Pitch Please (There's No Crying in Baseball 1)

He glanced at the girls, then leaned over and tugged his wallet free from his pocket.

After fishing out two twenties, he tossed them on the table and held his hand out for me.

“Let’s go,” he ordered.

Instead of taking his hand, I hastily sucked down what was left of my coffee—because hello! You don’t waste coffee! —and followed behind him as he rushed out the door.

He hadn’t waited for me, so I had to rush to catch up, and I didn’t miss the ‘she’s really fat for him’ comment I heard as I passed by one table in particular.

And, apparently, Hancock hadn’t missed it, either.

He stopped, turned, and headed back to the table that’d said the offending comment.

“What was that?” he asked the man who’d been unlucky enough to open his mouth.

I bit my lip, wondering if I should say it was okay or not.

But I chose to keep my mouth shut, because it sure as hell wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit.

What if he’d said that to someone who wasn’t like me? Who didn’t let stupid comments like that go because they knew whomever had said it was just talking out of his ass?

Although I was confident in my body, I was also sensitive about it.

Had we been in a different situation and someone had said that about me, I’d have flipped out on their ass.

With Hancock here, though, I hadn’t wanted to draw attention to the stupid man’s comment.

Hancock, obviously, didn’t have that same problem as me.

He lit into the guy with both barrels.

“I’m sorry,” Hancock stopped at the table. “Did I mishear what you had to say?”

The man’s mouth tightened.

“Because, if I’m not mistaken, I heard you call her a fat ass,” he indicated me with a thumb. “I must’ve misheard, because surely you wouldn’t call a woman as beautiful as she is fat.”

My face heated.

“Fat is a relative term,” the man said. “What’s fat to me isn’t going to be fat to you, obviously.”

Hancock’s brows rose.

“Is that right?” he asked. “And what makes you special? Why do you think it’s okay to talk badly about women who you don’t know?”

He was being incredibly calm about it, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I could tell he was angry by the way he was holding his body. He was stiff and immobile. But if you were listening to his words and tone, you would think he was just having a conversation about everyday random things.

“I…” the man started, but Hancock held his hand up.

“All I want out of you is an apology, not an explanation,” he grunted. “You may say it now.”

The man glared but his eyes turned to me.

As insincerely as possible, he spat the words. “I’m sorry for calling you fat.”

I nodded without saying thank you, because it was more than obvious that wasn’t an apology.

Hancock realized that as well.

“This your daughter?” Hancock asked the man, indicating the little girl who was watching the discussion between the two men with avid, fascinated eyes.

“Niece,” he murmured through pinched lips.

“And do you want someone saying that about your niece?” he challenged. “What would you do if some little boy came up to her and called her fat?”

“That’s not very nice, Uncle Hammond,” the little girl added her two cents.

Hancock’s eyes filled with laughter as he looked at the little girl.

“No, Ma’am. It’s not, is it?” he asked. “Have a good day, young lady. Stay out of trouble.”

Those last two words I wasn’t sure who they were focused on, but I assumed it was for the man and not the little girl.

Without another glance at the man, he turned on his heel and left the restaurant, leaving me once again to catch up.

“If you’d slow down, I wouldn’t have to jog to keep up with you. Oh, and people wouldn’t see things bouncing that shouldn’t be bouncing!” I called to his back.

He slowed and turned, surveying my bouncing bits as he waited for me to catch up to him.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I hate taking photos.”

“I noticed,” I said. “You ready to go?”

He nodded.

“Yep,” he sighed. “Have to be back for the game in an hour, and I need to drop you off and go back and get my stuff from my house.”

“I’m not against riding with you if you want to run by there,” I offered almost shyly.

He shot a small smile at me, and I had to take a deep breath as the full force of it hit me.

“It’ll take half an hour to get there from here,” he added as if he was making sure it was okay.

I nodded my head. “It’s okay.”

The second time I got into his big blue truck went better than it had the first time, on the way to breakfast.

He held the door for me while I placed one foot on the step. With one small jump, I heaved myself up into his truck, and wondered why on earth he had one so big.