Go Away, Darling - Alexis Anne Page 0,36

those aspects of his personality at random. Or at least it felt random to me.

“I’m a pretty simple guy, Liv. I promise, what you see is what you get.”

I wanted to believe him. I really, truly did. But I couldn’t change the fact that I was a little bit scarred by my past experiences with Beau and my fiercely protective maternal instinct was a beat of its own.

“So walk me through tonight.”

He sighed with resolute frustration, letting the topic of figuring each other out drop. “If we win, the field will be chaos. A pile on the field. The celebration there will last for a while. There will be on field interviews and I’ll definitely be caught up in several of those as the starting pitcher. Then, like the other series, we’ll wind up in the locker room for the champagne and beer.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “After that, I’m going to need to kiss you.”

My stomach knotted and squeezed with desire. “Yes.”

“It will be a late night.”

“Linc is with Summer and Beau. After the game we’re crashing at his house and then Summer and I will take him home in the morning.”

“I want to see him.” He said that with vehemence. Fierceness.

“Yeah okay. Just let me know when and how and I’ll arrange it with Summer and Beau. You know the crowd will part for him.”

Chris’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “Yeah. Good. I’ll text you all the information and you can send it on.”

“I’ll give you their numbers just in case, too.”

“Wonderful.”

The rest of lunch was oddly quiet, but ended in a devastating kiss that made my toes curl.

As Chris took the mound later that night, the air, which was already super charged with electricity, became so intense I would have sworn the hair on my head was standing up. From my perch beside the dugout I could see the way his jaw flexed as he chewed gum, the intense focus of his eyes. Everyone was jumpy, moving and stretching, bouncing on the balls of their feet, waiting for the first real pitch of the game. All the pregame antics—the national anthem, the celebrity first pitch, the other celebrity first pitch, the announcing of every coach and team member—were fun, but also served to amp up the energy inside the stadium.

And now it was finally game time. A potentially history making night for Chris. The crowd went wild as he threw a strike. I snapped a picture of his cool confidence. He appeared neither pleased by the strike, nor frazzled by the volume of the crowd. He threw another strike, his eyes laser focused on Wes, the catcher, communicating something silently, then returned to the mound, delivering a decisive three strike lead-off. This time that passion came out, he began circling the mound without even looking at the batter swinging or Wes catching the ball. He knew with complete confidence that his pitch was a strikeout.

Snap. Snap. Snap. I loved how the stadium lights cast things in stark contrast. It was my job to suss out the shadows, the angles that brought out each player’s personality. In this moment, as he yelled and talked to himself, I wanted to capture the stress, pride, and brilliance as each flashed over his face before returning to the mound as cool and collected as ever.

He pitched like a man possessed, with fervor and an almost clairvoyant knowledge of exactly how to pick apart each batter. These were the best of the best. And yet they could barely keep up with Chris Kaine’s arm. He lasted until the end of the seventh inning when, with a five run lead, they decided to switch to closers for the eighth and ninth innings, winning the game and becoming world champions.

“Olivia!” I stopped snapping pictures and turned toward the booming sound of Beau’s voice.

He stood just to the side of the dugout waving at me, Linc in front of him and Summer and Trent beside him. As I suspected, his size and celebrity cleared his path to the field with relative ease.

I waved back and then moved over to where Chris was giving an interview. When he was done I caught his eye.

My heart skipped at the heated way he smiled at me. “Hey, Liv.” He rested his hand on the small of my back. High enough to seem friendly, but oh my god, so intimate with the electricity in the air. He had to lean down and whisper in my ear to be