Page 8 of Nailed at Home Plate

The one woman who sucked the oxygen from my lungs the second I met her.

The one woman I couldn’t find words to utter a simple greeting to.

The one woman who I couldn’t stop thinking about.

The feeling had been peculiar, and it still had me in a tizzy this morning. Or maybe it was from the piss poor night of sleep, stressing about walking into this fucking bizarro circus that ownership tried to convince me was baseball. The only semblance that this field hadanythingto do with baseball was the fact that there thankfully were three bases and a home plate. But that was it.

Dancing had never been my strong suit. Hell, it was never even on my radar. Between high school and college, all I focused on was baseball. I didn’t even go to my senior prom. I had a ball game to be at the next day. God bless my supportive parents for dragging my sorry ass to ball games near and far. But they knew that I loved it. And all that hard work paid off.

Well, ithadpaid off. Up until a few days ago.

Now here I was, standing with a bag full of my practice gear, and feeling like I was facing a midlife crisis. A washed-up baseball player with nowhere to go but down.

This fucking can’t be my life right now.

“Hey! Jamie!” The crew of chaos stopped for a drink break when I was spotted. The shortest man in the bunch with dark wavy hair and a trimmed beard was excitedly waving me over. From what I could remember from yesterday’s introductions, he was the man whose job I’d be replacing. At least for the time being.

Might as well get this stupid fucking thing over with.

As I reluctantly shuffled my way over to the group, the woman from yesterday caught my eye. It was difficult to miss her. She was wearing a rather sinful pair of bright pink workout leggings. Sinful in the sense that none of her feminine curves could hide from the skin-tight fabric. Her wavy coppery blonde hair was up in a pony, revealing the sad excuse for a t-shirt that seemed more holy than a Catholic Sunday. Which only led to ratherunholythoughts as I caught sight of the matching sports bra through the artistically placed holes in the cotton.

In the off-season I’d seen countless women workout alongside me in the gym. Some much more scantily clad. None of them gave me this sudden and rather visceral response as my newcoachdid. Which only made me feel even more frustrated about this entire absurd situation.

Women were rare in the majors. Most were part of the medical or therapy teams. The others were involved with promotions and social media, so we didn’t interact with them much unless they needed some sort of nonsense filmed. None of them would have dared to wear suchclothingto the ballpark.

None of them had to teach us guys how to fucking dance either. That sort of entertainment was singularly the mascot’s job and the furry green dude at the ballpark did a rather bang-up job of it. But that was the mascot’sjob. Not the team’s job.

With a grumble, I tossed my bag down with the rest of the random piles of gear from my new teammates. The woman was seemingly startled by the commotion. What was her name again?

That’s right.

Cadence.

I caught her glance over her shoulder at me, only for her to look away as quickly as she had initially turned. As if she had been burned by even the thought of looking at me. There was an excited murmur among the guys as I surveyed the sad situation in front of me.

“You’re late.” Her icy cold tone cut through the chatter and was a harsh contrast to the already humid summer air. I didn’t care that she was right, it was how the words came across. On the other hand, the guys on the team looked stoked that I had actuallyshown up. But my new coach looked nonplussed.Great, way to go, Jamie.

“I’m just here to play baseball,” I muttered back as I shifted uncomfortably with all the eyes on me.

“It's choreography practice first.” The reminder was bristly. I couldn’t recall ever meeting anyone this tart. The fact that she wouldn’t even look at me didn’t bode well either. What the hell was up her ass?

None of the other guys seemed phased by her attitude. There were even a few snickers with her comment. Maybe that’s how she was.

Ignoring her, a few of my new teammates sauntered over to reintroduce themselves or extend friendly pleasantries to welcome me in. At least they were nice. But they were more thrilled about this situation than I was. I could only kind of pay attention to the greetings as I kept my eyes on her.

How she didn’t have this misfit group of ball players salivating at the mouth was beyond my comprehension. She probably had put them all in their place at one time or another. Perhaps she even dated one or two, or all, of them. Or maybe we were barking up the wrong tree.

With the distraction of the team on me, Cadence busied herself with whatever was on her phone. There was just something about her that was…odd. Whatever it was I didn’t exactly want to piss off any members of the coaching staff by interrogating people about the only female member of staff.

Perhaps I had offhandedly offended her at our initial meeting? Or maybe she was a real stickler for being punctual. Normally I was one of the first guys to the locker room on game and practice days. Buthere? I wasn’t feeling the same excitement to come to work.

“Alright boys, the break is over.” Cadence’s sharp voice broke up the chatter. “Let's tighten up the seventh inning stretch routine we’ve been working on.” She found whatever she was looking for as music started to pulse from the speaker in the grass. I watched as the guys listened without a second word. I almost jumped myself as she suddenly appeared next to me. Hell, she was short. I could see straight over her head. Her harsh tone dropped to a volume that was solely for me. “Fall in line with the other guys and follow along. You missed warmups.”

There were a few rumbles of low whistles from the guys as I found an empty spot towards the back of the group. Warm welcome my ass. But I’m sure I probably deserved it for not being my usual prompt self. They probably all thought I was the pretentious major league asshole that could show up whenever he wanted. Of which was the complete opposite of the usual me.

“Alright Sillys… Five, six, seven, eight!” The guys quieted down as all eyes went on Cadence. I kind of just stood there and took it all in as her vibrant outfit broke through all the drab tank tops, t-shirts, and shorts. For the most part, the guys followed her move by move. A few went the wrong direction or were off tempo just a smudge.

All I could manage to do was stare, completely perplexed by the entire situation before me. Cadence didn’t call out any moves or offer verbal instruction. The guys just magically fell into line in front of her as they copied her moves.

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