His brow quirks up. “Cream of the crop?”
“Y-you know what I mean.”
A smirk lightens his frown. “Just never heard someone my age use the term, cream of the crop.”
Is he teasing me?
From the way his body language seems to relax, I’m going to assume so, which makes me relax as well. The tension in my throat calms. I can do this.
I adjust my hat. “As a hitter, you have one hundred milliseconds to pick up the ball from the pitcher’s hands, which puts me right about”—I shift my position—“here. This is where your eyes should be able to see the ball.”
“Okay.” Getting into it now, he stands in the batter’s box as if he’s getting ready for a pitch and looks my way.
Holding up my notebook, I flip to the first page where I have a true-to-size picture of a mid-spin baseball. “I want to make sure you can actually see from where you are in the batter’s box. You know the different spins of each pitch, right?”
“Yeah.” He smiles.
“Good. Tell me, without squinting, what pitch do you see.”
“Four-seam fastball.”
I flip through the notebook, and he correctly calls out each pitch.
“Two-seam, change-up, slider, curveball.”
Closing my notebook, I walk toward him. “Good, so there’s no problem with your eyesight. I always check that first, because if everything else is right and you’re blind, that could be a big hindrance to what we’re working on.”
“I could have told you I wasn’t blind.”
I pick up his bat that he tossed to the side and hand it to him. “Yeah, all the guys say they’re not blind. I don’t believe them until they take my test.”
“All the guys?” He takes the bat and offers a soft thank-you.
“Yeah, I’ve helped a few, two were fitted for glasses the next day after my little eye exam and they’re batting averages went from the low two hundreds to a solid three.”
“Damn. Well, I’m glad I passed.”
“With flying colors.” Feeling much more at ease, I say, “Get in your stance.”
He lifts the bat, adjusts his feet, and looks toward the pitching mound.
“Hold it there while I do some examining. Is it okay if I touch you?”
“I mean, just don’t cup my junk or anything.”
I know he’s joking, but it still makes my face flame, which I know turns my cheeks an awful shade of red. Ducking under my hat, I walk to the back of him so he can’t notice my embarrassment. “I . . . I won’t be grabbing your, uh, junk.”
He chuckles. “I know, I was just kidding.”
“Oh yeah, I know,” I say awkwardly.
Letting out a large exhale, he drops his hands and turns toward me, his large frame towering over me. “Maybe we should clear some things up before we start getting technical with my swing.”
“We don’t need to clear anything up. We can just—”
“Milly. We haven’t had the best interactions, and I want to make sure we’re cool.”
“Yup.” I stare down at the ground. “Totally cool.”
Apparently, me trying to avoid the conversation doesn’t work for him, because he reaches out and places his finger under my chin. With a small lift, he forces me to meet his eyes, the one place I didn’t want to look.
“Humor me, okay?”
My eyes blink a few times as I swallow hard. I’ll give him this; he’s very handsome. Chiseled jaw, enhanced by a soft tan. The lightest of scruff dances across his face, and his lips have a pink pout I would never have expected in a guy. And then there are his eyes, a brilliant blue bordered by long, dark eyelashes. It’s said the eyes are the gateway to a person’s soul, and I can fully believe that when it comes to Carson Stone.
“Okay,” I answer softly just as the wind picks up, blowing his fresh-soap scent in my direction. What is it about the scent of a spring mountain that makes a girl giddy inside? I mean, not giddy, but that did smell nice, really nice.
He releases my chin and props his hands on his bat. “I’ve been a bastard lately for reasons I don’t need to get into, but—”
“Well, there’s your injury, not being drafted, and then having a hard start to the season,” I list off, not even thinking about it.
He pauses and then shakes his head while chuckling. “Yeah, kind of nailed it.” He pulls on the brim of his backward hat. “I haven’t been myself, and it seems you’ve caught the brunt of that this past week, and I want to apologize.”
“Like I said, it’s fine.”
“It’s not. I treated you like a dick in the dining hall, in the weight room, and then at the field. I’ve just . . . fuck, I’ve had every person I know tell me how to fix my swing, and it’s too many cooks in the kitchen, you know?”
“Totally. It’s like all the information is too consuming, and you’re adjusting too many things at the same time.”
“Exactly.” He sheepishly smiles and lightly taps my leg with his bat. “You get it.”
Oh God, that was cute.
Keep it together, Milly.
“When my brothers went through a dry spell and their coaches tried to fix whatever the problem was, they shut them out and came to me. We worked quietly together and fixed whatever kink there was in their swing.” I toe the ground. “Baseball is eighty percent mental, and the rest is muscle memory. If your muscle memory is off, then your mental state is going to be thrown for a loop, which will affect your game even more.”
Head tilted, he studies me, his eyes bouncing back and forth between mine. “Damn, I’m such an idiot.”
“What?” I can feel my nose scrunch up. “Why?”
“Because, I could have listened to Jerry and started this training a little earlier, but my stupid pride took over. You know your stuff, don’t you, Milly?”
“I mean”—I look away, anywhere but his eyes—“baseball’s my life.”
“A saying I’m very familiar with. Do you play?”
“Just in the backyard with my brothers.”
“Never softball?”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t interested. If it wasn’t baseball, I didn’t want any part of it. Plus, even though it’s technically the same sport, they’re different in every way. Softball is quick, snappy, and they rely on the short game, left-handed slappers, and Texas leaguer hits with the occasional blast over the wall. Baseball is more about the long ball, the precision of each swing. I wanted to learn the mechanics of baseball, the physics behind it. Hitting a softball is completely different than a baseball. I grew up being my brothers’ personal coach, and I didn’t want to mess any of that up with a different set of knowledge. I know it seems stupid but—”
“Not stupid at all.” He taps me again with his bat, pulling my eyes toward him. “Are you any good?”
“I can throw and catch if that’s what you’re asking, but if you expect me to walk up to the plate and pull a Mike Trout hit out of the back of my pocket, it’s not going to happen. I can make contact, but the power isn’t there.” I hold my arms out. “This frame doesn’t quite have the power to drive anything much farther than shallow outfield.”