Listen, Pitch (There's No Crying in Baseball 3)

“I’m not sure I’d do well with a glove.” I paused. “Is there a trick to it?”

He shrugged. “I guess not. You just gotta practice, really.”

I highly doubted that I ‘just had to practice.’ Most likely, you did have to have some sort of skill, otherwise it wouldn’t be as hard as it was.

I mean, every single ball I threw at Rhys was nowhere near where he was, yet he’d hit every single one.

There was a possibility that I wasn’t even a challenge to him at all. Unless you counted the fact that he had to chase each pitch, and never knew which direction it was going to go…

Finally, after fifty throws, we ran out of balls.

Then he started in search of them.

One by one, he moved to the balls in the field. How he was finding them in the tall grass was beyond me, but it seemed like he’d mentally calculated where each one had landed and had found all but three—the three that he’d hit out of the park and had rolled down the street to the highway just down the road.

I started to pick up the balls he’d tossed at me once he’d found them, and overlooked at least five of them in my quest to return them to the bucket.

“Do you want to hit?”

I blinked up at the crazy man standing beside me.

He was looking down at me with an odd light in his eyes, and it was making me feel rather uncomfortable.

Not because I didn’t like the way he was staring at me, but because I liked it too much.

“Hit what?” I paused. “You can’t have liquor.”

He blinked. “I meant the ball…not a liquor store.”

I flushed. “Oh.”

He grinned. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

He touched my forehead with his index finger. “Do you want to try to hit the ball?”

I looked over at where he was standing moments earlier, then shrugged.

How hard could it be?

Apparently, it could be very hard.

I hit one out of seventeen balls thrown at me before I decided that hitting baseballs wasn’t for me.

“I honestly thought you were kidding,” he said once I missed the final ball I was willing to have him pitch to me.

“Nope.” I said, handing him the bat.

He took it and lifted it so it rested against his shoulder.

He had a fine sheen of sweat running down the left side of his face disappearing into his beard, and it took everything I had not to walk up to him and wipe it off.

God, he was super sexy.Chapter 13Whatever sprinkles your donut.

-T-shirt

Rhys

My phone rang, and the moment I saw who it was, I audibly groaned.

The caller ID said no specific name, just ‘UNKNOWN.’

But I knew who it was. I also knew what they wanted.

I’d been dodging them for thirteen years now, ever since I’d left Chicago and my life behind.

The only reason I wasn’t dead yet—or worse, a made man—was because of my notoriety.

I was a professional baseball player. I was the son of a porn star. I was the brother of Renata Camden, who was married to Dewight Camden—a self-made deaf billionaire who had been one of the world’s most eligible bachelors before my sister made him an honest man.

But, despite all of those factors that would’ve definitely shown a red flag had I suddenly come up ‘missing,’ they still continued to try. They still, to this day, wanted me back.

I’d never get completely rid of them.

Gritting my teeth, I answered the phone.

“Hello?”

I said it as calmly as I possibly could, yet it’d still come out sounding rather rough and impatient.

“Rhys, my dear boy,” Uncle Pablo called jovially over the line. “I couldn’t believe my ears when they said that you would live!”

I gritted my teeth.

He was probably pissed off that the situation hadn’t righted itself, and that now they still had a loose end they haven’t had a chance in tying up yet. And yes, I do mean chance. They’d accomplish it one day…they just hadn’t figured out how to do it without having a neon sign pointing directly at them.

“Yep. Whole and hearty once again,” I lied.

I was whole…but far from hearty.

I would be in a few more weeks, but I still felt as weak as a kitten.

“I was so saddened to hear about your motorcycle accident,” Uncle Pablo sighed. “What have I told you about riding that death machine?”

That death machine was mostly the thing that kept me far away from Uncle Pablo and his goons.

All but one time, anyway.

That one time had nearly been the ticket.

Yet, he hadn’t quite accomplished that, now had he? He couldn’t try that particular tactic again.

He’d have to keep thinking.

This would be his thirteenth attempt at taking my life, and I was damn thankful that he hadn’t accomplished his goal.

“I spoke with Renata while you were on your death bed. She was really concerned that you weren’t going to make it,” Uncle Pablo continued.