Switch Hitter (Jock Hard 0.5)

I stop short, halting on the pavement to watch him, the dark shrouding me as I hover under a tall maple tree like a total creep, considering my options while teetering on these heels Lucy brought over.

Stealing a few moments to observe, I have a mere second or two before he rings the doorbell or pounds on the door.

He’s tall, with wide-set athlete’s shoulders. I can see the planes of his muscles flexing beneath his t-shirt, highlighted by the dim porch lights on either side of Lucy’s front door. Jet-black hair gleams when he shifts on his heels, raising his fist, knuckles ready to rap against the storm door.

“Dash?” I softly call out, testing the nickname on my lips, not wanting him to knock but not quite sure if this is Dash, or Hudson, or whoever my sister’s date is for tonight.

I walk closer, clutching my purse, moving forward into the light.

“Lucy?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m over here.” I walk closer still, pasting on a smile, a knot forming in my stomach.

“Hey.” He backtracks down the steps of the porch, jogging toward me. “What are you doing out here?”

He’s close enough that I can see him better, nothing but strength and swagger. One look at his face and I begin stumbling over my words.

“Um, I was, uh…I had to…oh! I know!” Jesus, Amelia, you’ve seen a cute guy before. “I forgot I’d left my wallet at a friend’s house? And I ran to get it. Didn’t want to forget my ID, nope I did not!” I push out a laugh so fake I want to gag.

He cocks his head to the side, studying me, all high cheekbones and thick slashes of eyebrows. Beautiful dark skin, brawny…God he’s cute. My sister wasn’t kidding when she said he was good-looking.

What she didn’t mention was that Dash Amado is Latino.

Muy caliente—very freaking hot.

“You need to run inside or anything?”

“Nah, I’m good. We can get going.” So I can get this night over with, come home, get into my pajamas—preferably by ten o’clock at the latest—and forget this whole evening took place.

He clicks a remote hidden in his back pocket, unlocking the doors of his black car. Pulls the passenger side open, waits until I’m buckled in before closing the door with a dull thud. Jogs around the front to the driver’s side.

I do a quick visual scan of the car’s interior. It’s clean, no garbage in the back seat, and smells like masculine aftershave and gym equipment. I peel my eyes off the bat bag in the back seat as Dash folds his big body inside.

“Sorry I’m a little early, but the band starts at eight fifteen and I wanted to get a spot in the front. Ready?”

Ready as I’ll ever be, considering I haven’t done the old switcheroo since I was a teenager.

“Yay! So ready,” I reply in my best impression of Lucy.

He starts the engine, throwing on his blinker to enter traffic, overly cautious given there’s virtually no traffic on this street. It is completely deserted.

“Thanks for going along with this.” He glances over, large hands gripping the wheel. “When you asked me out, this was the best I could do on such short notice.”

“Excuse me?”

Wait, did he just say ‘when you asked me out’?

I clear my throat and, as casually as I can, ask, “I asked you out?”

He glances sidelong across his shoulder, dark eyebrows raised. “You must have been drunker than I thought if you don’t even remember asking me on a date.” He chuckles. It’s one of those low, sexy laughs you see played out in the movies, the ones that send a shiver down your spine while watching the romance unfold.

I want to shake that inconvenient shiver out through my shoulders, give my face a small slap.

“Must have been. You know me—fun, fun, fun! Always drunk on the weekends.” Shut up Amelia! Do you want him to think your sister is a lush?

He shoots me another glance, this one slightly less enthusiastic, slightly more unamused. “Right.”

I shift in my seat, the belt across my chest and lap constrictive, Lucy’s tight denim jeans squishing my gut. I give them a tug at the waistband, looping my finger inside the fabric, pulling in an attempt to loosen the already stretchy material.

My shirt—one of her favorites—is off the shoulder, blue with thin white pinstripes and feminine bell sleeves. My collarbone has been dusted with gold, lips a beckoning dark burgundy (her words, not mine).

On my feet? Four-inch cork wedges.

I look sexy enough, I guess.

I’m terribly uncomfortable.

“You have to wear this shirt Amelia,” my sister insisted, shoving the hanger into my hands. “Unless we want him noticing how much bigger my boobs have miraculously gotten in the course of four days.” She dug through her closet like a stylist on a mission. “Your boobs are bigger than mine—I don’t want Dash to think I stuff my bra.”

“Lucy, no one stuffs their bra anymore.”

When we’re together, it’s like an eye-rolling competition that has no victor.

“You know what I mean. Just put this on and act happy, okay? Smile and make sure you touch him a lot, or he’ll think I’m acting funny.”

I reach across the center console and tap his forearm flirtatiously.

“I remember asking you out, it just took me a second,” I say in self-defense, trying to repair any damage I might have done to my sister’s reputation by word-vomiting all over Dash’s car. “And I do other things besides drink on the weekends.”

His black brows rise again. “Like what?”

“Like…spending a lot of time with my sister. She goes here, too,” I inform him, laying the ground work for Lucy to eventually break the news that she doesn’t just have a sister—she has a twin.

“No shit?”

“We’re real close.”

“That’s cool.” His eyes are trained on the road, and he sounds bored. “What do the two of you do when you hang out?”

“Um…” We do her homework, talk. “Call our parents—we’re from Illinois—and when the weather is nice, we ride bikes or go down by the lake.”

“I can picture that.” He smiles, turning left at a stop sign, heading to the tiny downtown district where all the bars are.

“What’s the name of the band again?” I squeak out, sounding so unpolished and un-Lucy-like, it’s positively absurd.

“Scotty’s Tone Deaf.”

“Oh. That…has a nice ring to it.”

Dash laughs, pitching his head back, filling the interior of the car with his delicious baritone voice. “That’s one way of putting it. We’re basically going to listen to a garage band. There’s a kid named Scotty who lives at the end of Jock Row with his parents,” he offers by way of explanation as he pulls into the parking lot of The Warehouse, the city’s only concert venue. “He’s in high school and has a rock band, has this idol worship of the guys in the house.”

“Including you?”

He bows his head, embarrassed. “Sí.” Yes.

“That’s sweet.” Pause. “Did you already tell me this?”

Jesus, I sound like a complete idiot; if Lucy finds out, she’s going to kill me. Seriously, I need to stop talking before I make the whole thing worse.

I run down the facts Lucy gave me about Dash:

Twenty-two.

Six foot one.

Catcher on the baseball team.

Reserved.

Polite.

Lives on Jock Row in the baseball house.

That’s it, the entire catalog of seven things I know about him, and most likely the only seven things my sister will ever know.

“You sure you’re okay with listening to Scotty’s band? I figured you’d be cool with it.” He shoots me a perfect smile, his white teeth set off by his beautiful olive skin. “I wouldn’t call this a concert, I’d call it a set. They’re letting Scotty’s band play a few songs before the battle begins, nothing major. He’s the opening act before an opening act.”

“I love that.”

“Scott’s in high school,” he goes on. “I have no idea how he conned the manager of this place into letting him play, but I’m the only one from the house who promised to come listen.”