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

I shrugged my shoulders and brought my hand to my face.

“I can’t fucking think straight.”

Gentry continued to stay silent, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“I fucking love her, okay?” I growled. “Stop it.”

Gentry chuckled.

“Your brother’s gonna love her.”

If my brother came back was left unsaid, but we were both thinking it.

“When’s your meeting with Corvallis?”

“How did you know about my meeting with Corvallis?” I questioned, picking up my glove—which had miraculously turned back up after the last game.

“I overheard you speaking with him outside of Sway’s office,” Gentry answered, picking up his own glove.

We were headed out to toss the ball around—something that I hadn’t intended to do. Not until after the All-Star break, anyway. We only had one week off—well, four days and five nights—and I usually used this time as a breather for the rest of the season. In the years since I’d been playing professionally, I’d never once picked up a baseball or my glove, but this time I needed the release. Needed the freedom it would allow my mind as I did something meaningless like tossing the ball around with my best friend.

Tossing the ball around was a stress reliever for me, and Gentry knew it.

“I haven’t had my meeting with Corvallis,” I grumbled. “Later this afternoon, actually.”

“Didn’t I hear you tell Sway and her friend, Ember, that you would go to dinner with them tonight?” Gentry asked as he tucked his glove underneath his arm.

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“Hmmm,” Gentry hummed, leading the way out to the field.

We didn’t practice on the same field that we played on. The field we played our games on was off limits, even to the players, during off time such as now.

Which was why we headed in the opposite direction we usually took, which led us straight past Sway’s office.

The moment I was close enough to her door, I could hear her talking.

“No, I’m going to have to cancel on you tonight. I’m not feeling well.”

My mouth thinned as I turned the corner into Sway’s office, easily slipping the phone from underneath her hand and placing it against my ear.

“Sway’s lying. We can’t go because my Godfather is in town, but I want to reschedule.” I declared. “I was being an asshole, and she’s mad at me.”

“Ooookay,” Ember drawled. “If you change your mind, we’re gonna go to Peter Pan’s.”

Peter Pan’s was a new pub in the heart of downtown Longview, and something that I’d been looking forward to trying.

What I was not looking forward to dealing with, however, was the angry look in Sway’s eyes.

“Thanks. Bye,” I murmured, tucking the phone into my shorts pocket.

My eyes automatically found Sway’s angry ones, and it took everything I had not to laugh at her.

“I’m sorry,” I told her bluntly. “I’ve been acting an ass, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

Her face automatically softened.

“It’s okay,” she lied.

“No, it’s not,” I grumbled. “But it is what it is. I’m going to try really hard to stop being a jerk, but it’s likely that I’m still going to be pretty pissy until I find him.”

Sway’s eyes showed every single emotion that powered through her mind, and I could concur with a few of them. The feeling of the unknown wasn’t the best thing in life to deal with, especially when it came to my brother.

“Where are you going?” She touched the glove with a single finger, and I licked my lips.

“We’re headed out to the practice field to toss the ball around. Do you want to join us?”

Her eyes widened.

“I literally suck at baseball.”

A grin tipped up the corner of my mouth.

“Don’t worry. You have the best pitcher and the best catcher in the league showing you the ropes.”

Twenty minutes later found us staring at Sway in horror.

“You can’t step out of the way of the ball,” I told her. “Otherwise it’ll throw off your entire trajectory.”

“But if I don’t move out of the way, I might miss the ball, or it might hit me in the face,” Sway countered.

“But how do you know if you don’t even try?” Gentry asked. “You’ve done that the entire time we’ve been out here!”

Sway tossed a glare at him.

“I’ll have you know, Gentry, that I’ve not dropped a ball yet. Can you say the same?”

I choked on the water I was drinking and stopped long enough to let a bellow of laughter out.

“That was because Mr. Handsy over there shoved his hands down your pants right in front of me,” Gentry challenged. “How do you expect me to catch a ball when he’s busy feeling you up?”

Sway’s eye twitched.

“He wasn’t doing anything in my pants,” Sway said. “He was fixing my belt!”

Gentry’s brow rose.

“Yeah…” he rumbled. “And he needed to stick his hands down, not just your pants, but into your underwear, to do it?”