to reheat my own dinner.

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