by Tori Blake
“Only the hottest man in baseball,” she said without looking at me. Then seeing that I had indeed been correct, she stomped her foot childishly and walked back to her seat, sitting down, defeated.
“Oh baseball,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That’s why I’ve never heard of him.”
“What’s the piece called?” she asked.
“Umm”—I paused, looking at my screen again—“‘The Sexiest Man in Sports.’”
Megan let out a sincere, whiny, and laughable groan that drew the gaze of many coworkers.
I moved on to the rest of my emails, a bit annoyed at Bernie for assigning me what was probably the worst match for me on this interview. Was it because I was a day late on my “Fall Foundation Round-up” last week? I was thinking about this, and responding to a few other inquiries and requests, when I heard Megan say, “This is Grayson Hunter,” and turn her monitor toward me.
I looked over and saw an objectively attractive man. He had dark curly hair that was just a bit shaggy. “His hair isn’t that long anymore,” said Megan quickly. She quickly moved to a different picture, in action this time, his strong arms swinging a bat. The muscles and tendons in his arm stood out, and he looked powerful and intimidating.
“Yeah, he’s cute,” I said, turning back for my latte.
“Cute?” Megan spat, as if I had insulted her personally.
“Oh I’m sorry, did I say cute? I meant very cute,” I said, and Megan let out a cheerful, good-natured, and very loud laugh. Again, several people turned and scowled. It was far too early on a Monday for that sort of nonsense.
Megan was gorgeous, with long dark red hair, a color many women paid hundreds of dollars for. Her eyes were dark and doll-like, with lashes that you would swear were fake, and while she hated her stature, she rocked it with a confidence many women twice her size did not have.
“So I guess I should call this guy, huh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t tease me like that,” Megan said. “They didn’t actually give you his number, did they?”
“It’s probably his agent’s,” I said, picking up the phone and dialing the number listed under “Contact Information.”
“Can I listen?” she asked, rolling her chair over.
I rolled my eyes and turned on the speakerphone, setting the handset in the cradle. As the phone began to ring, I wondered how professional it was to have my best friend listening in on a call with what could potentially be her biggest crush of all time. However, I didn’t have long to ponder this as the other end picked up almost immediately.
“Five Star Representatives,” a light, breathy voice answered. At this, realizing that Grayson Hunter would not be answering his own phone, Megan scoffed and rolled away, finally seeing to her own work. I picked up the handset and squeezed it between my left shoulder and ear, opening my calendar on the screen of my computer.
“Hi there. My name is Grace Taylor. I’m calling from Top Press. I need to speak with someone regarding an interview with Grayson Hunter,” I said.
“Excellent,” the voice said. I pictured her young, blonde, and petite with a fishtail braid over her shoulder. “His agent just got in, so let me transfer you over.”
“That would be great, thank you,” I said.
Chapter 2
The next day, I was standing outside the Chicago Riot ballpark, which until yesterday I had no idea existed. I wondered what it said about me that a giant stadium, which was integral to the cityscape, had been invisible to me twenty-four hours ago. The man on the phone, who had introduced himself as Stan Hendricks, told me to meet him on the third baseline. I thought it would be easy enough to figure out what that meant. I mean, I knew enough about baseball to know what the bases were. But even now I was having trouble figuring out how to get into the building.
Luckily, I didn’t have to, because it turned out Stan Hendricks runs chronically late.
“Grace? Grace Taylor?” I heard from behind me. I turned around to see a very short man, in a very loud suit, crossing the parking lot toward me.
“How could you tell?” I asked as he got closer, extending a freshly-manicured hand toward him, which he grasped firmly in both hands.
“We don’t get a lot of women around here,” he said, “especially women in Burberry.”
We shared a somewhat awkward laugh while walking toward a door in the wall of the stadium.
“So, the sexiest man in sports, huh?” Stan asked with a chuckle. “People really care about this?”
“Sports? Or sexy men?” I asked, and Stan threw his head back in an exaggerated laugh. I instantly wished I had passed this assignment on to Megan. If she had been given anything good, I might have considered swapping, but it turned out she was given the only assignment less interesting than Grayson Hunter, some hockey player who lived some place really cold and skated around on ice or something.
That was when we entered another small door on the interior wall of the stadium. The ballpark stretched out before me like a giant emerald courtyard. Having watched very little baseball on television and absolutely none in real life, I was stunned by just how massive this field was. We were standing directly behind home plate, up several rows of bleacher seats, all brightly colored in the Riot’s colors of orange and yellow. There was a net that rose up in front of us, obscuring most of the view of the infield and outfield, but not so much as to keep me from seeing the dozens of men running in lines and fielding balls in the distance.
As we walked down toward the diamond, Stan began to give me the rundown on the team’s standings, statistics, trades, and other information I’m sure would have been relevant if I was writing for Sports Illustrated. Even if I had been interested in the technical side of baseball’s sexiest man, I was far too distracted by the sheer size and impressiveness of the stadium. There were screens larger than my apartment in the outfield, and the grass itself was mowed into a starburst which I would later recognize as the team’s logo. The earth on the infield was the cleanest dirt I had ever seen, a meticulous red-brown that reminded me suddenly of carrot cake, the creamy white bases and pitcher’s mound like peaks of icing.
When we reached the field, I immediately felt the error of my shoe decision. My heels sank into the soft earth of the infield, thoroughly coating the spikes in dirt and pieces of grass.
“Oh dear,” Stan said, interrupting his constant verbal flow of baseball factoids and putting a hand up. “You wait right here. We don’t need you breaking an ankle,” he said, and he trotted off toward the outfield.
I stood, visibly out of place somewhere near third base, looking around. The dugouts were neat and clean, bats and equipment hung in tidy rows and a large orange cooler in the corner next to a tower of paper cups. I was impressed by just how orderly everything was, both in the dugout and in the stadium in general. Having never been to a baseball game, all the technicalities and visuals were foreign to me, but I was expecting something much more in line with a cluttered sporting goods store or uneven sandlot.
I had just started to consider whether it would be appropriate to investigate the opposing team’s dugout when I heard Stan’s constant rhetoric coming across the field like an impending mosquito. He wasn’t quite annoying, but he certainly wasn’t doing himself any favors. When I looked up, however, Stan immediately left my mind, for the man with him was far more interesting.
It was certainly the same man that Megan had shown me pictures of, though Grayson Hunter was far more attractive in person. His hair was indeed shorter, as Megan had said, but he appeared much taller. His arms bulged beneath the long sleeve spandex he was wearing, and though he was looking down as he walked, I could see the angular structure of his jaw. I caught myself thinking that maybe Megan had been right after all.
When they got closer, Grayson looked up and gave me a wide smile, framed with two sets of deep dimples and eyes a clear, silver-blue. He said something quietly to Stan, which caused him to laugh, though I had gotten the distinct impression that Stan
Hendricks laughed at almost everything. As they approached, Stan trotted out a few steps ahead so he was between us and extended an arm toward me.
“Grayson, this is Grace Taylor from Top Press. She’s here to do your interview,” he said.
“Great to meet you,” Grayson said, taking my hand in his.
“Likewise,” I said, giving him a warm, professional smile.
“First time at a ball field?” he asked.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked, and he laughed as Stan roared.
“Well, we don’t get many beautiful women down here at all,” he said.
The confidence in his voice was startling, but not patronizing or creepy. He seemed to be genuinely complimenting me, something that was unfortunately rare.
“Buttering me up isn’t going to help a thing!” I said, and now it was Grayson’s turn to roar with laughter.
“Had to try,” he said with what looked like a wink. I smiled back.
“Miss Taylor, where are my manners?” Stan interrupted. “Would you like some water, coffee, tea?” he asked.
“Gatorade?” offered Grayson.
“Iced tea would be great,” I said to Stan, “if you have it.” And he ran off toward the dugout without another word.
“So,” Grayson said, a smile still plastered across his face. It was irritatingly confident.
“Is there somewhere we can sit? The interview shouldn’t take long, but I have a photographer coming that will need some of your time as well. I’m assuming Stan told you about that?” I asked, giving him my most professional voice.
“He did indeed,” he said and then motioned toward home plate. “Let’s sit there. It’ll give you a great perspective on the field.”
“Lead the way,” I said, though he fell into step beside me as I walked as quickly as I dared in my heels.
“How long have you been a journalist?” he asked.
“I’m the one asking the questions here,” I said with a smirk. The truth was that I always feared that professionalism deteriorated as soon as personal details on my side were involved. Not that many people would take a “Sexiest Men in Sports” article as serious journalism, but it helped to be consistent.
“Has the interview started already?” he asked.
“It started the minute I walked into this place,” I said. As we neared the seats, I pulled a small silver tape recorder and a leather-bound notepad out of my bag. The paper wasn’t exactly necessary, but it helped with the aforementioned professional appearance.
“Fair enough,” Grayson said, opening a gate behind home plate and guiding me up the concrete steps to a couple of seats about five rows behind home plate.
“My favorite seats in the house,” he said, putting his large hands behind his head and leaning back, his elbows spread wide.
“Oh yeah? Why is that?” I asked.
“Well, I guess it’s been so long since I’ve been to a baseball game I wasn’t playing in that I forget just how big these parks can be,” he said, his eyes focused into the vague distance above the outfield, and then he fell silent. Eager to get going, I began with what I thought would be an easy question and switched my recorder on.
“So, how does it feel to be one of Top Press’s sexiest men in sports’?” I asked, and he let out a small chuckle.
“I guess it’s a surprise more than anything,” he said. “I’ve spent so much of my time in the past ten years focused on other people that I almost thought it was a joke when Stan called me about the piece.”
“So you don’t consider yourself sexy?” I asked, attempting to throw him off the way he had with the good-looking comment earlier.
“I consider myself a lot of things,” he answered immediately and honestly, “but I don’t think sexy would be in my top fifty.”
“Well you’ve certainly captured the hearts of a lot of our readers. Why do you think that is?”
“I’m assuming they’re all Chicago Riot fans,” he said with a smirk, which I returned.
“Fair enough. When you’re not playing baseball, how do you spend your time?” I asked.
“Up until about six months ago, I was in a serious relationship which took up a lot of my time, so right now I’m trying to find some new hobbies and things to occupy my time. I took a cooking class last month and I’ve also been thinking about adopting a dog,” he answered, dropping the relationship topic before I was quite ready to talk about it. Megan had mentioned that Grayson had an ex-fiancée who broke his heart or something earlier this year, but I wasn’t planning on bringing that up until the end of the interview. Whatever, I could piece this together however I wanted, but my flow was interrupted regardless.
The interview continued, interrupted only twice. The first was Stan arriving with my iced tea, and the second by my photographer calling to let me know the shoot was ready in the outfield whenever we were done.
I asked Grayson about everything from his family to his charity causes. He was extremely active in a charity bringing together kids in local pickup games in underprivileged areas. His eyes lit up when he talked about the way these kids loved to learn the game and how he hoped it would lead to a decrease in gang activity and high school dropouts. As sweet as it was to hear, I knew our readers wanted to hear about his love life, but for some reason I was hesitant to bring up the subject of the ex-fiancée again. I knew I had to; it was the only thing Bernie told me I must discuss, the only thing our readers would really care about, but it felt taboo. It was as if bringing it up would show I had interest in him outside of the interview, which was preposterous. I’d never had a problem asking people about their relationships before. Luckily, he brought it up himself.
“I threw myself into the charity when my ex and I split. She was much more involved with the social aspects of my life. She’s still very good friends with a lot of the wives and girlfriends of my teammates, so I took myself out of that situation and became much more involved with the community. I think I’m a better person for it too,” he said when I asked how he got started with his philanthropy.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” I began, “how did the relationship end?”
He gave me a weak but sincere smile and nodded, as if he’d known the question was coming.
“Sometimes two people just aren’t right for each other. It turns out that we wanted different things, but I do wish her all the best and hope that she finds exactly what she is looking for,” he said.
Wow, I thought. What an eloquent and charming way of not answering the question at all. But I didn’t press the matter, sensing that this was all I was going to get from him. I decided to end with a fun question, one our readers always seemed to love.
“So Grayson, we’re about out of time, but I have one last question for you,” I said.
“By all means,” he said graciously.
“Now that you’re living the single life, can you tell us anything about your ideal woman?” I asked.
He took a moment, and his dimpled smirk came back to his face, his eyes lighting up ever so slightly.
“Now that I’m a little older, thirty-two, I’m not into the club and bar scene as much anymore, so I need a girl who is okay with lying low. I’m also very attracted to confidence and independence; that’s sort of been my downfall in the past.” He stopped, but I didn’t say anything. The way he paused made it seem like there was more there and something else he wanted to say.
His eyes had a far-off quality that made me wonder whether he even saw me at all anymore, as if they were lost in a memory that I and my readers would never have a chance of seeing. Right as I was about to thank him for his time, his eyes found mine again. He was back.
“And I love a girl with curves,” he said, winking.
Chapter 3
I had been so flustered after Grayson’s comment that it barely registered when he asked if I would be accompanying him to the photo shoot. I nodded yes absentmindedly and then followed him and Stan, who had been sitting only a few rows behind us durin
g the interview. Stan was chattering on about something a few paces ahead of us as we walked down the baseline and into the dugout.
Had he said that on purpose? Was the wink I saw real? It couldn’t be. This was a man who was incredibly attractive, that point was undeniable, despite the fact that he wasn’t my type. I had never been self-conscious about my curves, but his comment made me very aware of them, as if he was saying that because of that, I was his type. It made me a little uneasy, especially considering everything he had said about his ex made me think that she and I would have gotten along very well. I too loved to go out and have a good time and engage in the social benefits of my connections.
And yet, here I was, walking stride for stride with him to the outfield to witness his photo shoot. There was something else about him, a certain maturity and feeling of at ease he had that seemed at odds with other men I knew. The way I avoided the games men played was by dating casually and never getting close and always appearing distant enough to be aloof and not fall prey to their deceit. It seemed that Grayson’s approach was to not play games at all. It made me feel immature, though I somehow knew that wasn’t how Grayson saw me.
“How did I do?” he asked. It was the first thing he had said since Stan had ushered us toward the outfield, and it jarred me from my thoughts.
“Oh,” I said. “Very well. But I’m sure the pictures are what most readers are going to be looking forward too, so the most important part is still to come, I guess.”
“So, no pressure then?” he asked with a dimpled smile.
“None at all,” I laughed as we continued to walk.
“All right,” said Stan. “Here we go. Here is the photographer.”
Grayson introduced himself to Peter, one of the Top Press photographers. I knew Peter well enough to know he would make this as quick and painless as possible. He was a no-nonsense, get the job done quickly kind of guy, but was a perfectionist when it came to getting the best shots. Part of me was thankful I didn’t have to talk to Grayson anymore, which was odd. I was never uncomfortable with any of my interviewees, but I think Grayson was the first interview I had ever had that broke down the wall and allowed us to speak as people rather than in the forced way I tended to endure.