Page 1 of Wild Catch
CHAPTER1
ROSE
LAST SUMMER
Not to be a baseball nerd, but sometimes in life you have to make a risky play. Especially when you’re trying to make things official with the star pitcher of a professional baseball team.
I make one last check in front of the mirror and nod to myself. My outfit is just in the range of librarian chic and playful, a red sundress with white polka dots that shows a hint of skin, under a light white cardigan that is cropped at my waist, paired with cute Mary Janes. Two simple pearl earrings poke from under my abundant curls. No one who sees me walk out to the parking lot would ever assume that I have a heart attack-inducing little number under this cute outfit.
But that’s because nobody in this building has any idea that I’m about to mount one final, hopefully fulminating attack on Ben Williams.
“Tú puedes,” I tell my reflection, closing one fist and pumping it.
Oh, hold on. My makeup’s a bit smudged.
I rummage inside my small but mighty makeup case, retrieving some essentials to fix up the whole area around my lips.
In all fairness, it’s way too hot to wear cardigans and I’m sweating. But the sundress is girlier than anything else I typically wear to hang out around a bunch of baseball players brimming with testosterone. I just put it on to see if it got any reaction from Ben.
The plan is flawless. There was no game today and we’re home, so typically what the guys do is just train and watch film. I was sure we’d run into each other in the corridors, at the cafeteria, or maybe while recording clips for social media… but we haven’t. Not even once.
It’s fine, though. That was just phase one of the big play that I’ve dubbed Operation Catch a Boyfriend. Now I’m ready for phase two.
After smacking my lips to test the tint, I return all my knickknacks back into my purse and zip it up. I finished my video edits early and scheduled a delivery of food and flowers at Ben’s, timed for my ETA. I know for a fact that he and the rest of the team have a meeting with the coaching staff to debrief for tomorrow’s series, so he’ll get home late. I estimate that I’ll have around an hour to set up and freshen up.
There’s some foot traffic on the corridor when I make my way out of the women’s restroom. What appears to be half of the team is being herded by part of the training staff.
That includes my roommate Hope Garcia, who waves her arms up and down from the rear. “Chop chop, we don’t have all day,” she says with clear annoyance. Nearby, her boss does the same.
One of the players notices me standing by the restroom door. “Hey, Mena. No videos this time?” he asks, almost disappointed.
“I’m off duty,” I respond in a far too serious voice as if I was a policewoman or something like that.
“Bummer, that would be way more fun than this,” he grouches and his buddies around all agree.
“What’s the deal?” I whisper at Hope when she pauses beside me.
Shaking her head, she explains, “Beau says we’re going to study yesterday’s game loss in detail, so you can imagine how excited these bunch of toddlers are about that.”
My mind whirs with time estimates. It’s not like they’re going to take seven hours deconstructing a three hour long game, but it does tell me that Ben may be delayed. I’m going to have to adjust my plans accordingly.
“How long does that typically take?” I inquire in what I hope is a casual tone.
“At this rate, it could be?—”
Someone wolf whistles and I don’t need two guesses to know it can be no one but Lucky Rivera, even before his voice reaches us. “Please, ladies. You can’t stand together like this. It’s way too dazzling.”
“Move along, Rivera.” Hope waves her hands without acknowledging him further.
The team’s most notorious flirt chuckles and finally appears in my field of vision, his arm slung around the shoulders of his taller buddy, Cade Starr. The latter is a relatively normal guy—relatively because he has the cowboy good looks that belong more in Hollywood than here, and also because he and Lucky often engage in silly prank wars that give me tons of social media content.
I shake my head to myself, glad that I don’t have private dealings with either of those two.
Not just because they’re unserious clowns, but also because they’re among the top of the team’s lookers. The amount of requests that the PR, marketing, and media teams get to do more features of Lucky Rivera and Cade Starr has become kind of a running joke. I can’t imagine how stressful it must be for their current or future partners to keep them interested.
Not me, I gravitate toward more normal guys that won’t bring out my myriad insecurities. That’s what attracted me to Ben in the first place. Yes, he’s an elite athlete boasting of a lovely musculature, but he has a boy next door face. He doesn’t get confused for an actor or a model, and the mustache he’s sporting lately makes him look like the average Midwestern man that he otherwise is.
Average looks, good upbringing, hardworking, and interested in me? Sign me up, baby.
