Triple Play - Cassie Cole Page 0,105

baseball, however. Nothing else. The three guys beside me on the beach were more than enough for one girl.

“Holy shit!” Joel suddenly exclaimed in the chair next to me one afternoon. He was looking at his phone.

I sat upright in a flash. “What is it? Did the Rangers acquire someone?”

“All the members of the Texas Rangers staff during the season get a World Series ring. Everyone!” He held out his phone to show me a news article about the rings.

I grinned. “I already knew I would receive one. Theo told the coaching staff.”

But Joel shook his head. “I’m not talking about you. I was on the Rangers staff for two-thirds of the season. I’m getting a ring!”

Darryl rolled over on his beach towel and raised his sunglasses. “No shit? You blew the World Series and still get a ring?”

“I remember the same thing happened to Bengie Molina back in 2010,” Rafael said. “He was on both the Rangers and Giants that year, so no matter who won he received a ring.”

“Seems kind of cheap,” Darryl said.

“Fuck that!” Joel replied. “I’ll gladly take some hardware! It was my awesomeness that allowed the team to trade for Gallaraga and Preston. I deserve that shit.”

Two days later, Darryl told me he loved me.

We were snorkeling in the shallows off the beach. The water was so clear we could see for hundreds of feet, giving us a view of an entire ecosystem of wildlife. Sea turtles, coral, a million types of fish… But it was the barracuda that was the highlight of the snorkeling trip. They were long and silvery, like six-foot-long sardines. But the unnerving thing about them was that they watched us swim by. They faced us with their dead eyes, turning as we went by so that we only saw the front of their face. It was creepy. Like old oil paintings where the eyes followed you wherever you went.

“You swam away awfully fast,” I teased when we emerged from the water and walked up the beach.

“So what?” Darryl asked.

“I think you were scared of the barracuda.”

He grunted. “I’m not scared of any fish.”

“Sure you aren’t.” I poked him. “Fortunately I’m a much faster swimmer than you. So if we’re ever attacked, I can get away while you get eaten.”

“Swimming’s not my area of expertise,” he said defensively. His dark hair was matted to his face, and there was a red outline from his snorkel mask. “You wouldn’t really let me get eaten, would you?”

“I would help fight it off.” I reached over and pinched his side. There was almost no fat, so my fingers slid across the hard planes of his muscle and weren’t able to grab anything. “It’s all this muscle. It slows you down in the water. And makes you a tasty treat.”

He laughed and wrapped an arm around me. “I love you, you know that?”

I grinned. “Love you too, fish food.”

I felt warm and safe with him as we walked back up the beach. In fact, I felt supremely safe thanks to all three of them. It was like having a trio of bodyguards around me at all times. I hated the damsel-in-distress idea of a woman needing a man’s protection, but there was something primal about it. If anyone wanted to hurt me, they would have to get through three men, not just one.

*

I approached the front of Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Arizona. Winter had passed as quickly as a runner trying to steal second base. Spring training was now upon us. And after almost four months off, I was itching to get to work.

“I’ve been to a lot of spring trainings,” dad told me as we walked around the side of the stadium to the employee’s entrance. “But this is my first time as the guest of one of the coaches.”

“Now you know how I felt for years when you were the Dodgers’ scout,” I replied.

“All the fun with none of the responsibility?” he asked with a grin. “I’m looking forward to it!”

The boys and I had rented an AirBNB this year. Since everyone had contract extensions we could certainly afford it. And unlike the team hotel, it meant we could be as loud as we wanted.

Except for the three days while dad was here, of course. Rafael had insisted my dad stay with us. Even though dad didn’t know about my personal relationship with the guys, Rafael was spending a lot of time sucking up to him. He picked dad up at the airport