Quit Your Pitchin' (There's No Crying in Baseball 2)

He was beautiful, kind, thoughtful, and overall a really great guy.

Plus, he had a beard.

A red, beautiful beard that I practically ached to rub my face against.

I was sitting in a seat that was almost identical to my seats that I’d been sitting in at home, and there was an older lady sitting at my side, surreptitiously staring at me each time I looked away.

“Can I help you?” I asked, smiling.

“You’re his girl, aren’t you?”

I blinked. “Uhhh?”

“Furious George,” she said accusingly like I was intentionally playing dumb.

I blinked. “Am I his what?”

“His girl.”

I shook my head, then licked my lips. “No, I don’t think I am…but I want to be.”

The old lady’s lips tipped up.

“I’m his grandmother.”

My mouth fell open.

“You’re his grandmother.”

She nodded.

My eyes widened, and then I started to hyperventilate.

“He didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head.

“That’s probably because I didn’t tell him I was coming. I have season tickets here because I love Vegas so much. I was actually supposed to be in Michigan today to meet with George’s sister, who’s getting married.”

I blinked. “George’s sister is getting married?”

And George wasn’t at the wedding?

Then again, his sister had to know that George had a game. It wasn’t like that shit wasn’t made up at the beginning of the season.

Unless she’d scheduled it last year…

“George and his sister don’t get along,” the grandmother explained. “Diandra purposely scheduled the wedding on a day that George wouldn’t be able to come. So I decided that since she didn’t want George there, that she couldn’t wear my wedding dress. My wedding dress that she wanted to cut to pieces and sew into one of those tiny little mini-dress numbers. I told her if she was going to do that, then she might as well just go buy a mini-dress number. Which pissed her off, and she told me that she didn’t want me at her wedding either. So…here I am. Wedding dress and all.”

I looked down at the garment bag that was resting on the seat beside her, and my brows rose.

“You have your wedding dress in there?”

She nodded.

“Can I see it?”

Call me silly, but I loved wedding dresses. Like, I had a serious love affair with Wedding magazine. I subscribed to the damn thing only because I liked looking at the dresses.

The bigger the dress, the better, in my opinion.

George’s grandmother shrugged, then leaned forward and reached for the garment bag.

“George told me he had a new friend that was coming to his games,” his grandmother chattered. “But he didn’t tell me you would be coming to the away games, too.”

I found myself smiling. “Actually, we both happened to be coming here the same weekend. Mine was for a conference for my foundation that my mother co-founded with my grandmother. He found out and invited me to the game. It wasn’t intentional on either one of our parts, but here I am. I’ve found that the more I watch him play, the more I like the game.”

“That’s the baseball butts, honey,” she chuckled. “Hold this up and I’ll show you.”

I stood up and held onto the hanger while she gently pulled the zipper down, exposing the most exquisite dress that I’d ever seen.

It was beautiful.

Made of lace upon lace, and some of the most beautiful stitching and beadwork I’d ever seen, I wasn’t sure why anybody in their right frame of mind would ever want to chop that particular work of art into pieces.

“It’s sacrilege that she wanted to cut this up at all,” I murmured, running one finger down the length of the bodice. “I love it. I actually wanted to wear something similar to this at my own wedding.”

“You’ve gotten that far with a man?” she pushed. “Then why are you here watching my boy?”

I wasn’t sure what to make of this woman.

I chuckled. “Actually, I haven’t gotten that far with a man. I just love wedding dresses. I watch every single wedding show I can. My favorite things to watch are The Wedding Story reruns that used to run on that old TLC network.”

“Ahh.” She dipped her head, then picked it back up. “I see.”

I felt a nudge against my back, causing me to gasp in surprise.

I turned and looked over my shoulder at the culprit. A large man who was twice my size and slouching so far in his seat that there was no wonder he was bumping me.

“Sorry,” he apologized.

He didn’t look sorry.

Fucker.

“It’s okay,” I lied, twisting around and gesturing at the seat between her and me. “Do you mind if I take this chair?”

George’s grandmother winked. “Not at all.”

So I did, and that was how I spent George’s game in Vegas, talking to his grandmother, Beverly.

Beverly was everything that I’d ever wanted in a grandmother, and she was nothing like my own.

She was sweet, caring, loving, and kick ass.