Pitch Please Read online

  Knew it without a shadow of a doubt.

  Ramirez reared back, lifted his leg and let the ball fly.

  Hancock turned into the pitch, letting the ball smack into his right shoulder, and I groaned along with the entire stadium.

  Ramirez had the fastest arm in the league right now, and being hit with a ball at ninety-eight miles an hour was enough to hurt anyone, even a big man like Hancock.

  I stood up and was on the top steps of the dugout before Hancock even turned, and what I saw on his face was enough to send me back to my seat.

  He wasn’t hurt.

  Or, at least, he wasn’t going to show it.

  He was, however, pissed.

  Ramirez made it two more pitches, hitting one more player, before he was removed and replaced in only the first inning, and I found myself smiling.

  Hancock, however, wasn’t smiling when he was stranded on second and had to come in.

  He started jogging to the dugout just as my phone chimed.

  Rainie (7:51): Heads up!

  I stood up and hurried to the steps, smiling happily when my friend tossed me a whole handful of Double Bubble.

  “Thank you!” I called to her.

  My gorgeous blonde best friend grinned at me and waved. I waved back and froze when her eyes widened and focused at something over my shoulder.

  I turned slowly to find Hancock directly behind me, staring at me like I was an alien who’d invaded earth.

  “What?” I snapped at him.

  What was his deal?

  “Throw those other ten pieces back at her, and only give Manny two.” He looked at my hand. “He’ll wig out even worse if you show up with that many.”

  I rolled my eyes and pocketed all but two pieces, then turned and headed back down the steps of the dugout.

  Maybe, next game, I’d take the other trainers up on their offer to stay in the mouth of the tunnel entrance that headed out onto the field. Being in the dugout was turning out to be not such a good idea.

  Especially when Hancock’s next words hit me.

  “I like the way your hips sway, Mizz AT.”

  I turned and narrowed my eyes at him.

  “I don’t like it when you mention my fat ass all the time,” I growled. “And the name is Sway.”

  His eyebrows snapped together.

  “I never once called you a fat ass,” he sounded offended. “Not fucking once.”

  My lip curled. “Then why the nickname of ‘Half-Pint’ and saying you like the way my hips sway?”

  “Because they do. And I fucking like it. There’s nothing else to it but that,” he said, taking a step back.

  Then without another word he strapped on his catcher’s gear, grabbed his glove and headed for the plate.

  I watched him go, something uneasy settling in my chest.

  “See you in three, Half-Pint.”

  Then he was gone, and I was left feeling unsure of what, exactly, had just transpired.

  Chapter 3

  Sleeping is too hard during the summer. Blankets are too warm, but without blankets I’m vulnerable to monsters.

  -Sway’s secret thoughts

  Sway

  I arrived at the stadium on time, and immediately headed down to the field.

  The team, as well as all team personnel, were to be here on the field at one p.m. on the dot to film a freakin’ commercial for ESPN.

  I’d just stopped about halfway down the stairs that would lead me out onto the field when I looked up and spotted Hancock.

  Parts.

  What the hell did he want to be called?

  Personally, ‘Parts’ was kind of hard to call someone. Which was why I started referring to him as Hancock in my mind.

  Nobody called him Hancock, though.

  Not the coaches. Not the news reporters. Not his teammates.

  When he was addressed, he was Parts or Peters, his last name.

  I felt particularly naughty addressing him as Hancock in my mind.

  “Well, hello there, Half-Pint,” Hancock drawled from the bottom of the stairs he was moving up. “What’s going on?”

  I smiled at him.

  “We’re to be here for a commercial, aren’t we?” I asked, trying not to sound out of breath from the trek from my car to the stairs.

  I was hopeful that they didn’t actually want me to be here.

  I was already incredibly uncomfortable in what they asked me to wear.

  It was April, in the middle of fucking Texas.

  With the owners requiring us to wear jeans, I was already sweating my ass off, and I’d only made a small hike from the car to the air-conditioned building.

  It was enough to make me a sweaty mess, and I hadn’t even made it to the eventful part of my day.

  “Yes, we are,” he agreed. “Well, you are. I’m not.”

  “Mr. Peters!” someone called from further down the stairs that led to the field. “Mr. Peters! Wait!”

  Hancock looked over his shoulder, agitation clearly written all over his face.

  “I’ve already told you I won’t be doing it,” Hancock informed the small man.

  And he was small.

  Maybe not compared to a normal man; but standing next to Hancock, the man looked positively minimal.

  “Please,” the man continued as if Hancock hadn’t even spoken. “We’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars and months planning this commercial. Surely, you understand that we’re doing it for…”

  “Craig,” Hancock growled. “I am not doing the Harlem Shake. Do I look like the kind of man who does the fucking Harlem Shake?”

  Craig, who I guessed was the head of PR, smiled soothingly.

  “Parts,” he held out his hands placatingly.

  I wondered again why he was called Parts, but I wasn’t ever going to ask him.

  It was weird, and it was also a big freakin’ secret. Everyone in the entire league wondered and speculated about why he was called Parts. Nobody knew the story behind his nickname, though.

  “I’ll be there. But only if I can sit in the back and nobody sees me,” Hancock conceded. “And don’t try to move me, or I’m leaving. Capisce?”

  Craig nodded his head urgently.

  “How much time do we have until we start?” Hancock continued to question Craig.

  “Oh, about twenty minutes or so. Do you need me to bring you anything to drink?” Craig looked hopeful, happy now that he’d gotten his way.

  But I knew that Craig hadn’t gotten his way.

  Far from it.

  If I had my guess, Hancock wouldn’t even be in the commercial.

  He’d literally stay on the sidelines and make it a point to stay out of every shot, just like he did after games when reporters were hoping to interview him.

  Then there were the photos that featured him in them.

  None of them were taken with his permission.

  Other than his official team portrait, the one that the MLB used to show his stats during games, I’d never seen one picture of him looking at the camera.

  “No, no drink, Craig. Thank you,” Hancock waved Craig off.

  The moment Craig was dismissed, he hurried back in the direction of the field, a freakin’ skip in his step.

  When he rounded the corner, I turned to face Hancock fully again.

  “What?” I asked, wondering what that look on his face was about.

  “I’m not doing the Harlem Shake,” he repeated.

  I held up my hands in understanding.

  “I’m not much of a dancer, either. You and me can hang out in the back like the losers we are,” I teased.

  I hadn’t meant that either of us were necessarily real losers or anything, and the moment the words left my lips, I realized how it sounded.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hand. “In no way, shape, or form am I accusing you of being a loser.”

  He grinned.

 
“It’s okay,” he winked. “I don’t dance. I don’t do pictures. In fact, if I had my way, I wouldn’t even be here right now.”

  I smiled shyly at him.

  “Sway!” someone called. “Let’s go! We have to sit together in the front.”

  Sinclair, the one man in the entire complex who I didn’t want to see, was standing there sneering at me.

  “She’s not sitting in the front, Sinclair. She’s sitting with me in the back. We have to talk about what I expect out of her this season,” Hancock rumbled, stopping me with a large hand on my arm when I went to move around him.

  Sinclair’s face twisted in annoyance.

  He wasn’t my biggest fan.

  I’d beaten him out for the job as head athletic trainer for the Lumberjacks, and he was, technically, my assistant when it came down to it. Needless to say, he was most unhappy about it, too.

  “That’s just the memo I got from the management team,” Sinclair said sweetly. “I’m assuming it’s okay that she sits with you, but you may want to make sure it’s okay before she gets in trouble. I would hate for her to lose her job.”

  With that parting comment, Sinclair disappeared out onto the field, and I was left walking after him.

  “Where are you going?” Hancock asked, latching on to my arm once again.

  I tried to pull away, my heart starting to pound due to the amount of touching me he was doing today.

  “If I don’t go sit with him, he’s going to try to make it seem like it was my fault that I wasn’t sitting with them and probably over here screwing your brains out. He’s been trying to get me fired since I got this job. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to start a rumor about me seeing one of the players under my care.”

  His brows rose.

  “He’s that vindictive?” Hancock asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “I worked my ass off for this position. I’m not screwing it up because I don’t want to be on national television.”

  He watched me walk away.

  I could feel his gaze burning a hole into my back the entire way.

  And he sat in the back for the entire commercial, too, not even tapping his foot to the beat.

  Me? I probably looked ridiculous, but if I had to dance like a jackass to keep my job, then I’d do it.

  Every freakin’ day of the week.

  ***

  Game 2 - later that evening

  “This is like that time when Nolan Ryan hit Ventura with a pitch, and he stormed the mound only to have the snot beat out of him by an old man,” I gasped in awe.

  The man next to me, Jessup Steel, snorted.

  “This is what they call the pissed off grizzly bear in him coming out,” Jessup Steel was on his feet now.

  All of us were. The entire team. The coaches. The other athletic trainers.

  They were all waiting to see the outcome of the altercation.

  The only thing holding the men in the dugout, at this point, was the coach and the assistant coaches.

  “Have you seen my batting gloves? I had them, and then…oh, shit!”

  The moment the first fist flew, the entire team, including the coaches, were out of the dugout.

  I stood up, ready to do whatever I needed to do as well, but managed to stay on the top step of the dugout while the fight erupted.

  I, however, wasn’t stupid enough to get in between the flying fists and men.

  I was a woman. A woman who’d never been in a fight in her life.

  I wasn’t shitting anyone. I was soft, and everybody knew it.

  I wouldn’t be able to stand up to the punches that were flying, whether I wanted to or not.

  “You staying?” Sinclair sneered at me.

  “Yep,” I agreed.

  “Stupid cunt.”

  Then he was gone, leaving me staring after him with hatred in my eyes.

  Chapter 4

  There’s nothing like a largemouth on my rod.

  -Fishing t-shirt

  Hancock

  So, I wasn’t the most stable of men in the world.

  Call me a hothead. I didn’t give a fuck.

  You fuck with my pitcher. You fuck with me. Simple as that.

  “Watch your face when he comes after me,” Gentry laughed. “Seriously, just look at it.”

  I did.

  Gentry threw the first pitch, and nearly hit Crouse.

  Crouse ducks, tosses Gentry a glare, and then readies for the next pitch.

  Gentry, obviously not in the fucking around mood tonight, throws the pitch again.

  And hits him.

  Like he’d been intending to do the first time.

  Not that we’d ever admit to that.

  But Crouse was a fucking douchebag.

  He never let you forget that he thought he was the superior catcher, even when he wasn’t.

  That, of course, was a good trait to have. At times.

  When you were at bat, and talking shit to the other team’s catcher, wasn’t one of those times.

  Before Crouse could even make it to Gentry, though, I was tackling him from behind.

  The other man on second base, Diaz, headed for Gentry. Something that I hadn’t seen at the time, due to the fact that I was busy beating the shit out of Crouse.

  Diaz came at Gentry like a fucking battering ram, but Gentry caught him with a hooked arm around his neck, brought him down into a headlock, and proceeded to beat the shit out of him in return.

  I’d just gotten Crouse on the ground underneath me when I got slammed from behind, my breath leaving me in whoosh.

  It took ten minutes for the field to be fully cleared.

  ***

  “Yo,” someone snapped.

  Sinclair, the other trainer who I didn’t like, came up to me and started to touch me.

  I immediately shook my head at him.

  “Where’s Sway? I asked. “You need to go check on second string.”

  Sinclair’s jaw worked.

  “Sway is currently being reprimanded,” Sinclair’s grin wasn’t obvious, but I could read into his words.

  “For what?” I barked.

  “For entering the fight,” he replied jovially. “You sure you don’t need me?”

  A shake of my head had him moving to the other men across the room, and I turned to glare at Gentry.

  “She didn’t enter that fight,” I told him.

  “How do you know?” he asked, leaning back in his ice bath.

  I stood up and grabbed the towel next to my ice bath, and stepped out.

  Once it was around my hips, I went in search of Sway, finding her in the coach’s office.

  “I didn’t enter the fight, Coach,” she was saying as I walked up. “I was in the dugout the entire time.”

  “That wasn’t what Sinclair informed me,” Coach Siggy replied. “I know you’re protective of the boys, but we can’t have personnel entering the fight, when we need them to set us straight after.”

  Coach Siggy was sporting his own shiner, and I wanted to laugh at the irony of the situation.

  “She was in the dugout the entire time,” I told coach. “Sinclair was mistaken.”

  “And how would you know?” Coach asked me.

  I held up my bandaged arm.

  “She wrapped this for me,” I told him. “When I went looking for her, I found her biting her fingernails in the mouth of the dugout.”

  Coach Siggy sighed.

  “You know I can’t give you any special treatment here, darlin’.” he said to her. “Keep your head up and your nose clean.”

  Sway smiled at Coach Siggy, and a rare smile crossed his face before disappearing again.

  “How’s my brother doing?” he asked.

  Sway grinned.

  “The last I checked in, he was winning his fantasy league and was extremely excited about it,” she explained.

  Coach snorted.

  “Get out o
f here, girl. I’m sure you have a room full of men to take care of right now,” he pointed to the door.

  That’s when Sway finally looked at me, and her eyes bugged out.

  “Yes, Uncle Siggy,” she whispered.

  When she went to move past me, I turned to the side and barely stifled a groan when she passed.

  Her sweet, tempting ass passed over my crotch so deliciously that I nearly moaned in delight.

  It took everything I had not to grab a hold of her supple flesh and bend her over the coach’s desk.

  And now that I knew they were related, it might not be such a good idea to follow through with those thoughts.

  “’Scuse me,” she muttered, tossing me an apologetic look.

  I gritted my teeth, and her eyes went down to my cock, which a second ago hadn’t been nearly as hard as it was right now.

  “You’re excused,” I lied through my teeth.

  She smiled timidly, then raced off, her delicious breasts bouncing as she went.

  Sweet Jesus. The way her ass swayed with each step had my mouth salivating.

  When she was no longer in sight, I turned back to the coach to have him staring at me accusingly.

  “Keep yours paws off my niece,” he growled at me.

  I held my hands up in the air.

  “I would never.”

  He looked at my hands, moved to my face, and then went further down to the towel.

  “Sure you wouldn’t,” he grumbled. “Get the fuck out.”

  Needless to say, I got the fuck out.

  Then went straight to a certain someone.

  I had a few aches and pains that needed to be seen to.

  ***

  I laid down flat on the bench and stretched my legs out in front of me.

  My head rested on the flat padded pillow while my feet hung off the bottom.

  “What can I do for you today, Mr. Peters?” Sway’s gentle voice cut into my thoughts.

  I opened my eyes and nearly groaned.

  Today she was wearing her jersey.

  Usually, by this time in my evening, I was about two beers in, staring out over the lake with my feet kicked up on the balcony.

  I lived off of Caddo Lake. My house was right off the water.

  In fact, I was about as far out into the lake as I could be without having an actual houseboat.

  Why I was here instead of at my place was beyond me, but I was here. I was horny. And I wanted Sway to come home with me.