by Lauren Layne
Carter was more accustomed to the sound of a sharp crack of a wooden bat on a baseball. But the softer thunk of an aluminum bat against a softball was pretty damn gratifying as well. Even more gratifying was Olive’s huge grin as he deliberately let it sail over his shoulder into the outfield instead of making the semieasy catch.
“I did it! I did it!” She raised her arms over her head in victory with a whoop, then dropped them again, sticking the bat between her legs and riding it around like some sort of ridiculous horse while her other arm made a lassoing motion, whooping the entire time.
He smiled as he watched her, shaking his head. “You know you’re supposed to run to first base, right?”
“Don’t ruin a good thing with running,” she called back, still doing her awkward victory dance. “Don’t they do this in football after a touchdown?”
“I don’t think anyone does whatever that is,” he said, walking toward her. “Now, on Saturday, you have to promise me you’ll run to first base when you hit the ball.”
“Sure, whatever,” she said, her smile still reaching from ear to ear. “I. Hit. The. Ball.” She poked a finger into his stomach with each word. “Did you see?”
“Yeah, yeah. I saw.”
She poked her finger again into his side, and he grimaced, moving away. Olive narrowed her eyes. “Did that hurt?”
“Of course not. It just . . . Stop it.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God. You’re ticklish! Carter Ramsey’s six-pack is ticklish!”
She reached out again, this time in a deliberate tickling motion, and he let out a laugh as he batted her hand away. “Knock it off.”
But she had two hands, and he had only one good one, and she took full advantage, diving at him with both hands, as he squirmed to get away from her searching fingers. “This is no way to repay me for my help,” he said with a helpless laugh as he tried and failed to get away from her.
His stomach had been ticklish for as long as he could remember, but for obvious reasons, he let few people know it. Giggling wasn’t exactly part of his brand.
“This is the best,” Olive said, sneaking a finger behind the elbow of his injured arm and tickling as he let out another involuntary laugh.
“Stop!” he laughed helplessly.
She didn’t. Realizing he couldn’t get away from her, short of running away from her and having her chase him around the baseball field, Carter came up with the only other solution he could think of.
Waiting until her questing fingers moved to his front once again, he wrapped his good arm around Olive and jerked her against him, pinning her arms between them, rendering her fingers mostly immobile.
“Hey!” she cried in protest against his chest, her voice muffled.
“You are not the aggrieved party here,” Carter replied, catching his breath.
“Okay, I’ll stop,” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
He didn’t know that he believed her, but that was not why he didn’t release her. He didn’t release her because he really didn’t want to. Olive’s warm, sturdy body against his felt better than it had any right to. Better than any daydream, and there’d been a few lately.
But as nice as it was, it was torture, too, having her pressed against him chest to chest, hip to hip, without being able to touch her. Since he couldn’t use his hands, he settled for relishing the softness of full breasts against his chest, the sweet and slightly spicy scent of her that he suddenly couldn’t get enough of. The sheer warmth of her, her body and her soul.
He dipped his head slightly, then laughed when his jaw brushed the hard helmet she still wore. How was it possible that the sexiest moment of his life was somehow also the unsexiest?
“Carter?” she asked quietly. Her voice was questioning, but she didn’t move away, and he pulled back enough to look down at her, just as her face lifted to his. “I won’t tickle you anymore,” she said softly.
He nodded, but his gaze was on her mouth. He’d forgotten all about the tickling. Forgotten all about her first hit. Forgotten the reason they were here in the first place.
In fact, he couldn’t even think about anything other than what she would do if he lowered his face and brushed his lips over hers.
His head dipped slightly, and her lips parted in surprise. But she didn’t move away, and Carter felt a thrill of victory that rivaled anything he’d ever felt on the baseball field as his mouth lowered—
“Yo! Ramsey!”
He wasn’t sure who jerked back faster at the interruption. But even after they’d put several inches between them, Carter’s and Olive’s gazes stayed locked a crucial moment longer before they both turned toward the sound of the voice.
“Sorry we’re late,” Jakey said, jogging up the grass hill from the parking lot, glove and bat tucked under his arm. “Took me forever to get the troops into my minivan.”
“Yeah, but your troops aren’t the ones who made us stop for doughnuts,” said a woman emerging over the crest of the hill as well, armed with a box of pink doughnuts. She grinned at them. “Hey, Carter. Hey, Olive.”
“Kelly!” Olive said in surprise when she saw Kelly Blakely. “What are you doing here?”
“I called them,” Carter said, glancing down at her. “Well, texted.”
“For what?”
“News flash, babe,” Jakey said, wrapping an arm around Olive’s neck when he was close enough. “Baseball’s a team sport. Can’t be learned with two people, even if one of them is a semidecent player,” he said with a grin at Carter.
“Kelly,” called another male voice. “Question. Where are the bats? When I told you to ‘grab the stuff,’ what did you think I meant?”
The pretty blonde held up the pink box and looked quizzically over at her husband, who joined them. “Doughnuts. Obviously. Carter Ramsey, you’re even better looking in person. Doughnut?”
Mark Blakely rolled his eyes and deposited a couple of helmets to the ground, then came over to shake Carter’s hand. “Good to see you, man. Sorry I haven’t been able to before now. I’ve been back and forth to the city.”
Carter didn’t know Mark all that well, and he didn’t know Kelly at all, but Jakey had said they were friends with Olive and would be down for playing a quick game of softball.
“Mark’s opening up another restaurant,” Kelly said proudly, winding her arm around her husband’s waist. “This one’s in Midtown, right in the middle of all the swanky office buildings, where the corporate credit cards mean cha-ching!”
“Very classy, babe,” Mark said, smiling as he pressed a kiss against the side of her head.
“What? I teach kindergarten,” Kelly said. “One of us has to make bank, and it’s not going to be me. Olive understands.”
“Me?” Olive said. “Nope. I like getting paid next to nothing, working ten-hour days to grade papers and create lesson plans, while spending my own money to supplement lab supplies because my boss thinks high school science isn’t ‘real world’ stuff.”
Olive and Kelly exchanged a look of teacher commiseration, and Carter felt a surge of frustration on their behalf as well as a flicker of guilt.
Yes, he had worked damn hard to get where he was. He’d been waking up every morning at four a.m. to train as long as he could remember. He put in five miles every damned day before heading to the gym, and that was in addition to the hours of scheduled practice time. When he wasn’t keeping his body in peak condition, he exercised his mind, studying gameplay constantly, both his own and his opponents. Not to mention the PR obligations. The interviews, the photo shoots, the advertisements for his sponsors. Carter’s life hardly mirrored the whisky-swilling, model-dating image the paparazzi captured on a rare night off.
But he also knew people like Kelly and Olive worked just as hard to make in a year what he made in a single day. And it didn’t feel right.
“Be right back,” Mark said, jogging back to the car, presumably to get the bats Kelly had forgotten.
“You guys are ser
iously here to help me?” Olive asked, looking around. “I’m not sure Carter spelled out just how hopeless a case I am.”
“Oh, I let them know,” he told her with a wink.
She rolled her eyes, but grinned.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kelly’s eyebrows lift, but he ignored her. It wasn’t as though he had any answers as to what the hell was going on with him and Olive. Not even for himself.
“All right, Kelly, I’m putting you on first. Mark, how’s your pitching?” Carter asked the other man, who’d just rejoined them.
“Passable.”
“Good, you’re on the mound. Jakey, I need you behind the plate. Easy grounders toward left field.”
“You got it,” Jakey said, slinging his bat over his shoulder as Kelly and Mark grabbed mitts, squabbling over whether the shape of the clouds predicted which movie they should watch tonight (Kelly was convinced a stiletto-shaped cloud indicated Sex and the City was in their future), or whether it was just a function of standard weather patterns (Mark’s stance: a cloud was a cloud).
“Where should I go?” Olive asked.
“Hold on,” he said, jogging over to the bench where he’d dropped his stuff when they’d arrived an hour earlier. When Carter jogged back, he placed a baseball cap on her head that matched his own, only smaller. One he’d had his assistant overnight him.
She lifted it and looked at the front, then laughed. “Figures. You’re trying to turn me into a Hawks fan.”
“Wrong. I’m trying to turn you into a Carter Ramsey fan.”
“Unfortunately, I think I already am,” she grumbled under her breath.
He leaned down until his face was just a few inches from hers, grinning. “What was that?”
“I said I hate you?” She smiled back as she pulled her hair out of its topknot and into a low ponytail, then replaced the cap.
“It looks good on you,” he said, flicking a finger over the bill. “You’re one of my fangirls now.”
“You’re highly disturbed. I’m getting worried.”
“Hey, guys, we playing or what?” Jakey called.
“Yup,” Carter called back, handing Olive a glove, and motioning for her to follow him. “Come on, Dunn. Time to brush up your glove skills in the best position there is.”
“Repose?” she said, reluctantly following after him.
“Shortstop,” he replied, pointing between second and third base. “Stand there.”
“What will you do?” she asked, taking his usual position.
“Hover around third. Bark orders and criticism as the ball comes your way over and over,” he replied.
“Can I have that job?”
“Let’s see how this first hit goes, then we’ll talk.”
Jakey’s first grounder shot straight between her feet and into the outfield.
She gave him a droll look. “I suppose I could use a little practice.”
Carter lifted his casted arm as best he could to pinch his thumb and forefinger together with a sliver of space between them. Just a little.
“Olive! Babe!” Kelly called. “You have to go get the ball.” She punched her own glove with her fist. “Throw it here for practice.”
Olive did as instructed. Her arm was good. Her aim, on the other hand, sent the ball sailing between first and second base, a good six feet wide of Kelly, who had to go darting into right field to retrieve it.
Which sent Olive running after her to apologize. Then, with the ball lying in the grass between them, they began chatting.
Jakey shook his head at home plate and pulled his phone out of his back pocket to kill time until the ball made it back his way.
Mark crossed his arms on the pitcher’s mound, watching the women chatting in the outfield a moment before glancing over at Carter. “You realize you owe us for this, right?”
Carter sighed, even as he motioned for Olive to get her ass back to the correct side of the field. “I know.”
“I’m thinking wings and beers after this. On you,” Mark said with a smile.
“Wings and whisky after this,” Jakey corrected, not looking up from his phone. “Really expensive whisky.”
“Done,” Carter said amicably, not minding in the least, even though technically, it was Olive they were all doing the favor for, not Carter. He’d just been the one to ask on her behalf.
Plus, whisky and wings with friends after a casual game of ball sounded damn nice. It sounded like the kind of thing he could get used to.
And, he thought, as a grinning Olive trotted back to him, exactly the kind of thing he shouldn’t get used to.
Chapter Seventeen
Saturday, August 22
“I owe you an apology,” Olive said, lifting the hem of her green Haven High T-shirt to wipe the sweat from her face. “This baseball thing is really hard.”
“Well, to be fair,” Carter said, propping one foot up on the bench beside her and popping a pistachio in his mouth, “you’ve been making it way harder than it should be. I’ve never seen a third baseman—woman—run quite so much.”
She took a swig of water and glared up at him. “The damn thing just keeps going between my legs.”
He popped another pistachio in his mouth and grinned down at her.
“Yeah, yeah. I heard it,” she grumbled.
The game had been paused for the past ten minutes or so due to a possible sprained ankle on the other team, and Carter had jogged over to keep her company during the break.
“At least the entire town didn’t show up,” Carter said sarcastically, gesturing to the completely full stands behind her. “Damn,” he swore irritably at a pistachio he couldn’t crack. “These things are easier to eat with two good hands.”
Distractedly, Olive pulled the pistachio out of his fingers and opened it, reaching up to shove the nut into his mouth herself. “The crowd is your fault, you know. Nobody would have bothered to come see the high school staff play softball in ninety-degree weather if the Carter Ramsey hadn’t agreed to be the referee. And your magazine hasn’t even hit the stands yet. What happens then, it turns into a full circus?”
“Guess we’ll find out soon,” he grumbled, though he didn’t look quite as haunted at the mention of the Citizen magazine feature anymore. She wondered if he was coming to grips with the fact that he deserved that Man of the Year honor, even if he did have only one good arm at the moment.
“And it’s ump,” he said, chewing the pistachio.
“Huh?” she said, not following.
“It’s called an umpire in baseball. Not referee.”
“Oh yeah?” she said sweetly. “I can think of another name for it.”
“Why are you mad at me?” he said. “I’ve made nothing but fair calls.”
“I’ve struck out. Twice.”
“Swinging,” he pointed out. “That’s not on me.”
“Not helpful,” she said testily, even as she lifted her hand to smile and wave at Mark and Kelly, who were sitting next to Carter’s parents. “I’m never going to be the MVP at this rate.”
Goodbye, teacher conference. Goodbye, seeing Carter in the city. Olive wasn’t sure which one she was more bummed about. Or rather, she knew exactly which one she was more bummed about, and was trying hard to ignore it.
Instead she settled for glaring at him. “A little advice would not be unwelcome right now.”
Carter shook his head. “The ump’s a neutral third party. Wouldn’t be fair.”
She lifted a single threatening finger and looked pointedly at his ticklish torso.
Carter grunted as he fished another pistachio out of the bag. “Fine. One piece of advice, but you’re not going to like it: you’re taking your eye off the ball. Both at the plate and in the field.”
She sighed. “How is such a simple concept so hard?”
“You’ll get there,” he said.
“Before the end of the game?” she asked. “There are only three more rounds.”
“Innings. And actually, t
here are only two more. Nine innings in baseball, remember? Though it’s a tie game, so it could go longer.”
“Longer?” she asked, horrified.
Carter laughed. “Look, you’ve got one more at bat. Remember what we practiced. Think about nothing but staring at the ball all the way across the plate.”
“I doubt it’ll matter. Ginny Townsend’s already hit two doubles. Why is a history teacher that good at softball?”
“Hey, look at that!” he said, tugging her ponytail. “You’ve quit calling them duos.”
She gave him a faint smile, but it didn’t do much to improve her mood. This morning, she’d felt so ready for the game. After two straight days of practice with Carter, she was hardly going to quit her day job to become a softball player, but she’d been confident she could at least hit the freaking ball.
Misplaced confidence, apparently.
Olive tried to take solace in the fact that while she certainly wasn’t the MVP, she also wasn’t the worst on the team. The majority of her colleagues couldn’t play softball for shit, either.
“Which one’s Ginny Townsend?” Carter asked.
Olive gestured with her head, and he glanced over at the petite brunette talking with Principal Mullins.
“Ah yeah,” he said. “She’s obviously played before. But you’ve got an advantage.”
She gazed at him skeptically. “If you’re about to say something stupid like how I ‘play with heart . . .’”
Carter reached out and gave her upper arm a squeeze. “You’re stronger. If you can connect, you can hit the ball farther than anyone here, save perhaps that giant the other team’s got playing first.”
“Gary Russo. He’s their gym teacher and football coach.”
“Hey, Ump. Looks like we’re back in business,” Principal Mullins said, turning and hollering at Carter.
Her reprieve was over.
Carter lifted his hand in acknowledgment to Olive’s boss, then looked back down at her. “Eye. Ball.”
She made a crude gesture at his back as he returned to home plate.
“Felt that!” he called, without turning around.
Olive’s team was up to bat, though she likely wouldn’t be up until the next round, or inning, or whatever it was called, so she helped herself to Carter’s pistachios, trying not to wince when Ginny got yet another hit. A single this time, but that made the history teacher three for three, and Olive zero for loser.