by Meghan Quinn
Walker: Thank you for the book.
Kate: Have you read that one yet?
Walker: No. I’m excited to dive in.
Kate: You said you’d take Mickey Mantle out to dinner if he were still alive, so when I remembered I had the book in my office, I knew I had to let you borrow it. Hence the word . . . borrow.
Walker: Got it, borrow. What’s the big deal?
Kate: Did you look at the title page?
No. Why would I?
I flip to the title page. In dark blue pen is Mickey Mantle’s signature scribbled across the cream paper, plain as day.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Is she insane? One—why would she ever just have this in her office? And two—why the hell would she ever let someone borrow it?
This should be locked up in a bulletproof safe where nothing can get to it, not lent out to be read. Who in their right mind would read a signed book?
I’m tempted to run my hand over his signature, see if there are any magical hitting powers that might rub off on me, but I think better of it. I’m hitting just fine right now and I would hate to mess up the signature in any way.
So, instead, I frantically text Kate back.
Walker: What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you just casually toss this book around? It’s signed by Mickey Fucking Mantle.
Kate: I trust you.
Walker: You shouldn’t. We said one night. That means I don’t ever have to see you again. Good luck getting your book back.
Kate: I will sue you.
Walker: Have fun trying. You gave it to me, and I consider that a gift. So, thank you for my signed Mickey Mantle book. I’ll be sure to lock it up in my safe when I get home.
Kate: Walker Rockwell, I will sign you right back up for that Build-a-Bear event—don’t test me.
Walker: You wouldn’t.
Kate: I so would, and on top of that, I would find a Red Hat Lady Society for you to sponsor.
Walker: Do those still exist?
Kate: No idea, but if they do, I’ll make sure they know you want to come to not one, not two, but three of their meetings.
Walker: You’re evil.
Kate: You make me be evil. Return the book when you’re done or I’m throwing you to the wolves, aka, the red hat ladies.
Walker: Might be worth it. I heard those ladies are a blast.
Kate: Walker . . .
Walker: Fine, I’ll return it, but I’m going to take my time reading this and soaking it all in.
Kate: Trying to suck the Mickey Mantle powers out of it?
Walker: I have no shame.
Kate: That made me snort. Ugh, I hate that you’re charming through text too. Quick, be an asshole.
Walker: Last night when you were riding my cock, I couldn’t have pictured anything sexier in my life.
Kate: Okay, that was not being an asshole.
Walker: All I can picture are your rock-hard nipples pebbling against my T-shirt.
Kate: Are you even trying?
Walker: I love your curves, so goddamn much. I jacked off this morning to the thought of your ass in my hand.
Kate: Ooookay, I think you’re missing the mark on my request.
Walker: I wish you would’ve sunk down on my cock last night instead of riding it over my briefs.
Kate: Really missing the mark.
Walker: I want to sink myself inside of you.
Kate: Are you trying to make me uncomfortably wet at work?
Apparently, I’m trying to make myself uncomfortably hard on the airplane.
Walker: Is it working?
Kate: More than you know.
Walker: Good. Think about me when you rub your thighs together.
Kate: I shouldn’t.
Walker: But you will.
Kate: Damn it . . . you know I will.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
KATE
“Do you want me to bring anything?” Vivian asks into the phone.
“I ordered some Chinese food for us, but if you want something else, feel free to grab something,” I say while picking up a throw pillow off my apartment floor and setting it on my couch.
“I was thinking about getting some dessert.”
The doorbell rings and I walk over to answer it. “You can if you want. Lord knows I’ll eat it.” I open the door to a delivery left at my doorstep. I pick it up and see that it’s from Eleven. “Uh, hold on a second.”
I bring the delivery inside and pop open the stapled bag, revealing a container with a giant slice of carrot cake inside. A large smile pulls across my face as my stomach flips from the thought of who sent this.
Who shouldn’t have sent this, but did anyway.
God . . . he’s making this so much harder than it should be.
“On second thought, I have carrot cake here for us. That work for you?”
“I’ve never been partial to vegetables in my desserts, but I’ll make an exception for carrot cake.”
I chuckle. “Okay, see you in thirty?”
“Maybe forty-five. Traffic is a bitch. I’ll keep you abreast.”
“Abreast?” I ask, laughing.
“Yup . . . abreast.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
We hang up and I take the cake to my kitchen. I stick it in the fridge and then pull up the text messages on my phone.
Kate: Strangest thing happened just now. A fairy dropped off cake at my front door. How did this fairy even know where I live?
I set up plates, silverware, and napkins on my coffee table in preparation for dinner with Vivian, and my phone beeps with a text. The Bobbies game isn’t until later since it’s an evening game on the West Coast, but I’m still surprised he texted back.
Sitting on the arm of my couch, I open up the text, not able to hold back my smile.
Walker: I have my ways of finding things out.
Kate: You’re sneaky.
Walker: You like it.
Kate: I do if it involves me receiving cake. Thank you.
Walker: You’re welcome. Just a little something to say “thank you” for the book.
Kate: You didn’t have to thank me for letting you BORROW my book.
Walker: I wanted to, Kate.
Kate: Because you’re trying to ruin me, right?
Walker: Appreciating you.
Kate: Yup . . . ruining me. Ugh, Walker, we shouldn’t be doing this.
Walker: We’re not doing anything.
Kate: Do you send other human beings cake?
Walker: No.
Kate: My point exactly.
Walker: Then toss it in the trash.
Kate: Stop, Walker.
Walker: What the hell do you want me to do, Kate? Ignore you? I wanted to send you goddamn cake. Accept it and be happy.
Kate: You’re right, I’m sorry. I love the cake. Thank you for thinking of me.
I bite my bottom lip and type out another text.
Kate: I’ve thought about you ever since you left. You’re all I can think about.
Walker: Me too.
Kate: And this is what we shouldn’t be doing.
Walker: I know.
Kate: Well, I should go. Thank you, though. If you’d have delivered it yourself, I would’ve given you a hug.
Walker: If I’d delivered it myself, I would’ve expected more than a hug.
Kate: Walker . . .
Walker: Have a good night, Kate.
I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath.
God, Kate, you can’t just be grateful?
No, I have to bring up the obvious. At this point, I think my phone can autocorrect to—we shouldn’t be doing this.
But I can’t seem to imprint that thought into my brain, because I keep doing and saying stupid things. I want to keep this job, I want to—
My phone buzzes in my hand and I look down at the screen. I see Dan’s face coming up. Why is he calling me at this hour?
“Hello?”
“Hey, Katie,” he says, his
voice slurring slightly.
“Dan, have you been drinking?”
“Just a little warm-up shot here and there.”
I clench my teeth together, holding back the nagging mother-hen comments that fly to the forefront of my brain. He’s a grown-ass man, he knows what he’s doing. Plus, I’ve had the drunk conversations with him before, and they don’t go over well. I lecture him, he gets mad at me, distances himself, and then I spend weeks trying to get him to talk to me again. I’m not going through that anymore.
“So why do I get such an out-of-the-blue phone call from you?”
“Just seeing how my Katie Girl is. Haven’t talked to you in a bit.” To anyone else, he probably seems normal, but not to me. I’ve known him long enough to understand what his drunk voice sounds like.
“You know I’ve been busy.”
“I know, I know. Not as if my schedule helps. But what’s been going on? Anything new you want to tell me about? Any . . . guys in your life?”
Ha, if he only knew.
“No, no one is that lucky.”
“You know, I saw you the other day.”
“What?” I ask, chuckling. “And you didn’t say hi?”
“Nope, I decided to observe instead.”
“Oh yeah?” I sink into my couch. “And what did you observe?”
“You looked . . . worried.”
Hard to believe he’s drunk, right?
“Why are you worried, Kate?”
There’s no way in hell I can tell Dan what’s going on with me and Walker. Even though he’s one of my good friends and I’ve leaned on him in the past about things like this, it would be a bad idea to tell anyone.
“Just . . . work, is all,” I answer.
“I don’t believe you.”
And I don’t believe you about the drinking, but I’m not going to throw that in your face.
“Come on, Katie, tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing is—”
“Don’t lie to me, Kate.” His voice grows stronger. “I can tell when something is wrong.” He takes a deep breath and says, “Please, I need the distraction.”
“Are you okay, Dan?”
“No,” he says quietly. “How about this—you tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”
Damn it.
He knows how to get to me, because I’m a helper, a problem solver. If someone is in trouble, I want to be the person who guides them out of it. Dan knows that I’ll do anything to help him and if that means exposing myself, then I will.
At least I don’t need to tell him all the details.
“Fine,” I answer. “You first, though.”
“No way. You go first or I don’t tell you anything.”
Sighing heavily, I lean my head back on the couch and try to navigate through my problem without handing him specifics. “Okay, so there’s this guy I like—”
“I fucking knew it had to do with a guy. What’s his name?”
“I’m not telling you. You’re lucky I’m giving you this much.”
“Fine. Go on.”
“So, I like him, a lot. More than I should. But there’s a problem. His . . . uh . . . job prevents him from going out with anyone.”
Semi-truth. It’ll have to work.
“What? Jobs can’t do that.”
“Well, this one does. And it sucks because I really feel something for him.” Admitting too much, I say, “I don’t think I’ve felt this way about a guy ever.”
“Really?” he asks slowly. “Does he know?”
“Yes,” I answer. “And he feels the same about me.”
“Huh, so you have a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet type of thing going on. Tell him to quit his job.”
I chuckle. “Not that easy, Dan.”
“Seems easy to me. If it were me, I’d quit immediately. You’re worth it, Katie.”
“Thank you.” I know he means well, but Dan’s married to his job. He’d quit for no one, I suspect. I hear some voices in the background as I begin to ask, “Now what’s your—”
“Shit, I have to go. I’ll call you later, Kate.”
“Wait, you can’t just leave me hanging.”
“Sorry. I’ll tell you later. Bye, Kate.”
And before I can say bye, he hangs up the phone. What the hell was that? Did he plan it all along?
Probably did, the asshole.
But even though he tricked me, it did feel good getting that off my chest momentarily. Because there really isn’t anyone I can talk to about my feelings besides Walker, and that doesn’t help the situation, only fuels it.
There’s a knock at my door and it’s either Vivian or the Chinese food. Either way, I need to put on a happy face.
Chapter Forty
WALKER
I take a deep breath, staring at the wood grain on my bat.
Runners on first and third, one out, we’re down by five. Penn’s had a rough outing this game, one of the worst I’ve seen in a while. Pulled out in the fifth, he’s in the dugout stewing like a motherfucker because he was asked to hand over the ball.
But Coach made the right choice.
Eight runs in five innings isn’t typical for him, and we barely got out of the last inning. Carson stole a hit, making a diving play at second before cutting off another run and ending the inning. It was a clutch situation—if it weren’t for his gold glove play, we might still be in that fucking mess.
The sound system rings through the speakers, encouraging the fans to stomp and clap. The crowd interaction is small, but now with two strikes on me, the cheers have grown.
Just poke it somewhere. Even though I have the power, I’m not looking to be a hero, I’m just trying to keep the offense alive.
I put my right hand up as I situate my feet in the box.
I scuff my cleats against the dirt, the feel of the soft pebbles second nature after all the years I’ve chalked up on the field. I swoop my bat toward the pitcher, then bring it to my shoulder and rest it there for a brief moment as Forrest checks the runners.
He’s going to go with the curve. I know it.
I think everyone in the stadium knows it, because it’s a killer pitch with a massive drop that will get you every goddamn time.
Forrest sets his hands, looks toward the zone. I lift my bat and stare down his arm, waiting for the delivery.
It comes in sharp, his arm whipping around, delivering a deadly curve that my arms swing at despite my head telling them to stop, but for some reason, my body and brain don’t work well together and I strike out on a pitch in the dirt.
Fuck.
The crowd erupts around us and the field clears out.
I grind my teeth together and tamp down the rage that’s boiling in the base of my stomach. There’s still game left. Get them next time, I try to tell myself, but even after the lackluster pep talk, I can feel the tension starting to creep into my veins.
I carry the weight of the team on my shoulders and when I can’t produce runs, I know I’m not contributing as the leader I’m supposed to be, and that pisses me off more than anything.
“Rockwell,” Hopkins calls out as I enter the dugout, my bat gripped tightly at my side.
I pause on the stairs and turn to my coach, who sits at the very top, observing every aspect of the field.
When we make eye contact, he says, “Drop it and focus on the next one.”
It’s rare when Coach says anything like that to me. I can count on my hands the number of times he’s spoken “words of wisdom” to me during a game. So, I’m caught off guard, unsure what I should say back, and he catches the indecision on my face and decides to elaborate.
“You’re in a good place, mentally. Don’t spiral because of one bad at-bat.”
Understanding where he’s coming from now, I give him a curt nod and head to my catcher’s gear to quickly strap it on, that curveball playing over and over in my head until I finally come to terms with it—I’m a fucking moron for swinging and it won’t happen ag
ain.
With a deep breath, I chug up the steps of the dugout and out onto the field. I pat the inside of my glove, letting my pitcher know that I’m ready to do a few warm-ups.
We still have plenty of game left.
That was a tough fucking loss.
We held the offense off, giving them zero chance to score after Penn exited, but they did the same against us. We were able to pull two runs in the eighth with a home run off my bat, but it wasn’t enough. We needed more to catch up to the deficit Penn put us in.
I stand under the shower for another minute, the heat pounding against my sore back necessary, before I turn off the water and wrap a towel around my waist. I grab another and drape it over my shoulders, letting it catch the droplets from my hair. I lift the corner of the towel and wipe the side of my forehead just as I walk into an empty locker room. The only person left raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
Stuffed against his locker, a towel draped over his head and a pair of shorts covering him up—thank Christ—is Penn.
What’s he still doing here?
By now, he’s usually long gone, most likely at the hotel bar, drinking.
Ignoring him, I make my way to my locker, where I dry off the rest of my body and quickly pull on a pair of briefs. I must make too much noise for Penn’s liking because he groans and leans forward, his forearms on his quads. He removes the towel and slightly rotates his head to look at me.
Here we go.
“Walker, didn’t know you were still here.”
“Didn’t know you were either.”
“Too fucking exhausted to move.” There’s a sense of vulnerability in his voice that I haven’t heard before and I wonder if it has anything to do with how shitty he pitched tonight.
“Get some sleep, then,” I say, pulling on a pair of dress pants. The team bus is long gone by now, but I’ll end up getting a car back to the hotel, which I’m fine with. We have a car service for these occasions. But because I’m not headed out to my car to drive home, I have to put on a suit, which is the last thing I really want to do at this moment when my muscles are screaming and all I want to do is crash into my hotel bed.
“How are your girl troubles?” he asks, the snark I know him for coming back in full force.