Go Away, Darling - Alexis Anne Page 0,13

and glanced at Rex Little. “How fast?”

“Ninety five.”

Right where I wanted to be if they called me into the game. When they called me up. One look at the scoreboard told me Yates was getting yanked if he walked this batter.

“We’ll get ‘em,” Ruiz said from behind the fence. “We’re only down by two. Andres can get on base and Seth will crank a homer. As long as you can hold them at five we’ll tie them up.”

I wanted to laugh. Of course I could hold them. This was what I did better than anyone else on my team—hell better than anyone else in the league—I was cool as ice. Focus was my super power. I didn’t hear the jeers from the stands or the jabs from the guys on base. I didn’t see the scoreboard after I stepped foot on that field. It was just me and the batter. Every pitch was about outsmarting the man staring me down. Sometimes it was about speed, most of the time it was about being focused.

Unless it was a long legged, dark haired siren that went by the name Olivia Saldana. Apparently all my focus went out the window. No, that was wrong. I had plenty of focus when it came to her; the problem was that she took all of it. After I swam home from her dock I took a nice long cold shower. She wasn’t a dream after all. Everything I thought happened on my boat really did happen—from the embarrassing to the incredibly intense way she made me feel.

“What the hell are you thinking about?” Ruiz barked.

He even threw a balled up piece of paper at me.

“Nothing.”

“Not nothing. You just went a million miles away. You’re about to pitch, moron.”

“I’m fine.”

“Is it a girl?” my practice catcher, John Arroyo, asked. He popped his mask up and put his knees down on the ground. “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”

“What the hell is up with you two? I’m fine. I was just thinking about whether I was getting out there before or after Hians bats.”

“Right,” Arroyo said really slowly like he didn’t believe me.

“Is she pretty?” Ruiz asked.

“There’s no girl!” I yelled. “You ready to catch?” There was no girl. There was a woman. A five-foot-seven-inch woman who was single but not.

I really liked Linc. The kid was fun and blunt and honest. Plus he was a tiny version of Olivia. Did he like baseball? He sure liked fishing. The kid was pretty awesome in my book.

I didn’t have another second to think about him though because I was called up to pitch a minute later. The moment I stepped onto the grass of the outfield I went into what my mom used to call “Robot Mode.” By the time I met the coach on the mound nothing else existed but the ball in my hand and Wes Allen’s catcher’s mitt behind home plate. The batter was my enemy and my job was to be smarter than he was for the next inning and a half.

I was on fire. I hadn’t been this hot in weeks, maybe all season. I ended the game with no hits. Not one. They didn’t even bother to call in our closer. And everyone else did their jobs, too. We won six to five and held our superior place in the run up to the playoffs.

“Your brother is waiting outside,” Erik, our second baseman said, hitting me in the arm as he walked by.

“Ben or Scott?” I wasn’t expecting either of them.

“Scott.”

“Really?” It was a stupid thing to say. Obviously Scott was outside if Erik said he was outside. What I didn’t understand was why.

So I yanked on my pants and went to get him. Sure enough, leaning against the cinderblock wall beside the locker room door was Scott. I hadn’t seen him in three months—not since his last movie started shooting in Vancouver. He didn’t even call me like Ben did.

“Hey.” He smiled and stood up when I opened the door. All three of us looked a lot alike. Scott had the darkest hair. It was always perfectly cut and styled—had been since he discovered style around the age of nine. This also explained why he was in a suit. In Florida. At night. At least he’d taken off the tie and opened up the collar.

“Why didn’t you call?” I pulled him into a hug. We were almost exactly the same height. I was the shortest by three-quarters of an inch.

And no, I would