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

Chapter 21Is it possible to kill someone by just looking at them? Because if it was possible, you’d be dead right now.

-Wrigley to George

Wrigley

I woke up that morning still not feeling well.

My heart was heavy, and I felt like some large cloud was hanging directly over my head.

But, with things to do today, I didn’t doddle.

I was rushing around, trying to slip into my coat, when I felt hands on my belly, slipping under my shirt.

I giggled and pulled away, laughing at George.

“I’m so late it’s not even funny,” I told him, rushing into the bathroom.

He followed me as I bent over the sink and started to brush my teeth.

Watching me, he checked out my ass in my skirt and waited.

Once I was finished, I questioned him.

“Can I ask you a really big favor?” I bit my lip.

“As long as it doesn’t involve me taking photos with the press corps, I’ll probably agree,” he teased.

I felt my heart flutter at his words, once again being reminded of what kind of animals followed him around on a daily basis.

They weren’t all bad, but quite a few of them didn’t understand personal boundaries…like my brother.

I bit my lip and wondered how I would word this without him immediately saying no.

“Well…”

“Just spit it out,” he ordered.

I grinned.

That was the man I knew and loved.

“There’s a victim’s assistance program that I would like to help fund, and I’ve raised quite a bit of the money. However, I’m short by about a hundred grand,” I said.

A hundred grand was a lot…but I knew that what I had planned would probably pull in twice that.

Twice that meant that I could help hundreds of women find better lives. Find lives that meant something to them, and would help them get back the confidence they needed to move on and put their best foot forward.

And to do that, I needed George to bite the bullet and do something he didn’t like doing. A charity pick-up baseball game.

“And you want us to play a game,” he guessed, knowing me better than I sometimes knew myself.

I bit my lip and nodded.

“When?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

Oh, God. His muscles bulged in all the right ways when he did that.

“After the playoffs. I wouldn’t want to risk any of y’all getting hurt before any big games…so probably in a month or so?” I offered.

He grunted. “I’d do anything for you, Wrigs. Just name the time and place, and I’ll find the guys.”

I threw myself into his arms.

“You won’t regret this,” I told him as I pulled away.

He sighed. “I already do.”

I laughed and swiped up my keys—which were in the bathroom of all places—and headed for the door. “Call me if you need anything.”

That, however, was one of the only things that went right for me as I went through my day.

I made it through the board meeting with my grandmother. I made it through my conference.

And I even made it half the drive home.

But I had to pee, I needed a cup of coffee, and honestly, I just wanted a goddamn Snickers.

Which was why I stopped for one, and then happened to catch the TV playing in the corner of the diner that I stopped at for the coffee.

And then saw the replay of the kiss last night, making me grimace.

It wouldn’t be soon enough for that picture and film to stop rolling across the screen.

Then what came on next absolutely dropped me to my knees.

“The baseball world’s new ‘it’ couple, George Hoffman and his absolutely adorable new girlfriend, Melanie Nickel, have become an overnight sensation. Why you ask, is that? Because last night Melanie was seen kissing George Hoffman, at game six of the semi-finals when he saved her from being hit in the face by a fly ball. Melanie is the daughter of Gary Nickel.”

“Gary Nickel,” I murmured. “Why is that so familiar?”

“Gary Nickel is the porn star with the fourteen-inch dick,” a man helpfully supplied from the bar stool next to the register.

My stomach rolled.

Surely not.

But, that was confirmed moments later when a picture of Melanie rolled over the screen as she attended last year’s Puntang Awards with her father.

Gross.

She didn’t look happy to be there at all, and honestly, who would be? That was her father. Not her boyfriend. I wouldn’t be caught dead there.

But that was none of my business.

What was my business was when fucking George rolled across the screen with Micah in his arms. Micah had sweatpants stretched out over his casts and a loose sweatshirt that looked like one of the ones I’d bought him for next year. The same exact outfit that I’d set out for George to dress him in this morning.

And beside Micah and George was Melanie, who was walking Lucy. George had his hand on her back, and he was laughing about something with her.