Page 9 of The Curveball

“How did you know it’s a pet peeve of mine?” I finally whisper.

Griffin’s voice lowers to a delicious, scratchy rumble in the back of his throat. “You told me all about it at the team banquet last spring.”

“Oh. Right.”

I’d had a bit to drink back then and ended up hanging all over Griffin’s arm. I wish I could forget it. The way his fingertips on the curve of my back heated my skin. Or the gentle way he’d wiped a tear from my eye when I laughed at a joke that honestly wasn’t funny, but it came from Ryder who never smiles, and when he deadpanned the entire thing, it became hilarious.

Heat weaves in and out of my pores like I’m a quilt of embarrassment. I hoped he was tipsy enough not to remember all those things to the depth of detail my brain refuses to release.

“You’re annoying,” I say, because my mature side is too exhausted to hang around.

“Don’t flirt with me, you have a date.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Do. Not. Smile.

Griffin stands again. “I’m just here to let you know I’ll watch your back. He’s on a test run atRocco’s, and one wrong move—he’s out.”

“Great baseball pun. You sound like Parker and Skye.”

“Stop with the compliments, Birdie.”

I roll my eyes, fighting a grin. He’s not funny. He’s irritating. He’s not beautiful. He’s cocky. He’s not sincere. He’s playing a game. I repeat each line three times before the crack in my shields against Griffin Marks patches itself up again.

“You’ve delivered your message,” I say. “You’re free to go. I need to get ready.”

“Fine. But if you need me to kick him off his chair, just shout: batter up.”

“That would not be my safe word.”

His eyes brighten. “Oh, safe words. I like where this conversation is heading.”

“You’re a pig.”

He chuckles. “Okay, non-baseball related. Um, how about—Oxford comma.”

I can’t help it, the snorty laugh bolts through my nose. Griffin beams at me like I’ve hung the moon with his name splashed right in the center. With a sigh, I nod. “If it gets you out of here, fine—I’ll screamOxford commaif he gets handsy.”

“Whoa, I was talking about condescending or jerkish. Handsy is a different issue altogether. For wandering hands, you just do this—” He drags his index finger over his throat. “And I’ll know how to handle him.”

This man. He’s not my friend. He’s more like a pebble in my shoe that desperately wants me to take it home and polish it into a decorative stone to keep with me always.

I rarely give Griffin this much back and forth. Most days, I’ll have a polite, stiff conversation with the man, and go on my lonely way. A safe strategy, or so I thought.

The trouble is, Griffin has never stopped trying.

When my car wouldn’t start once, he had half the team surrounding my little Civic ready to jump the battery. When that didn’t work, Griffin immediately sent one fresh-out-of-college rookie to the auto parts store, and one barely-twenty-two pitcher who drifts back and forth from the Kings to their triple-A team, the Scorpions, to the nearest concession stand to get me a frozen lemonade while I waited.

I kept telling Griffin my brother owns an auto shop, but the man didn’t budge.

One of the strangest, most unexpectedly sweet gestures came when somehow Griffin heard I’d had an ovarian cyst issue that caused quite a bit of pain, and the next thing I knew, a box of raspberry dark chocolate, ten pairs of fuzzy socks, and a new Kindle were stacked on Alice’s desk with my name on a small card.

He seems to yearn for my acceptance, and I don’t know why. Likely, I’ve become a sort of conquest, and for a man like him it drives him insane not to win.

So, I don’t give in. I figure eventually he’ll lose interest, and I don’t even try to dissect why the thought of that day leaves me a little emptier.

“Okay.” Griffin claps the edge of the desk. “I’ll leave you in peace for now. But I’ve got your back, Birdie.”

I shake my head. “I’m begging you to not embarrass me, okay? I don’t do dates, and I’d like to just have a nice evening.”

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