Page 10 of Home Run

“But?” Why did I want this so badly? Why did I care? I was so confused.

“You hate the cold and have nowhere to be for Christmas, right?”

“Right.”

Her chin lifted like she’d just made a decision, swinging her gaze back to me. The moment our eyes locked, a warm electric sizzle shot through me. “Christmas Eve. I’ll be back here—in this hotel—on Christmas Eve. If you’re still interested, meet me at the bar.”

5

“You know what’s interesting, Erik?” Wes Allen, our starting catcher, sat down beside me in the locker room.

Erik was our second baseman. He stood behind me and I could see by the reflection in the glass near our manager’s office that Erik was frowning. “What’s interesting?”

“Rhett here has suddenly become attached to his phone. Can you remember ever seeing him use it before?”

I stiffened as every muscle in my body locked into place. My instinct, of course, was to punch Wes Allen right in his smug face. The little idiot always thought he was so funny.

“That is interesting, actually,” Erik said slowly.

Fuck. If Erik noticed then I was definitely, totally fucked because he was a pretty chill guy who stayed out of my shit. “It’s not interesting. It’s a fucking phone.”

“A phone you usually treat like an old man who hates technology.”

“Phones are for calling people.” I would never get the social media, app, text messaging crap everyone else was so into these days.

“Then why is your nose buried in your phone every day since Miami?” Wes asked, straddling the bench now.

Erik moved so he could peer into my locker. “Did you get on a dating app? They’re mildly addictive.”

“How the fuck would you know?” Erik was a lovesick puppy for a woman who wanted nothing to do with him. If Erik was on a dating app I was a monkey’s uncle.

“I hear things,” he shrugged.

“Well I’m not on some dating app.” I tried to make my shoulders wider as I hunched over my bag, double checking I had everything.

“It’s a girl though, right?” Wes kept needling. “It’s always a girl when a guy does shit like this.”

Wes had just been traded to the Mantas but we all knew him. He was that kind of guy. Friends with fucking everyone. “Can you leave me in peace?”

“Come on man, leave him alone,” Erik said.

Wes leaned closer. “It’s not a bad thing to like a girl. I like a girl. She doesn’t like me…”

“No one fucking likes you, Wes. And stop calling them girls. You’ll get your balls kicked in for it.”

He grinned big and wide. “So it is a girl. Woman.”

“Fuck off.” I grabbed my bag and stood up but was met with a wall of overly curious bastards. Wes and Erik had multiplied into a quarter of the team.

“Look, you know all about our love lives. Why won’t you let us in, Rhett?” Wes said.

I tried to stare him down with a growl.

“Your ‘Rhett Ryan Rumble’ won’t stop us from caring.” The asshole had the nerve to put a hand on my shoulder as he said it.

Then the crowd chimed in, all agreeable and encouraging. I hated it.

“I don’t see what the big deal is.” Erik said with a shrug. “We see each other naked, we eat each other’s food, half of us sleep in each other’s apartments.”

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