Page 40 of Pitcher Us
Is he talking about Jett? I knew he was moving back to South Carolina after he retired. Jett was like me in that he wasn’t an outwardly social guy, but he was close with Adam.
Finally looking up from his desk, Olsson raises an eyebrow. “You know Spring Training starts in two weeks, right?”
Adam gives him a quick nod. “I’m aware. It would be the week before, but only for three days. They have other players from the league coming in so they don’t need many of us and since Will and I played with Jett for years it would make the most sense.”
So it is Jett. He was also the only other player in Seattle who Callie would talk to, but I think that was only for his girlfriend and daughter. She’d probably love to go down with us if we get this approved—and I would get more time with her.
Sitting up a little straighter in my chair, I run with that idea. “Callie could get some great pictures. It would be really great publicity for us and the team. And we would still be getting some good warmups in.”
Olsson drops the paper in his hand and leans back in his chair, sizing us up. “Who’s covering travel?”
“We are,” Adam responds.
“You know, as pitcher and catcher you guys are due in Florida for Spring Training before everyone else.”
“We know.” I nod. Shit, is he actually going to agree to this?
Olsson sighs. “Alright. I’ll excuse you both from practices that week and if you guys are so much as even five minutes late to report, I will?—”
“We won’t be, sir. You can count on me,” Adam says. His need to be punctual probably just screamed at the thought of ever being late.
Olsson taps on his desk. “Alright, I’ll hold you to that. You guys are good to go. Callie too.”
Fuck. Yes.
Chapter 19
Callie
Today, we are going to sit our butt down and edit some pictures. I’ve had this mindset all week but zero motivation. At this point it’s straight ADHD avoidance. I have nearly two thousand photos downloaded onto my laptop and every time I’ve turned on my screen and seen that number, I slam it shut and tell myself I’ll do it tomorrow.
But there are no more tomorrows. I need to get started if I want to have everything edited before we leave for Aster Creek on Monday. To help, I set little daily goals for myself. Today I need to comb through the photos, making notes of my favorites and deleting the unusable ones. I’ve played around with my presets enough that each picture won’t need heavy editing, and most can go into files for a later date, but realistically, I need to get this number of photos I have way down.
Setting my tea bag in my mug to steep, I reach for my laptop. Work—we are going to work.
As I pull everything up, there’s one other major reminder of why I’ve closed my laptop for the last five days. One sweaty, muscular, shirtless Will with these incredible abs and long arms. Damn it, why did we have to take brand photos of Will with theworkout equipment? The brand photos I need of Will should be for cleats or a cereal box—literally anything other than having to take pictures of him shirtless lifting weights.
I’ll never be able to explain this because I’ve never considered sweat to be sexy, but seeing Will all sweaty felt like it unlocked some kind of weird ass kink for me because hot damn. How I did that shoot with the level of professionality I had was practically an act of God.
Is it wrong to be jealous of metal? Because anytime his hands would grip on the weights I’d have to shove the mental image away of him gripping on to me in any way he wanted.
Maybe I’m foolish to think he was being a little flirty at the training center, but maybe I missed him more than I thought over this past month.
I thought we’d get our footing on the” friends” front this week, but our schedules still aren’t matching up. I’ve unfortunately been trapped at the stadium all week taking photos for our new virtual tour, while the guys are still practicing at the training center. Adam’s talked about Will being at practice so I know he’s been around. On the neighbor front, I’ve barely heard a peep come from his place.
I guess I should stop fixating on him. Even if I did do something about my feelings there isn’t much we can do about it. Ican’tlose this job…but I can’t seem to let this idea of Will go.
“Okay, Callie, we’re just going to add these to his album and move on,” I say aloud to myself. I can’t afford to get caught up in Will’s muscular thighs. I. Have. To. Work.
Clicking on a chunk of Will’s photos, I add them to his album. One thing I did do in my procrastination state was create different folders for every player and team photos.
Reaching for my tea, I decide it’s entirely too quiet and if I’m going to keep happening upon Will shirtless, I need some calming—dare I say sad—music to counter his hotness.
“Okay, let’s do this.” Again, I say to no one.
I push through for a good hour. My tea is now gone and my set up on the couch has officially become uncomfortable. Groaning, I stretch out my arms and roll my neck.
Surely, I made some good progress. I tried sticking to quick decisions, keep or trash, then immediately into the folder. According to the math in my head, I went through roughly five hundred. I did feel like I saw a lot of pictures of Will, but maybe that’s just because he stands out to me more than the rest.
