Page 4 of Wild Catch
“You just saved me from humiliating myself for you.” I shrug as if none of this was important. As if my heart wasn’t breaking into a million pieces. “We’re over, Ben Williams. Don’t you talk to me or touch me ever again.”
“But—” he splutters.
“FYI,” I tell the other woman. “He dated me in secret for almost a year. I don’t know if it’s because you’re his official girlfriend or if it’s because he has a dozen of us, but you should dump his ass too.” With that, I turn to the door and open it.
He makes a grab for me but it’s almost comical. His jeans choose that moment to slide down, which is right when an elderly couple walk by out in the corridor.
“Honey, isn’t that Ben Williams, the Orlando Wild pitcher?” the woman asks.
The old man shakes his head. “Nah, that’s clearly some sleaze.”
Spurred by the comment, the other woman leans down to grab her heels and purse. Without dallying, she follows me out of Ben’s apartment in her bare feet.
That’s the moment I decide that I’m done chasing the happily ever after that my parents enjoyed briefly.
I’m done with dating and men—period.
CHAPTER2
LOGAN
END OF MARCH
Yeah, yeah. I get that winning the first game of the season feels nice, especially when it’s against the Denver Riders that Ben Williams left our team for. Revenge and all that. But this is just game one of the first series. There’s a whole season ahead of us and you’d think we just won the World Series with how everyone’s celebrating.
I rub my ear under the shower spray, but it doesn’t dull their hollering and laughing that the wall tiles amplify. Someone—I’m gonna take an educated guesstimate that it’s Lucky Rivera—grabs a bottle of shampoo and sprays it all around like it’s champagne, and soon the rest of the stooges are doing the same. If someone slips and ends their season early they’re gonna deserve it.
Perhaps I should be thankful that they’re saving me the effort of soaping myself. But I do turn around because I have no interest in eating shampoo.
“Did you see that?”
“That was amazing, bro!”
“We got this! Wesogot this!”
“Our battery’s sick. I bet Williams is eating his words.”
Williams’s words refers to a little interview he partook in yesterday. ASPORTYNews reporter caught him after practice and asked what his feelings were about opening the season against the team that nurtured him as a star pitcher.
“I don’t feel very much, to be honest with you,” he said with that shit eating face I’ve never been able to stand. “I’m just glad to have left an organization where growth is impossible, and eager to show them just how much I have developed as a Rider.”
Puh-lease. Who does he think he is? Pedro Martinez?
Meanwhile the bunch of clowns I call my teammates are chanting Cade Starr’s name, and even I have to admit it’s funny. Starr was a decent relief pitcher last year—good, even—just not as remarkable as Williams. But dude has had stratospheric growth over Spring Training, and I don’t know if the guys are chanting his name because they recognize Starr as the example of the growth Williams claimed is impossible here, or simply because the cowboy pitched a perfect game tonight.
I wipe a smirk off my face and finish washing myself. Ever since Hope Garcia started working for the team, it became convention to at least put on our underwear by the lockers behind the shower stalls. Not that we really think anything would shock her at this point—especially not now that she’s publicly dating one of us—but it’s a respect thing.
Since I have perfected the art of do-not-screw-with-me though, the clowns allow me safe passage to the lockers. It’s a combination of the mean glare I was born with, plus the tattoos. The many tattoos.
After making quick work of toweling and putting on the first layers, I’m about to taste freedom from the noise when someone all but tackles me from the side.
“Look at you, all quiet in your little corner,” Rivera shouts in my ear, his arm hooking around my neck and forcing me to bend down.
Something like a growl comes out of me. “Take your butt away from me, Rivera, before I punch you wherever I can reach.”
The threat is credible enough that he steps away. I slice a glare at him, wishing I could wash the patches of me that were in contact with the little pest again.
He folds his arms, his face dripping with amusement and water. “I know you won’t want to talk about this, but I do want to acknowledge that I know you’re the one who’s raising that cub into a full blown tiger.” He jerks his head somewhere behind him, and I don’t have to ask who he’s referring to. We both know this is about Starr.
