Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
I got back and got ready rather quickly, then answered some reporter calls and watched a little bit of the video clips my pitching coach had sent. I had pitched eight scoreless innings, but there were a few things I still wished I had done better. Loading up the bases twice was one of them.
I checked the clock a few minutes later just as my phone vibrated.
I’m here.
Turning off the laptop, I stood and checked myself in the mirror, then grabbed my room key and headed out. The elevator took me all the way down from the top floor where most of the boys were staying. We had our own bar up there, something more private, but you had to already have access to get up there. I thought I might bring her up if she wanted to later, but for now, I was content to be downstairs. Let the paparazzi see me. I didn’t care.
She was already at the bar when I got to the floor. I could see her, her trademark red hair cascading down her back. She had changed clothes, wearing what looked like a sleek black dress and heels, but that hair was unmistakable. I could have picked her out from across the stadium if she’d had it down like that earlier.
As I made my way to her, I noticed she was staring down at her phone, like she was thinking hard about something. I stopped, staring at her from across the bar, in awe of her. She was so gorgeous, so nonchalantly cool, and I just wanted to look at her for a moment.
It was almost like she could feel me looking at her, and her eyes lifted and went right to mine. I was leaning against a pillar, and I pushed off of it and finished the steps between us as casually as my body would allow me.
When I was just a few steps away, she stood, and I held open my arms. It was a gamble, but one I was pretty sure I would win. Indeed, she stepped forward and wrapped herself around me. She felt good in my arms. Familiar. Her hair still smelled like flowers. I wanted to breathe it in so it would stay a part of me forever.
“Glad I can hug you now that I smell better,” I joked.
“You could have hugged me then, I wouldn’t have minded,” she said, smiling. “But you do smell wonderful.”
“So do you,” I said. “Same perfume as when we were in high school?”
She had a shocked look on her face and cocked her head to the side, cutting her eyes at me slightly.
“You remember?” she asked.
“I do,” I said as casually as possible, looking up at the bartender. “I’ll have a Jack and Coke.” I turned to her, grinning. “What about you?”
“Same,” she said.
It was my turn to raise my eyebrows in surprise.
“All right,” I said. “Two Jack and Cokes.”
The bartender nodded and disappeared behind the bar, grabbing glasses and filling our drinks. Mallory pushed her hair back over her ear as she leaned on the bar beside me. Our elbows were touching, and the electricity of that simple touch was overwhelming. When the drinks came, we sipped them quietly for a moment.
“So tell me, how did all this come about?” she asked. “I mean, I know you entered the draft in college. But you’re like a superstar now.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I got lucky. Right team that needed arms and were willing to take a chance on me very early. I didn’t actually pitch that great in the minors, but I got better once I hit the majors and had some time to adjust.”
“So you live in Montreal? How is it up there?”
“I don’t actually,” I said. “I live in upstate New York in the offseason. I have an apartment a couple blocks from the stadium in Montreal for the season, but I don’t live there except eighty some days a year.”
“So cool,” she said.
“Enough about me, though,” I said. “My whole life is an open book on ESPN. What about you? You ended up here in New York? That’s great.”
She blushed a little and took a sip of her drink.
“Yeah, I did end up here, which was the plan all along, I guess,” she said. “I actually took a year off after college to earn money to make the move. It was super tough both working and leaving my friends when it was time to go.”
“I bet,” I said. “It was hard to leave Murdock for college.”
She nodded.
“And also not hard, too,” she laughed. I joined her and nodded.
“Yeah, also true.”
“It’s quicksand, that town,” she said. “I knew if I stayed longer than a year to build up the money I would never leave. So, I just circled the date on the calendar, threw everything into my car, and left home that day. Thank goodness I met Tamara on my second day in town. I was staying at a hotel and joined an acting class and met her within twenty-four hours of being in the city. She told me about the apartment below her being subleased, and I jumped on it.”