The Perfect Catch (Kissing the Enemy Book 1)

by Maggie Dallen

  And over Christmas, and again at the party…

  She arched her brows in surprise but her whole face was lit up with laughter. “Oh girl, I’d love to tell you…” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

  I burst out laughing and she did too. I turned to Noah and repeated what she’d said before. “I like her.”

  He gave me a small smile. “I had a feeling you would.” He gestured between us. “Callie, meet Avery, our second baseman. Avery, meet our new pitcher.”

  “Pleasure,” Avery said. “Now, please tell me you have friends.”

  I blinked and glanced between her and Noah. “Excuse me?”

  Noah sighed. “We need at least two more girls on the team to be eligible.”

  Seriously? That was the big hold up? I gave him a beaming smile. “Done.”

  Chapter Six

  Noah

  This was such a mistake. How many times had I had that thought? It was running on a permanent loop in my brain.

  I tried to focus on the closeout process at the waiter station at the end of the bar Cazmo’s, but from where I stood I had a perfect view of Callie and the rest of my team.

  The kiss had been a mistake, but this? Letting her join my team? Agreeing to host her as a houseguest? Mistake didn’t cover it. This was a monumental error in judgement.

  All I’d needed to do was keep my distance, and now somehow she was on my team, about to move into my house. What I should do was ignore her to the best of my ability, and yet, here I stood, staring at her from across the restaurant.

  She was seated at the head of the table between Neil and Avery, and it looked like she was holding court. With her broad smile and her animated way of talking, Callie had a tendency to be the center of attention. She wasn’t an attention hog, but she had that natural gregarious charisma that Neil had. The kind I so did not share. She made people feel at ease, like they belonged. And in a motley crew like this one, that was so very necessary.

  She’d be good for the team, I had no doubt. Not just her skills, but her ability to bring people together. She was a natural team leader and would bring them together in a way that not even Neil had been able to do.

  Even now, she had everyone focused on one thing—her. Neil and Avery were obviously listening to whatever it was she was saying, but the others…James, Doug, Ox, and Levi. They were just staring. Admiring the view, no doubt.

  And I hated it.

  There was no way they weren’t ogling my girl. My friend. She looked way too pretty tonight with her hair loose in thick waves around her shoulders and her lithe athletic body on full display with a form-fitting V-neck T-shirt and jeans. To be fair, her clothes weren’t crazy tight, but I was used to seeing her in loose jerseys and boxy shorts. Even with that bulky camouflage I thought she looked amazing, but in normal clothes that didn’t hide her body? I didn’t stand a chance.

  And there was no way in hell the other guys on the team hadn’t taken notice, not by the way they were staring.

  I tapped at the screen to finish closing out my shift, but my gaze was still locked on Callie. I should never have let her join the team, for so many reasons. My sanity, mainly. I mean, I could hardly keep my hands off her now and we had a softball field, a coaching staff, and a team of athletes between us on campus.

  And on campus I didn’t have to watch other guys admire her. I didn’t have to watch my teammates stare in fascination at the pretty blonde with her killer smile and her optimistic, charismatic confidence.

  “You’d better hurry, Mason, your friends are waiting for you.”

  I hadn’t even noticed my manager appear at my side. Sam wasn’t much older than me and he was a good guy, especially considering the fact that “my friends” had been taking over the largest table at Cazmo’s and most had only ordered sodas or water.

  “Thanks for letting me hold the meeting here, Sam.”

  Sam waved away my thanks. “Go, you’re off the clock.”

  I still had five minutes left, actually, but I wasn’t going to say no. I headed to the bathroom to change out my grease-spattered work shirt for a comfortable gray T-shirt and went to join my team.

  “All hail, our fearless leader has arrived!” That came from Neil, whose voice managed to snare the attention of our teammates…and every other living human in this restaurant. By all rights, he should have been the coach of this team. He, like Callie, had that sort of openness, the charm and the optimism that people tended to flock to. Me? I’d been told on more than one occasion that I was too intense. Too focused, too driven, too single-minded, too serious. But, whether it was out of pity or because he really didn’t want to be in charge, Neil had insisted that I be the coach. So here I was, all eyes on me.

  I dropped my chin and ran a hand through my hair as I took the open seat at the other end of the table from Callie. “Hey.”

  They were all waiting for me to talk so I nodded toward Callie, not quite meeting her eyes because my gaze was nabbed by the quirk of her lips. An almost smile, like she was waiting for me to say something that would make it bloom.

  She was always like that—on the verge of laughter or about to grin. I’d always loved that about her, but I guess I’d taken it for granted. Not now, though. For the past six months since my injury I’d seen hurt in her eyes more than joy and I’d seen confusion rather than smiles.

  But that would change, starting now. I’d never meant to hurt Callie, I’d only meant to put distance between us. Once I’d realized that I cared for her as more than a friend, I’d known—I’d just known—that I’d never be able to go back to pretending we were just friends.

  I’d thought it would be easier to be apart, to push her away, make her angry so she’d stop hugging me and nudging me and teasing me and laughing with me.

  But I’d been an idiot. All I’d managed to do was hurt the person I cared about most. She didn’t deserve that and it hadn’t even worked. My feelings for her hadn’t faded at all, so all I’d accomplished was adding guilt on top of all the other emotions that reared up around this girl.

  I shifted in my seat now, trying to think of what a leader would say.

  What would Callie say?

  My gaze met hers. She’d welcome the newcomer and make them feel welcome. “I take it you’ve all met Callie, our newest member?” There were nods all around. “For those of you who don’t know, Callie is the world’s best softball pitcher.”

  Her brows arched up and her lips parted with surprise as Neil and Avery hooted and cheered in response.

  “Aw yeah, boy,” Neil called out. “We got ourselves a secret weapon.”

  Callie flushed with embarrassment but she handled it well, shrugging modestly as she grinned at the table. “Well, you know, no promises but…”

  The guys all laughed at her false modesty and she held the floor as James and Doug asked her questions about where she went to school and how long she’d been playing. I was only half paying attention since I knew the answers, but she made my heart stop beating when her gaze met mine across the table, her brown eyes lit with laughter as she pointed in my direction. “I learned from the best.”

  “What? No way,” one of the guys said. “You played ball with the coach?”

  “He taught me everything he knows, isn’t that right?” she teased.

  I tipped my chin in acknowledgement. “Obi-Wan has taught you well.” I did a truly terrible Darth Vader impersonation that I knew would amuse her since we spent the better part of our childhood quoting Star Wars to one another.

  Eric had never really gotten into the sci-fi thing like we had so it was one of our private jokes.

  She let out an adorable little laugh at my lame joke and we shared a smile. One joke and she was looking at me like she used to, like all was forgiven and we were back to being the best of buds.

  It couldn’t be that easy…could it?

  There was a silence and I looked around to notice that everyone was staring at me. Even Neil
who was a friend and my roommate. They all looked shocked that I’d cracked a joke. Or maybe it was the bad impression. Maybe they hadn’t expected me to embarrass myself.

  I shrugged it off. Whatever. I might be serious about my game but I wasn’t a soulless automaton. I could quote Star Wars with no regrets, thank you very much.

  “I didn’t know Coach here had such mad skills,” the little punk Levi said. He was slumped back in his seat looking bored. Just like last time there was an empty buffer zone seat between him and his fellow Fairfield High teammate, Ox. If the two of them had ever spoken directly to one another I had yet to see it.

  “I used to,” I said.

  I’d been hoping that would be the end of it but everyone seemed to be waiting for more. There was an unasked question floating in the air. If I was such a great baseball player, why was I coaching and not playing on the team?

  Only Neil and Callie knew the answer and their expressions was filled with sympathy.

  “Torn labrum.” I said it as simply as I could.

  “That sucks, dude,” Levi said, his voice lacking its normal sarcasm. While it wasn’t exactly eloquent, he pretty much summed it up.

  It had sucked…but…it also hadn’t. I still had mixed emotions about that injury diagnosis and all that had followed, but now was so not the time to delve into it. So, I just told them what they expected to hear. And it was the truth just…not all of it.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It was a rough time. I lost a lot that day.”

  When I looked up I saw a table full of pity. Empathy, maybe, but sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. It stood to reason that this group, in particular, would understand how much it sucked to be out of the game thanks to chance or freakin’ fate. Everyone here had built a life around a sport, so I should have known they would understand.

  I held off meeting Callie’s gaze, but I could feel her eyes on me as everyone around me muttered their sympathy or just a general comment about how much it sucked.

  When I finally lifted my eyes to meet her gaze, I felt the rest of the restaurant fade away instantly. My ears filled with a buzzing noise and I let out a whoosh of air like her gaze was a physical blow to my gut.

  There was no pity, not even sympathy—her expression was unreadable. But it was the look in her eyes that knocked me off kilter. She was looking straight through me, staring like she’d never seen me before.

  She looked so serious, like she was trying to figure something out, or like she had figured something out and was trying to make sense of it.

  Whatever it was, it was disconcerting.

  “So wait,” Doug’s voice interrupted the moment and I was grateful for the excuse to look away. “Don’t we still need two more girls to be eligible?”

  “I’ve got that covered,” Callie said before I could answer. “One of my friends at the clinic lives here in Fairfield. Maddie’s on the Fairfield High softball team and she’s agreed to play with us, plus she’s convinced one of her friends from school to join us too.”

  “Why aren’t they here tonight?” James asked.

  “Maddie couldn’t leave campus and her friend, Kate, is getting back from a family vacation tomorrow,” Callie explained.

  “She can’t leave campus?” James asked, sounding perplexed, and I was sure he was thinking about how Callie and her camp friends had gone to the party a few nights ago.

  “They’re not supposed to leave.” I ignored Avery’s snicker. “And Maddie wouldn’t have been able to get back in time for curfew.”

  “So wait,” Levi said with a cynical smirk. “Our newbies have a curfew? How old are they?”

  Personally I wanted to smack the kid, but Callie just smiled. “At least one of our newbies has been playing softball since she was old enough to hold a bat, and her friend might not play for the softball team, but she’s an athlete—the star of the varsity girls’ soccer team, from what Maddie tells me.”

  Levi’s brows shot up in surprise at that, but Callie continued before he could respond. “On top of that, I’m almost positive they could kick your butt on or off the field any day of the week.” She popped a fry in her mouth and gave him a charming smile. “And to answer your question, they’re both going to be seniors at Fairfield High so I imagine they’re around the same age as you.”

  If anyone else had said all that it might have led to tension, but Callie said it so cheerfully and with a cheeky grin that had surly Levi giving her a little smile in return.

  He opened his mouth to reply but Ox beat him to it. “Maddie Conkle?”

  All eyes turned to him. It was the first time I’d heard the big guy speak except to tell me his name at the first meeting, and we all stared in shock at the sound of that low growling voice.

  Callie blinked twice but she recovered quickly. “Yeah. You know her?”

  Ox gave a short nod. That was it.

  Well…okay then.

  I spoke up on his behalf. “Ox here is going to be a senior at Fairfield High next year too.” I jerked my thumb toward Levi. “Him too.”

  Levi had the gall to give her a wink which made Callie laugh.

  Dammit, I hated this Levi kid.

  “What about you?” he asked Callie. “Do you go to Fairfield too?” His tone was flirtatious and I had to resist the urge to throw something at his forehead to make him stop looking at Callie like she was edible.

  “You don’t know who goes to your own school?” James asked, amusement in his voice.

  Levi shrugged. “I’m a transfer.”

  From New York City. I knew that much from the first time I’d met him. I assumed that was why he thought he was too good for anyone here. Except, perhaps, Callie.

  She shook her head. “Oh no, I just know Maddie from softball camp. Maddie and I have been going there every summer for years.”

  “If you’re a camper, aren’t you supposed to be home and in bed too?” Doug teased. Apparently he and James hadn’t heard about the drama that went down the other night.

  Callie shifted a bit and gave me just the tiniest rueful smile. “I’ve already been busted so it’s not like I could get into any more trouble.”

  Avery burst out in a laugh as she leaned over and clapped a hand on Callie’s shoulder. “This girl is a badass. I can’t believe you snuck out again after getting kicked out of the game.”

  Callie shrugged one shoulder. “They already took the game away from me and this is the last year I can go to the clinic, so what are they gonna do? Kick me out?”

  “I’d like to see them try.” I didn’t really mean to say it, and I definitely hadn’t meant for it to come out as a growl, but the thought of her getting into any more trouble and all because of me? It didn’t sit well.

  “Yeah well,” she said, before the ensuing silence could turn awkward. “There’s only one more day of practice and then—”

  “And then you’re moving in with us,” Neil finished with a grin. “Welcome aboard, roomie.”

  I hated the way they were smiling at each other. It was friendly, but Neil was a charmer and he had no obligations to Eric. He didn’t know how special this girl was, just that she was hot.

  It seemed Avery wasn’t a fan of his smile either, and for a second I wondered if there was more to their friendship than Neil had let on.

  “Wait,” Avery said slowly. “You’re moving in with these guys?”

  “Just until the tournament.” Callie gave Avery a reassuring smile and some of the redhead’s stiffness faded, confirming my belief that it was impossible for anyone to dislike Callie. The girl was a sweetheart and anyone with eyes could see it.

  “I can pick up your stuff on Saturday,” Neil said. He seemed completely oblivious to Avery’s discomfort.

  “But,” I started. Saturday was the day of the showcase game. Campers didn’t have to leave the dorms until Sunday. Which meant, Callie didn’t need to move in until Sunday. Though to point that out seemed unbelievably rude. I didn’t want her staying with us, and I hadn’t exactly
made that a secret but I was trying to be less of a prick about it.

  I could keep my distance from Callie without being a jerk. I wasn’t entirely sure how, but there had to be a way.

  It wasn’t her fault that the idea of sharing a house with her was a special form of torture. Not because I didn’t want her around but because I did. I wanted her staying with me way too much.

  And that’s why I didn’t want her staying with us.

  It was complicated.

  I bit back the rest of my protest and Neil gave me a funny look before explaining. “I’m working all day Sunday and since your truck is in the shop…”

  Right. We had to move her belongings on his schedule. Once again, I had my clunker of a truck to blame for being stuck alone with Callie.

  “So when are we going to meet our new teammates?” Doug asked.

  “They can start practicing as soon as the showcase game is over,” Callie said. “So if you guys are up for a practice on Sunday, they’ll be there.”

  It was agreed that Sunday was our first practice.

  Good. Great. The sooner we got this team up and running, the easier it would be to treat Callie like every other member of the team. A teammate. A friend. That was all we were.

  “If anyone wants to watch the showcase game with me on Saturday, I bet that Maddie would love to know her teammates were there supporting her,” Callie said.

  I sat back in awe as she got everyone to agree to an outing together. As a team. To support a new team member they hadn’t even met yet.

  This right here was why Callie was always the leader of every team she joined. It was a gift, and one no one appreciated as much as me, I could guarantee it.

  Once that was decided, the team started breaking off into separate conversations, talking amongst themselves like they were old friends. Like they were a team. We weren’t a cohesive unit yet, but we were well on our way thanks to Callie’s easy charisma.

  Neil and Callie were discussing the details of when they could move her belongings when James leaned over to talk to me. “Dude, you are one lucky bastard.”