Page 37 of Double Play

“I just want to protect you.”

“I’m good. I need to run. Come by sometime. I’d love to see you.”

“Will do.”

I’m walkingout of my dugout onto the field. We’re in a tight game in the eighth inning. I turn back and see Arizona and her friends laughing together in the stands. Several fans are watching them. A group of gorgeous women tends to draw a lot of attention. Add to that the amount of press the Anacondas are getting lately, and as many fans watch them interact as watch us play. At least it feels that way.

I notice that Arizona is eating a hot dog. Holy fuck, the way she’s eating it is so damn erotic. It feels like it’s happening in slow motion with some slow, sexy song playing in the background, as though it’s porn hotdog eating. She’s not doing it on purpose, but I can’t peel my eyes from the obscene scene unfolding before me. She then licks some of the dripping ketchup off the end and I start to harden.

Oh god. I haven’t gotten hard in the middle of a game in years. It fucking hurts in a jockstrap and cup. I try to adjust myself, but it’s jammed in there. There’s no way I can free it without being obvious. There’sdefinitelyno way I can play in this condition.

Cheetah walks by me and stops, giving me a skeptical look. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re in pain. Are you injured?”

I nod toward the stands while leaning over to hide the evidence. “I just saw Arizona licking a hot dog. I’ve got a pocket rocket situation.”

He starts laughing. “Oh my god. That’s classic.” He turns and looks at her. As if on cue, she stuffs half the hotdog into her mouth and then licks her fingers. He begins to roll his hips a bit. “Oh shit. Now I’ve got a purple homewrecker too.”

I whisper-yell, “You can’t get hard looking at my girl!”

“She’s hot. And they’re all eating hot dogs. It’s like weird food porn. Have you ever seen those food fetish videos on Instagram? My ex-girlfriend, Lakshmi, was totally into them. I never understood the appeal until now.”

We’re awkwardly holding up the game. The ump walks over. “Are you ladies done gossiping? We’re in the middle of a game, in case you haven’t noticed.”

I grimace. “Give me a timeout. I’ve…umm…got a cramp. I need to stretch.”

He barks, “You have two minutes, Snow White.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Dead puppies, dead puppies, dead puppies.”

Cheetah mutters, “Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What? That’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not. It’s worked in the past.”

Just then, Trey walks over. “What are you two fuckwits doing? It looks like you’re swinging a hula hoop around your waists.”

As we both squirm, Cheetah grits, “The girls were eating hot dogs. It was sexy as hell. Now we’ve both got a diamond cutter situation happening south of the border.”

Trey looks at us with disgust. “How old are you? You’re pathetic.”

I plead, “Help us. We can’t get rid of them.”

He thinks for a moment. “Run through the all-time worst television series finales. That never fails to keep things at bay. I do that when I’m having sex to make sure I last longer. For me it’sDexter. The whole lumberjackthing sucked. And I still don’t believe it’s possible to survive a hurricane on a small boat in the ocean. It was a bullshit ending to a great series.”

I shake my head. “No way. It wasLost. That ending was such a buzzkill. They were dead the whole time? I don’t understand it. It’s like they didn’t care about the viewers.”

Cheetah sighs. “You two are missing the worst series finale in existence.Gossip Girl. There’s no way Dan was gossip girl the whole time. It doesn’t even make sense. He was the vicious target of gossip girl half the time.”

I stare at him with my mouth wide open. “That show is for fourteen-year-old girls. What grown man watches that teen soap opera trash?”

We both smile. I turn to Trey. “You’re a genius. That worked.”

I’mat another of Arizona’s games today. The boys are here too. They love tagging along. Softball is a slightly different and faster game than baseball. We genuinely enjoy ourselves and we’re happy to give the girls more publicity.

I look around. I think the stands are about seventy-five percent full tonight. That’s progress.

At some point in the game, there’s a runner on first. The batter rockets a ball to right-centerfield. The girl that was on first is motoring around the bases. The outfielder throws the ball in to Bailey, who’s the cutoff person. She quickly turns and throws the ball home toArizona. Arizona fields the ball and then positions her body perfectly to block the runner from home plate.

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