Tou-fucking-ché.
I scratch the back of my neck. “Can’t argue with that.”
“Well, if you want, I can spruce up your glove for you before the weekend.”
“You’d do that?”
She glances up at me through her glasses, her beautiful blue eyes teasing. “Not for you, but for the sake of Thor. He deserves a happy life.”
“For the sake of Thor.” I chuckle. This girl is awesome. “I can give him to you Thursday night after our practice, but could you get him back to me before we leave Friday afternoon?”
“Yup.” She steps back and grabs a ball. “Now warm up my arm so I can strike you out with my wicked spin.”
“Oh, okay. We’ll see about that.”
She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she tosses the ball to me and I toss it back. She has great form, and I wonder why I expected anything less. The girl’s life revolves around mechanics and getting the body moving right. The amount of times we’ve watched the YouTube video on the physics of a swing is borderline obsessive, but it’s also exactly what I’ve needed.
“Did you pitch to your brothers?”
“Depends,” she answers, picking up the speed of her throw so there’s a decent pop in my glove. “If it was just me and one of my brothers, I pitched to them, but if my dad was there, my dad pitched so I could watch their swing from the side.”
“Would they ever pitch to each other?”
She softly laughs and shakes her head. “No. They were idiots and would try to peg it at each other, so it became counterproductive rather quickly.”
“And from the practices we’ve had, I’m going to guess you don’t take well to antics.”
“Nope. If you’re here to practice, then we practice. Don’t waste my time.”
She throws the ball back and this time, the pop in my glove echoes through the cages. Damn, girl. That’s fucking hot.
I know, I know, she’s my coach—technically—and I shouldn’t be thinking shit like that given our working relationship, but I can’t deny the tiny bout of excitement that fills my stomach when I watch Milly work her way around the field with such ease. The girls who’ve surrounded me for the last four years have been baseball deficient. They know practically nothing and thinks it’s “cute” to ask me where first base is. Some guys on the team love it, as it gives them a sense of pride being able to tell a girl all about the sport. Not me though. I mean, if you don’t watch baseball, that’s fine, but first base, come on. Everyone played some version of baseball in school at some point.
But hanging out with Milly has been refreshing. Sometimes she knows more than I do, and I’d like to say I’m being cool about it, that I’m not overtly excited to meet a girl who actually has a love for the game, but hell, I can feel it in my bones—the pure joy—when she corrects my knowledge, or starts spouting off statistics.
Not to mention, she’s a pint-sized beauty traipsing around the cages like she owns the nets, and I’m just the vagrant putting her out as I lease the nets for practice. She carries herself with an almost careless confidence, which she ought to, but whenever I wink at her or accidentally touch her hand, she shies away. It’s like . . . she doesn’t comprehend the effect she has on men.
She has no fucking clue. And I’m at a loss to understand why. She’s remarkable, talented, intelligent . . . yet has no inkling of how naturally beautiful she actually is. How the fuck is that even possible?
“Don’t waste my time. That’s a phrase I’ve heard from every coach I’ve ever had.”
“Time is the one thing you can never get back, so don’t steal it from me.” She throws the ball and it hits my glove with another resounding pop.
“You don’t think I’m stealing your time, do you?”
“What?” A shred of vulnerability peeks past those thick-rimmed glasses. “No, not at all. That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. I just wanted to make sure. I should be paying you or something.” I throw the ball back to her. She catches it and moves back to the pitching net with the bucket of balls.
“Grab your helmet and bat.” She situates herself and waits for me. Once in position, she doesn’t throw the ball right away. “You don’t need to pay me, but just remember me when you’re playing for the Bobcats one day and wondering if you should watch the physics of a swing one more time.”
I laugh out loud and shake my head. “I could recite the entire thing at this point.”
I get into position, and she cocks her arm back and zings a ball over the strike zone. I’m stunned.
She tosses a ball in the air and catches it. “Get ready, Stone, I’m not going to go easy on you.”
Fuck.
We leave in ten minutes.
I scan the parking lot, biting my bottom lip as Coach sends a warning glare my way. Everyone is on the bus, bags and gear are packed, and we’re about to head to Indiana for the weekend to face Stonehaven.
“Stone, you have ten minutes,” Coach Disik calls out before he steps onto the bus.
“Yup, be there in a second.”
I move to the back of the bus where he can’t see me and take out my phone again, this time giving Milly a call. It rings twice, and then I see her car as she races into the parking lot.
Thank fuck.
Her car zooms past the speed bumps and then quickly parks behind the bus. She hops out, engine still running, and holds out my glove to me.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she says, looking like she’s on the verge of tears. “I overslept. Your text woke me up, and I rushed down here as quickly as possible.” Her lip quivers. “I’m really, really . . . so-sorry.”
I’ve never seen her like this, so distraught, so close to losing it. Yes, I’ve seen her nervous, I’ve seen her angry, I’ve seen pure joy shine through her addicting smile, but I’ve never seen her so distraught. Nor this disheveled. Her hair is piled messily on top of her head, she has a sleep line cutting across her cheek, and she’s wearing baggy Nike shorts with a tight-fitting tank and black sports bra that’s showing off a decent amount of cleavage. Why the hell does she hide that incredible body? For some reason, the entire outfit is working for me.
“I stayed up late last night, reworking your lace and I . . . I . . .” She bites her bottom lip. “Anyway. There you go. I’m sorry.” She turns and attempts to rush back to her car, but I grab her arm before she can move.
“Hey, Milly. It’s okay.”
And those four little words seem to break her. Tears fall over her cheeks that she quickly wipes away, as if she believes that if she gets rid of them quickly enough, I might not see them.
But I saw them, and they’re just about breaking me in half.
“You must have been panicking. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“Milly.” Before I can stop myself, I pull her into my chest and wrap my arms around her. “It’s okay. I knew you’d get here.” I don’t mention how I was about to pee my pants from stress, because I was scared shitless I was going to Indiana without my glove. “Everything’s okay.”