Page 14 of Wild Pitch
Steps echo behind me. It’s before seven and the place was empty until this point, but I wouldn’t be surprised if staff starts arriving now. What is surprising is that the other person to join me is none other than Hope Garcia, and that she hops on the treadmill right beside mine.
Never mind, thereareweird women here.
“G’morning, darlin’,” I say with a voice raspy from disuse, but amused that I seem to have summoned her with my thoughts.
“Cowboy.” She tips her head at me as if she was wearing a cowboy hat, and sets out on a jog. I kinda wonder why she chose the treadmill beside me and not one of the other dozen or so, but I’m not curious enough to ask.
For a peaceful moment, the only sounds come from our heavy steps falling out of sync and our breathing that turns heavier the more we increase speed, and in my case incline. I catch a little beep that comes from her bumping up her speed one more notch, and before I know what I’m doing, I do the same. Her eyes zero in on it, then on my face, and they glint like honey against the sunlight that hits us through the window. I’d never noticed that her eyes are so big or that maybe I should’ve nicknamed her honey instead of darlin’.
She snaps me out of that reverie by turning up her speed one more point.
My jaw slacks. Are we competing right now? Because if so, it’s futile for her.
I run every morning just to wake up, and my actual workout follows after that depending on what I’m supposed to focus on each day. Today is leg day, and I’m happy to go harder at the run. I turn up the speed by several levels and give her a quick look that clearly saysstop trying to mess with me, darlin’. I wish I could say it aloud but my lungs are busy.
Her eyes narrow and she jams a stubborn finger at the control buttons, speeding up until she’s running like a gazelle. Her mouth arcs with stubbornness even as her nostrils flare with breathing that’s as hard as a truck.
I snort a laugh.
We keep running like we’re behind, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, and we just batted a hit that could decide whether we win the World Series. However, we end up running the distance around the diamond several times over. I’m winded but I could keep going at more or less the same pace if I had to. Garcia finally gives it up and once she starts slowing down is when I follow suit.
“Breathe through your nose and not you mouth, darlin’.” I’m panting like a dog but still land the sarcasm, if I go by her glare.
She’s on firm ground now, hands on her knees as she catches her breath. “It’s your fault.”
I resist the urge to snort again. I slow the machine all the way until I can step down. Reaching for two clean towels from the basket, I ask, “How so?”
“You kept turning up your speed!”
“So did you.” I toss a towel so it lands over her head, casually drying my face with the other one while I watch her struggle with the cloth.
“Ugh, you’re insufferable. Here I was working up my nerve to apologize.”
I stop. “What?”
She huffs so hard that it makes her sound like a horse. Yanking the towel around her neck, and with a frown as deep as the Gulf, she says, “I’m sorry for being such a weirdo the other day when clearly you were just being nice about my horrible date.”
For a moment, I don’t react. Then I start blinking hard. “Huh. Okay.”
Garcia presses her lips together, nods to herself, and swivels on her heels. After three steps away, she repeats the motion and comes back—closer than before. I jerk away in surprise.
“What now?”
She narrows her eyes up at me and shakes her head before leaning back. “No, nothing.” I almost think this is the end of today’s interaction with her, when she speaks again. “Actually, there’s one more thing. I, uh… I have something of a wild pitch for you.”
“Okay…?” My eyebrows rise.
“Wouldyoubemydatingcoach?”
“What?” I do a double take as if that could help me understand the weird barrage of words that spewed out of her mouth.
Garcia takes a deep breath. “Would you be my dating coach?”
It turns out I did understand her words, even if they make no sense.
“If he won’t, I will.”
We both turn to the third voice and have the opposite reactions. I relax seeing Lucky stride into the training room in his black joggers and a T-shirt with the flag of Puerto Rico emblazoned across his chest like graffiti. Garcia tenses instead.
