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

I gritted my teeth so hard that they would’ve cracked had I not stopped when I had.

“Uncle Pablo,” I said through clenched teeth, then reached over for my recording device that I always kept handy at times like these. “I need you to listen to me. I do not, under any circumstances, want you talking to Renata. You stay away from her.”

“I was just worried for her…”

I pressed record on my device, and then put my phone onto speaker. “Listen to me. Do not speak to her.”

“I can, and will, speak to her if I feel the need, young Rhys. You remember that.” He snarled now.

Uncle Pablo was no longer nice Uncle Pablo. He was mobster Pablo, the mob boss.

“No, you won’t,” I disagreed. “And don’t think I didn’t notice your goon in that goddamn van that hit me.”

“You didn’t notice one of my guys,” he countered.

It was almost as if he knew that it wasn’t one of his guys…not that he hadn’t called the hit. Fucker.

“I have a bodyguard now…did you know that?”

I could almost hear his motor turning.

“How did that bodyguard do for you when you got in that accident, Rhys?”

Asshole.

“You know exactly how he did,” I told him. “He did, however, see the whole thing. He rendered first aid and rode with me to the hospital. Did you know that?”

My bodyguard wasn’t all bad. He was annoying, huge, and a brute. But he also only had my best interest at heart.

“You have one of two things that you can do,” I told him. “You can either stop calling me and let me live my life, or you can continue to call me…and one of these days you’ll slip up.”

And he would.

It was only a matter of time.

He liked to call me once every couple of months, just to remind me that he wasn’t gone.

He was always ‘watching me.’ Though, he always considered it as ‘watching over me.’

“You say this every time, too.” Uncle Pablo laughed. “And one of these days, you’re going to answer, and have an answer for me.”

“The answer is no, and always will be no.” I paused. “And I’m not marrying anyone, either. Make sure you remember that.”

That had been one of Uncle Pablo’s solutions. I could marry his daughter—Uncle Pablo wasn’t actually my uncle, he had been just a really close friend of my father’s—so he could keep tabs on me and know that I wasn’t leaking information to the wrong people. The other solution had been simple—die.

I hadn’t wanted to do either solution and had walked away into the sunset.

Only, it hadn’t been an easy walk.

I was still struggling, too.

“Goodbye, Rhys. I hope to see you back on the field again soon.”

And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t talking about the ball field.

He was talking about the playing field—the one where we were both adversaries, and he tried to kill me—again.

I hung up without comment, then immediately reared back my arm to throw my phone at the wall.

But then it rang in my hand, and this time it was actually a number I wouldn’t mind talking to.

At the same time, there was a knock at my door.

I honestly had no clue how I’d managed to hold them off as long as I had, but the moment they heard about me playing ball at the field—thanks to my ‘fiancée,’ I could no longer hold them back.

“Yo…” I heard Hancock mutter into the phone upon my answering.

I opened up the door to who I thought was Hancock, but turned out to be my entire team.

Everyone blinked. Me included.

“Hey, Rhys, have you seen my pants…”

I looked behind me to see her look up at me at the same time, and the moment she did, her mouth fell open in the cutest little O I’d ever seen.

“Uhhhh,” she murmured, then turned on her heel and ran in the opposite direction.

I was unsure why she had no pants on, but seeing her cute little tushy running away in white cotton panties was enough to hold my attention for a full twenty seconds while I watched her go.

But I gave up trying to figure that woman out.

She was friendly…my feelings were anything but friendly.

They were leaning more toward rabid dog and the moment that I let my control snap, which one day it would, this cat and mouse game we were playing would be over.

I’d have her, I’d take her roughly, and then she’d hate me.

They always hated me.

Nobody understood my absolute need for control. Nobody.

“We’re outside,” I heard Hancock say from both directly in front of me and through the phone that was still pressed to my ear.

“You’re not alone,” I said, taking them all in.

I sighed and hung up, knowing that I wasn’t going to get out of this one.

It wasn’t just two or three of my teammates.