Page 63 of Nailed at Home Plate

God just strike me down with lightning. Pretty please? Right now.

“I think we allknowwhat she did to get the man back on track.” Arlow teased as he stood up and clapped Tomas on the back. The poor outfielder looked utterly confused. “You see when a man and a woman like each other…” The locker room burst out in even more uproarious laughter.

Anytime, God.

The lightning bolt?

Hell, send a few.

Honestly, a plague would work too. Anything to stop Arlow from giving Tomas the “birds and the bees” lesson on my and Jamie’s behalf. In front of the entire Sillys locker room.

“No really.” Benson pulled my attention back to him as his hand gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “None of us have ever seen you this happy in all the years you’ve been here.”

“You guys totally make a cute couple!” Truitt cheered on from across the locker room. I cringed. He should just announce it to the whole damn franchise while he’s at it. “It's about fucking time you guys just came out and admitted it.”

But…Jamie and I weren’t a couple. Were we? The crush we had on each other was mutual, a thousand times over and we liked hanging out together. Did people even ask to be boyfriend or girlfriend anymore, or was it just assumed? I was clueless.

I felt Jamie’s calming presence at my side. While his cheeks were as pink as mine, he was grinning.

“Alright guys, settle down. As for the routine, Cady–” There was a chorus of “ohhhs” and catcalls as Jamie called me by his nickname for me. “…and you all, were able to remind me that baseball can still be fun. Even if I’m on the geriatric side of players. It was a…teameffort.” Jamie’s strong hand found mine and he squeezed it. Thank fuck he refocused the locker room on something else. “So, what do you think, Cady? You ready to make an ass of yourself with the rest of us?”

I cautiously glanced around the room at all the hopeful pleading looks. Wait, was Camden getting all teary-eyed? He was always the passionate one, goodor bad, of the group. Roman gave him a few reassuring pats on the back as the locker room stirred up an approving murmur.

Truitt’s fisted hand shot up in the air as if he were cheering me with a beer in hand. “Fucking right! Let's do this! Come on, coach!” The entire team rose with a roar. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” Topper’s stern voice made my body turn to ice. He’d been in his open office during that entire conversation. Chances were that he heard every damn thing that had been discussed in the last few minutes. “Why aren’t you ballerinas out on the field? It's game time!”

The boys immediately hustled, grabbing their baseball gloves and hats, before making a break for the doors to the dugout. But not Jamie, he lingered by my side and didn’t let go of my hand. I couldn’t let him go down with me. Especially not when he was finally back to his old self. Hell, he was evenbetter.

“Get out there with the guys,” I whispered to him as Topper headed in our direction. My heart suddenly felt like a lead balloon in my stomach. “I’ll deal with Topper.”

“No. This is on me just as much as it's on you.” Jamie firmly insisted with a quick kiss on my temple. Well, there was no denying this now. I could only imagine how pissed the franchise was going to be.

“Truitt’s right.” Topper stopped as he gave the two of us a glance. “You two are a cute couple.” My jaw dropped as Topper leaned in towards Jamie to address him. “Take extra care of this one. She’s special.” With the tiniest hint of a smile, the wizened manager shuffled his way towards the dugout door.My mouth was still hanging open as Jamie let out a surprised huff of a laugh.

There was a long moment of silence, with just the two of us, in the locker room. Did that mean that Topper wasn’t going to say anything to ownership? What was going to happen to us?

Blinking, I turned to head out after the guys, but Jamie stopped me. My mouth opened to say something but his hands rushing up to cup my face made the words disappear. With a grin and a firm grip, he pulled me up to his mouth. On my tippy toes, I immediately melted into his kiss. They were my oxygen of late. My drug. Something I was sure I’d never get enough of.

“No sense in hiding it anymore,” Jamie murmured against my mouth as I threw my arms around his neck. “We’d better get out there, Glinda.” A snort of laughter escaped me before I even knew what was happening.

“Oh, you know I’m looking forward to this Fiyero shaking his booty.” With a smug grin, I reached around and tweaked his deliciously firm ass.

“You know what? Let’s dance.” Jamie added, in perfect cadence.

Could I love this man any more than I already did?

Whoa…wait.

Love?

I stopped dead in my tracks, but Jamie’s grip was firm on my hand. Despite the sudden whirlwind of a possible epiphany in my brain, I found myself being dragged after him up the steps. I had to dismiss the thought and get my stage face on. The “L” word was just was just a slip of my inner monologue.

I barely heard the loudspeaker introducing the Sillys. That was the cue for the dance number. To distract myself from diving deeper into my dangerous thoughts, I quickly reached up to brush off invisible dust from Jamie’s uniform. He was so fucking sexy like this, with the boyish glint in his blue eyes to being dressed head to toe in the yellow, aqua, and navy blue colors of the Sillys.

The rhinestones he insisted upon for this Fiyero-approved costume uniform made me chuckle. Jamie was bouncing in his baseball cleats as the musical intro to the song he arranged echoed off the walls of the stadium to wild cheers. The city of Philadelphia apparently wasWickedfans too. Despite the long rocky road to get here, Jamie was made for this. He had proved all of us wrong.

“Break a leg, Slugger.” With a grin and a kiss on my nose, he ran out onto the field. Damn, if I thought the screams were loud of the first few bars of “Dancing Through Life”, they were like mouse whispers compared to the utter roar of the crowd as Jamie strutted his stuff, in true main character fashion, out to home plate.

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