Page 23 of Nailed at Home Plate

“Absofuckinglutely not.” Stopping mid-step, I turned to her. In the time that I’ve known her, I knew she was not going to drop this subject until she’d proven herself right. It was an admirable quality to her, but I didn’t have enough of my brain cells working this morning to fight back. “Aside from the fact the man is a baseball god, ownership would have a fucking field day. No man is worth me losing my job over. Not even the hottest man in baseball.”

“Hey well if the man ever looks at you again like he did last night, you’ll be on your knees. You’d be saying ‘Tiffiny was right’ but I have a feeling that your mouth will be full with–”

I was about 2.3 seconds away from slapping that smug ass look off her face. Just because she played the mascot and didn’t speak during games, it didn’t mean she didn’t have two tons of attitude. Even with her being my friend, it wasn’t below me to put her in a headlock. Her only saving grace was Ender who managed to step between us.

“Hey, Tiffiny.”

“Get bent.” She spat with such venom. Rather shocked at her visceral attitude change, I cocked my brow at her in silent question. My eyes flickered between the two. Typically, she was always a bit hostile to the players. But for some reason, Ender pulled a vicious kind of vitriol from her. Almost constantly. But today was especially wicked.

“Nice to see you too.” From the tone of his voice, I could tell he was even taken by surprise. He looked a bit apprehensive to continue the conversation, lesthe receive another verbal snap. Proverbially licking his wounds, he turned to me. “Um…hey Cadence. I have to grab my water bottle, but I’ll be right out.”

Once he was out of earshot I shot a look at Tiffiny. “The fuck was that about?”

“None of your fucking business.” Muttering her response, she stormed out the last few feet of the tunnel and onto the field. The way she stomped off left me scratching my head. Was it a full moon or something? Practice was going to be real fucking awkward if I was going to have to deal with Tiffiny, Ender, Jamie, and whatever the hell happened last night.

The guys were out on the field doing some warm-up stretches. Today was the last day before Jamie’s big debut. With his performance last night, there was a flicker of hope within me that he wouldn’t crash and burn as epically as I thought he would. I was easing him into it, and I’d be right in the dugout to encourage him.

As I walked towards the outfield, Truitt and Camden were mid-stretch, but I was fairly certain they were sneaking in a nap on the warm grass. Usually, when we all went out as a group, they were the ones that partied the hardest. Sliding my sunglasses down onto my nose, I pinched the bridge of my nose in a vain effort to quell the headache that was brewing.

I definitely had my hands full today.

If I could, I’d be on the grass right next to the guys, snoring away in the early sunlight. I wasn’t really in the mood to attempt to nail down a new routine for tomorrow’s game and play babysitter to everyone. So, we were going to go in, nice and easy with a few run-throughs of tomorrow’s dancinginterludes. The last thing I needed was for someone to get maimed at practice. And by everyone’s apparent current attitude, I would be the one doing the maiming.

Thank fuck some semblance of the routine managed to nestle into the brains of the team. Even after a night out at the bar, they pulled out three mostly flawless run throughs from out of their asses. But it was a hell of a rocky start. For a while there I felt like I was trying to teach cats. Inbred cats. Inbred cats that had spent the night festering in tubs of beer.

After practice, I was in desperate need of painkillers and an entire jug of electrolytes. I escaped into my office to eat lunch and maybe a quick snooze on my couch while the guys did their fieldwork practice.

Instead of zonking out after picking at my lunch, all I could do was pace. The guys had enthusiastically suggested that since Jamie did such a great job last night, that maybe he needed one more session of pointers before his big day. Apparently,everyonehad seen us dancing together the night before. And the guys thought it was a good idea for Jamie to have another round of solo dance lessons after practice today.

With me.

My heart had been in my throat, choking me out like a morally gray character in a dark romance ever since the guys brought it up in conversation. Me, alone with Jamie? Last night had been a tipsy fluke. All of our practices and dance outings had been withthe entire team and me. Never Jamie and Ialone. I hadn’t even come close to mentally preparing myself for such an endeavor. Now I only had minutes left to pull my fucking shit together enough to get through an hour or two of just me and Jamie.

Even though I was losing my shit over it, one-on-one lessons were probably a smart idea. Jamie had only shown minor improvement in the group setting of choreography practice. He blossomed at the bar last night when it felt like we were the only two people in the entire building.

I hoped that without eyes around, Jamie would be more willing to comply with the private lesson. Maybe this would be a repeat of last night. And maybe, just maybe, if and when we did get close, we wouldn’t beinterrupted.

The look on his face as he sauntered back onto the field looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.Great.Tiffiny had been blowing smoke up my ass. She probably got our dancing chemistry confused with whatever she’d been reading in her cartoon cover romance book at the bar.

“Hey Jamie, I’m glad–”

“Let's just get this over with.”

His unenthusiastic mumble made me bristle. I felt that little balloon of hope deflate with an exaggerated raspberry noise as it zoomed around my insides. Of course. Last night had just been an alcohol-induced hallucination.

Even though his attitude was back in the toilet, something about it felt…wrong. Almost as if it was forced, maybe? I eyed him suspiciously as he avoided my gaze with his arms crossed defiantly across his chest. There was a tenseness in his toned biceps. If ithad been any other moment in time, I would have admired them for a moment longer as I fumbled with the speaker and music.

I made my way back over to him and slowly held out my hands. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. Maybe he was all choked up on his nerves about tomorrow. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to fight fire with fire this time. He’d been so open to my tutelage last night. Jamie stood there, looking at my hands, almost as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

“I thought we could just keep this fun. Like last night.” I reminded him as I managed to pull his hands out from the knot of his arms across his chest. My mouth went dry as sober me did my best to not go out of the way to feel up the star catcher.

There was a hard set to his jaw as he reluctantly unwound his arms and let me take his limp hands into mine. Tiffiny’s mocking voice about getting on my knees to get him to cooperate somehow seeped its way into my brain. With a hard swallow, I dismissed the idea. This Jamie looked like a man who wouldn’t be bothered by oral stimulation at the moment.

Tipsy Cadence was a little more willing to bring Jamie up against her. Nervous and irritated as fuck Cadence was a lot less enthusiastic to take that step. So instead, the both of us made this infinitely more awkward, like two middle schoolers at a dance kept an arm’s length away from each other by an overly watchful teacher.

Even though he agreed to this, the man was anything but a willing participant. He was grumpier than ever. There was no heart to his dance moves. With my head clear, all I could focus on was the factthat Jamie Rheems was just inches away from me. I could feel the warmth and strength of his hands, yet they seemed reluctant to grab a hold of me like last night.

He knew I was a tough bird. I wasn’t some wilting flower. I worked with a bunch of completely insane baseball players. I could survive a firm grip of a man as we danced together. Instead, Jamie’s hands almost hovered over my body like an unnerving tease. Maybe he was pissed at me? Annoyed that I coerced him into this nonsense? His body language was keeping my thirsty bitch of a body at an imaginary arm’s length.

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