Page 32 of Wild Hit
I blink real slow. My body should relax now that I know this isn’t life or death, but for some reason I can’t. My blood staysrunning as hot as if I was still in the outfield about to fly two meters in the air.
“It’s like six feet and a half and there’s no way Machado jumped that high,” a familiar voice says nearby—Logan Kim, who is joining the team again for the first time today.
“Someone should measure it because that looked pretty impressive,” another familiar voice adds—Cade Starr, who’s officially done pitching for the night after conceding only one run.
“You know,” Lucky Rivera asks in an amused tone, “Those are pretty dangerous words in a dugout full of red-blooded and extremely competitive assholes.”
That tears a snort out of me, and next thing I know a beefy arm is thrown around my shoulders. “Besides,” Lucky laughs in my ear, “Tall guys have an unfair advantage, but it’s all about proportions.”
“Are we still talking about jumps or something else?” I ask.
He gasps in an exaggerated way. “Jumps, of course. Mind out of the gutter, you perv.”
I shake my head, though a glimpse at the wordspretty blonde neighboron the corner of my eye gives me pause. Did she see my big,bigjump?
Wait, the whole nation’s gonna see it on repeat in any sports outlet, and I’m sure everyone employed by the team will too, from Charlie Cox to the guys who open and close the stadium doors everyday. Why would it matter if Audrey Winters specifically sees that I’m capable of an athleticism feat like this?
I tuck my tongue against my cheek. I’m not one of those guys who are in the business of denial. I know exactly why her opinion matters more than the team owner’s or anyone else. Sheispretty. Sheisgood to my daughter. And Iama very simple guy.
This is bad.
*
“Be rational, Miguel,” I tell myself while driving home after the game. It’s well past midnight and the commute from the park downtown to home is calm. “Biologically speaking, you know exactly what was going on at that moment.”
A cocktail of macho manly man hormones swirled in my belly, dimming my brain function. What little I had was fully spent on not screwing up during broadcast. I can’t be blamed for making a new brain synapsis between my pretty blonde neighbor who was teaching math to my daughter, and feeling good after a bold play. I haven’t read all the parenting and psychology books I have to pretend like I don’t know what’s happening.
“She’s an attractive woman,” I continue explaining to the quiet inside my vehicle, just as I turn into my street. “You’ve known that from day one.”
And by that I mean the day she punched me in the eye. It was just reconfirmed when I saw her the next time, when she somehow ended up in my arms for a dance.
My chest does a thing. I thump it to stop it.
“Realistically, you’d be feeling the same way if you were exposed to another attractive, single woman.”
Would I?
My eyebrows tighten a little. Yeah, admitting that makes me a jerk because women aren’t interchangeable. I force myself to think of other beautiful women I’ve met before, from Marty’s mom, to celebrities like the singer Celina, to the woman who asked for my autograph at Trader Joe’s last weekend, and the fans who sometimes show a lot of cleavage to get players’s attention. My chest doesn’t do the thing with any of them.
“Okay, so I find her more attractive than others.” I shrug. “So what? No big deal.”
I park my SUV outside of the garage, trying to make as little noise as possible since Marty must be asleep. On days like this, when I took care of Marty’s morning routine, Consuelo stays until late and waits for me awake. We’ve fallen into a good cadence and I know we’re so fortunate to have found a nanny who not only is reliable and safe, but also flexible.
Gathering my duffel bag from the back, I shut the car door as carefully as possible and my attention strays to the duplex next door. The downstairs lights are on, which isn’t surprising knowing that all the residents work for the same team that I do, which just finished a home game. Maybe Audrey saw the entire action from the comfort of her living room. I wonder if she’s impressed.
“Stop. You’re acting like a teenager.” I shake my head.
I force myself to veer toward my door. With my free hand, I key in the remote code on an app that unlocks my house. Makes it a lot easier to elbow and shoulder my way in when I’m tired and sleepy after a game.
But then I freeze at the foyer. Consuelo waits awake for me, all right—across from my pretty blonde neighbor at the dining table.
Steaming mugs of what smells like chamomile sit between them, and they stop mid laughter to turn to me.
Yeah. That sound you hear? My chest doing the thing again.
This time it stays doing it, though, almost alarming me. It takes me a moment to remember that this is what it feels like when I’m nervous and I clutch at my necklace.
“There he is,” Consuelo says, motioning toward me with a motherly smile.
