Page 19 of Sideline Play

“That was a pretty fast answer for no one.”

“Just a character in my book,” she evades, giving herself away as her gaze glances to the other table where her book rests.

On the cover is a drawing of a woman and what I assume to be her son in one corner and opposite them, a catcher. Even her books are centered around baseball, the small detail of how ingrained the sport is in her life making me smile.

“Catching the Coach. First Dawson, now this. Scar, do you have a thing for catchers?” I tease, the very idea making my chest puff up with equal measures of pride and jealousy.

“What? No,” she stammers, her cheeks reddening. “I mean… it’s just…” Sighing, she confesses in a rush, “You have a really nice butt.” Her hand slaps over mouth as her blue eyes go as wide as saucers.

I can’t help but laugh, the sound deep as my head falls back. It’s a Freudian slip if I’ve ever heard one. An unconscious loosening of her tongue that directly negates any and all comparisons she made the day before between me and Roman.

“Oh my God, I did not just say that!” she cries, covering her face. Standing up she says, “Excuse me, I have to go jump out a window.”

Grabbing a hold of her arm, I yank her to the bed with all the strength my fatigued muscles can manage, which isn’t much. So I know when she sits on the edge of my bed, her entire face pink and the color spreading up to her hairline, down her neck, and across her exposed chest, that she’s coming to me willingly.

Snaking my arm around her hip but staying mindful to keep enough space so I’m not actually touching her, I chuckle, “Thanks to squats and Jesus, it was named one of Nashville’s finest. So go ahead baby girl, admire it all you want.”

“I just meant,catchershave really nice butts. And thighs for that matter. Not youspecifically.”

“Sure, Scar.”

“Oh my God…”

Laughing, I reach to pat the lower part of her thigh just as the door to my room starts to open. Fast as a snake, she’s on her feet and stepping back from the bed as first her dad and then brother come into the room, Scarlet’s dog getting ushered in between them.

While Colt smiles and kisses her cheek before asking how I’m feeling, Roman remains at the door, tattooed arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed, with a pink, tiara dotted leash white knuckled in his hand. Answering Colt without breaking my sudden standoff with our pitcher, I say, “Good; starving.”

I don’t take Roman for a fool, and I don’t think I’m slinking by unnoticed by him. That silent communication we’ve mastered over the season is now rearing a glaring downside. Not only can he read me from the mound, but he can do it here in this room as well.

Scarlet’s sudden pacing and nonstop chatter. The rumple in the sheets to my left when the rest of the bed is nearly pristine. But most telling—the fact that the moment he looked at me, I met the unspoken challenge of his keen look instead of it going right over my head.

He knows, or at least is piecing it together, and I’m unsurprised by how little I care.

I respect Roman. Not just as a teammate but also as a man. He’s gruff and short tempered with an ever present look of being haunted that he doesn’t mask nearly as well as he thinks, but he’s good people. Shirt off his back, last dollar in his pocket, drops everything at the first ring, good. It takes a lot to get through his armor, and I’m sure any progress I’ve made is getting eaten up with every passing second.

But respect for him as part of the team doesn’t equate to me showing him deference where Scarlet is concerned.

Intimidating posturing and cold glares may have worked to chase off the boys following her swishing skirts in the past, but that shit won’t work on me. And sooner or later, he’ll realize that. It’s a game of wills that even post surgery I’m prepared to play, at least until her hand touches my arm, her voice betraying concern as she asks, “Remi?”

The look on Roman’s face at her nickname for me is priceless, and I savor it for a fraction of a second before giving Scarlet my attention, her presence and touch as unignorable to me as a sailor under the lure of a siren’s song.

Trailing my fingers down the inside of her wrist, I acknowledge, “Yeah?” Everything in me softens under her gaze and the feel of her smooth skin along my callouses.

“We need to call the nurse in so she and the doctor can evaluate you. Then you can eat, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

Patting my leg as he folds his tall frame into the seat his daughter pulled to my bedside, Jones says, “Yeah, you’ll probably get chicken broth and jello or something. Easy on the stomach in case you puke.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Mine,” Scarlet shrugs. “When I was sixteen I had my wisdom teeth removed, tonsils taken out, and then my appendix ruptured. After each surgery… well let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”

Stretching his arms out over the chair before running his hands through his dark hair, Skip says, “Yeah, I guess she figured between her and Ro if we did five surgeries I could get the sixth for free.”

“How do I not remember that?”

“It was in 2019,” she whispers, tapping the side of her leg to summon her dog, her fingers twisting and massaging around Winnie’s ears.

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