Page 34 of Off Limits: The Firsts

He shrugs and diverts his eyes back to the stadium. It’s almost as if he’s embarrassed or uncertain of his answer. “Because that view, right there . . . the power of it, the strength I draw from it when I’m having that kind of game where you can feel the humming in your bones that tells you something indescribable is about to happen? This is the only place I get to have that alone. The only place where I can quiet my head and listen to what the humming is telling me without the fans or the front office or my teammates or the media watching me home in on it.” He scrubs a hand through his hair and snorts. “Never mind. That just sounded completely ridiculous.”

“Not in the least.” I stare at him until my silence urges him to face me, meet my eyes, and see that I’m nowhere close to laughing at him. “Please. Finish what you were going to say.”

“I don’t know. I guess some nights I like to sit here when the lights are out, with this ghost of a stadium below me, and go to church, if you will. Think about my game.” His exhale is audible and his discomfort with being so open is suddenly palpable.

“See? I knew you loved to talk about your stats.”

“You and your statistics.” He laughs with a shake of his head, but his discomfort is gone and his smile is genuine when he glances my way. “When they were building the new stadium, some eccentric billionaire bought this place while the building was still under construction. He was obsessed with the game and paid some stupid amount of money to build the field in the basement. The place went up for sale a few years back, and I bought it. How could I not? But I’ve tried to keep that it’s mine on the down low. It’s the one place I have that’s truly mine, that’s completely private and removed from everything that comes with this game.”

“It’s perfect.”

“You haven’t even seen the place with the lights on,” he teases.

“These are all the lights this girl needs to know it’s a perfect fit for you,” I say, motioning to the ballpark’s towers.

“Sometimes I’ll just stand here like this after a brutal game or bad home stand, staring, thinking, and I’ll suddenly get inspired to go work on what I did wrong. Sometimes I’ll gear up, other times I’ll head down in my pajama pants, and I’ll work on it until I can’t see straight and the clock reads four in the morning.”

I shouldn’t be surprised by his dedication, and yet I find it so refreshing to know he actually has to work at something, when he seems to be such a damn natural at everything.

“Plus, I’m super competitive so it’s nice to be able to put in the extra time without anyone else knowing. Never underestimate the element of surprise.”

“Never,” I murmur. “And there’s never a rain delay, either.”

“Lately, I feel like there’s been a permanent rain delay on my career.” His chuckle transitions to a heavy sigh. The resignation in it tempts me to ask him more about the toll this has taken on him, but I’m startled from the thought when, without a word, he reaches over and hooks my pinky with his.

And just like I found comfort in the touch of his hand earlier, I wonder if maybe he needs the same from me right now. So I don’t interrupt the moment. Instead we settle into the silence, touching and watching and trying to figure out what we are doing here.

“I’m doing my best to get you back out there,” I say after a bit, letting him know I heard the frustration and defeat in his previous statement. His permanent rain delay.

“Is that the polite way to say you’re busting my ass?”

And within seconds, we go from serious to playful, and I love that it’s so easy to do with him.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Wylder.”

“Oh really?” He tugs on my pinky so that I’m forced to face him. “You’ve got more moves up your sleeve, Dalton?”

My smile is automatic when our eyes meet. The slow, sweet ache of want is, too. How can it not be when we’re standing in the dark, he’s framed by a halo of baseball stadium light, and that electric charge between us is snapping with an unfathomable current from just our pinkies touching?

There’s something about Easton that makes me want when I shouldn’t, need when I needn’t, and desire when I know it’ll be disastrous.

But damn the fallout to hell, because more than anything, I want to feel right now. Alive. Wanted. Desired. Like a woman.

Is that such a bad thing?

I’m sure it’s not. I’m sure it’s normal for most women, but not for me.

And not like this.

“I’ll show you what’s up my sleeve if you show me your secret baseball fort downstairs.”

His laughter echoes off the glass beside us and back to my ears a second time. “Aha! So that’s what it takes to impress you.”

“Perhaps.”

“My big bat doesn’t do it for you, but my home plate downstairs does?” He shakes his head, but when our eyes meet, his laugh fades as the air between us shifts and charges with an unmistakable energy.

“Scout.” All he says is my name, but in its timbre I hear so many things that I can’t comprehend over my head shouting that I need to step back.