Page 135 of Wild Catch
“You’re right.” She sighs. “I’ll unhand you when you release my butt.”
“Your first.”
“No, you first.” Her lips twitch.
We end up releasing each other at about the same time, but I can’t fully cut off contact quite yet, so I offer my hand. And she grabs it tight.
After that, we resume our leisure pace through the corridors, as if our blood wasn’t drumming at the pace of each other’s hearts.
“What do you have to do now?” I ask.
“Edit some videos of the guys. You?”
“Crash the team meeting.”
She turns to me. “Crash it? I thought you had to attend.”
“It was an excuse so I could come fondle your ass.”
Rose blows a raspberry, but after a second she says, “Dang it, I should’ve fondled yours too.”
That makes me bark a laugh. It sounds rusty, like it was chained in the depths of my chest for decades.
And maybe it was, I haven’t felt joy like this ever before.
After a shorter kiss, but no less scorching, we finally part ways until lunch. I watch her head over to her office in her little cardigan and the light purple leggings she once wore to give a quick makeover to my apartment, and I promise to myself that one day I’ll map the exact dimensions of her body with my hands.
Rose stops and turns back, finding me still rooted in the same spot while I check her out. It brings a smile to her face and she blows me a kiss delicately. I’m a catcher, though, so I pretend to catch it like it’s a fastball and put it in my pocket for later. Chuckling, she finally disappears around the corner.
My mouth trembles with another smile that threatens to spill. It takes the whole walk down to the team area to school my features into something resembling professionalism.
By this time, the team is either about to finish the morning workout, or already in the auditorium for Beau’s highlights and lowlights of yesterday’s game. Since today is the last game in the series with the Riders, and after more careful review the whole shitshow of two days ago caused their leadoff batterandstarting pitcher to get suspended—ha!—I assume it’s going to be a spicy one.
I come in through the back door and find literally every single guy with their hands up like this is kindergarten and they were just asked what’s two plus two.
“Huh?” I mutter to myself.
A few heads swivel to me and someone says, “Oh, shit.”
More people turn and Beau stops right in the middle of whatever he’s saying. That’s when I see the massive screen behind him projecting some words. It takes me a hot second to process them, but they say:
Raise your hand if you want to make Logan Kim the franchise’s first official captain.
My jaw drops.
A chair scrapes against the floor and one of the players sitting around the middle stands up. It turns out to be Lucky Rivera. He waves a hand, motioning at me to step out. “Can you just go out and pretend like you didn’t see this?”
Beside him, Cade Starr starts lowering his hand and says, “Damn it, there goes the surprise.”
The first one to start laughing is Miguel Machado and it’s an infectious laugh, the kind that belongs to a sitcom or something and sends the whole room into a fit.
Meanwhile, I manage to snap my mouth shut and with a nod, I walk right back out. But there’s no stopping it anymore, I grin like a whole ass clown.
CHAPTER45
ROSE
“Of all the things we could’ve done on our first date, this is what you really wanted?”
