without glancing his way.
“You want another one?” the girl beside him asked. “I’m happy to run up to the bar and get it.”
Christ, he thought. Even her voice sounded young.
“Are you even old enough to buy it?” he asked.
The music died just as he asked the question. A few of his teammates glanced over. The girl smiled and shrugged.
“It’s not like they’re carding anyone,” she said. “Besides, you’re not that old yourself. What are you, like, twenty?”
He suddenly felt twice that old. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself.”
The girl shrugged again and moved over to another table. Will fought the urge to tell her to go find her parents and get the hell away from the bar.
Eddie must have seen something in his expression that said as much. “What the hell was that, Campbell?” the catcher asked. “You got something against hitting a prime piece of ass when it’s offered up to you on a slab?”
Will frowned. “I do when she’s obviously still a minor.”
“Jesus, man,” Tucker said. “You sound like her dad.”
“Like someone’s dad, anyway,” Eddie agreed.
“He is a papá,” chimed in starting catcher Javier Rios as he finally arrived. “Hey, Campbell,” he added as he passed by on the way to the pool table.
Will briefly lifted his chin in greeting. Javy was another of his teammates from the previous season. Because they worked closely together as a pitcher-catcher combo, he knew him better than anyone else on the team.
“You’re a dad?” Tucker asked.
“Yep.”
“Damn,” Eddie said. “Well if you’ve got a problem with us hooking up with these hotties, maybe you should join the old guys over there after all.”
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Will instinctively followed the movement. He saw Cole, Evan, and Randy all watching the exchange. Cole reached into the bucket on their table and lifted out a bottle of beer, giving Will an Interested? look.
Giving him a nod, Will pushed away from Eddie’s table. “I have a little girl,” he said to the players close enough to hear. He decided if this was meant to be a bonding experience, they had to get to know each other somehow. Katie was the one part of his life they needed to know. “Her name is Katie. She’s five.”
“Five?” Tucker repeated, his eyebrows up near his hairline. “I thought you were younger than me.”
Will had studied the stats of his newer teammates, so he knew Tucker was twenty-four. This was his first year out of the minors.
“I am,” Will said.
Assuming they were all coming to the correct conclusion that he’d been a teen dad, he left them to it and stepped over to Cole’s table.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the beer Cole offered.
“Sure. You up for some darts?”
“Why not?”
It was actually a relief to Will that there wasn’t much conversation between him and the other guys while they played. He’d had enough bonding for one night.
Cole and Randy occasionally brought up the pitching face-offs against upcoming teams, bouncing tips off each other and extending them to Will, which he appreciated. He had some of his own to contribute. Evan Dorsey, the only non-pitcher in the group, remained silent. From what Will knew about the guy, that wasn’t unusual. Evan wasn’t what one would consider chatty.
Still, he seemed even more curt than usual. He wore a constant scowl and picked up his phone every time he returned to the table after taking his turn with the darts.
Noting Will’s gaze when Evan checked his phone for the thirtieth time in ten minutes, Cole explained, “Sierra’s due in a few days.”
“Ah.” Will had met Evan’s wife, Sierra, a few times. She was the team owner’s niece and one of the photographers who occasionally came out to their events to photograph the team. He had forgotten she was pregnant. “That’s exciting.”
“It’s fucking terrifying,” Evan argued, his Australian accent heavy on the words.
He sounded like he thought Will was an idiot. Will chalked it up to Evan’s churlish personality and fought the urge to snap something back. Add in the pending baby fears, and it was understandable why he’d be short with people right then.
“I don’t look forward to that when my time comes,” Randy said.
“Try pitching in the World Series around delivery time,” Cole intoned as he moved over to take his turn with the darts.
Will grinned. He’d heard the story about how Cole had raced to the delivery room after pitching the winning game of the World Series two seasons before. His daughter had been born within minutes