“Patience, Isa.” His voice carries the amusement that’s written all over his face with the broad smile and glimmer of excitement in his eyes.
He pulls his car into the players’ lot, which is empty since there’s no game and practice was this morning. He parks in the spot closest to the doors into the clubhouse.
“Wait there,” he says as I begin reaching to unbuckle my seatbelt. I pause and wait, unsure what his plan is here.
He gets out of the car, stopping quickly at the trunk to throw his bat bag over his shoulder and grab another smaller bag. None of which helps clear up any confusion. Closing the trunk, he rounds to my side, throwing the door open. Reaching acrossme, he unbuckles my seatbelt for me, flooding my senses with his woodsy cologne.
“I could’ve done that myself,” I point out.
“I know,” he says simply as if that’s all the answer I need.
Once I pull the seatbelt off, he stretches his free hand out toward me. I look at it for a moment, hesitating before I tentatively place my hand in his, letting him pull me up from the car. I try to reclaim my hand, but his grip tightens enough to keep me firmly in place.
Well, okay then.
He pulls me behind him into the clubhouse and through to the locker room, which is a space I’ve not actually seen yet. He drops both bags off into his cubby, digging through his bat bag until he pulls out several bats of different sizes and colors and two batting helmets. He hands the lavender one to me. I didn’t even realize they made batting helmets in this color. The other is his black game helmet which he pops right onto his head. “You can leave your bag here, but do you happen to have a hair tie in that thing?” he asks with a laugh and a head tilt toward my own purse.
“Lucky for you, I do.” I dig around my purse until I find the hair tie and pull it onto my wrist, before dropping it into his cubby with the rest of our things. He reaches out to grab my hand again, and with the bats propped up on one of his shoulders, he pulls me behind him out of the locker room and through the hallways of the clubhouse.
He pushes a door open into a large room with several netted spaces. The floor is Astroturf and there are little spaces that mimic the burnt orange of the dirt from the baseball diamond. There’s a home plate in each section and directly across from them is a tall fence of more netting.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“It’s our batting cage. We do some batting practice in here.” Releasing my hand, he leans the bats up against the wall and walks over to a storage closet where he pulls out a large white bucket that looks like the kind of thing you get from the hardware store. He drops it down next to the netted fence, popping the lid and revealing it’s full of baseballs.
“You don’t expect me to hit balls, right?”
He laughs. “The number of innuendos in that sentence. I’m not expecting anything from your performance. But I will put you up at the plate and see if you can swing it.”
“I’m going to suck at this! You’re a professional! This isn’t fair,” I whine.
He laughs, coming up to wrap me in his arms. I immediately tense up. We’re never this close and my instinct is to push him away. But… I don’t. I fight that instinct and allow myself to enjoy this moment. I love the way his arms feel around me, so I let him stay where he is.
“I’m not going to bat.” He leans his face in close to mine, and I stare wide-eyed thinking he might be about to kiss me. I don’t know if I want that or not. I can’t make up my mind about so many things where he’s concerned. Luckily, he makes the decision for me and shifts his head, so his mouth is near my ear. “Wouldn’t want to show you up and make you feel bad.” He leans back and winks. “Like I said, I’m not expecting you to be able to hit anything. It’s your first time in a batting cage. I wanted us to have some fun, enjoy ourselves. At least that’s how I’m hoping this will go.”
“What made you think of this?”
“If I’m being honest, I’ve been planning this for a while. Since that one question during our game.”
“What quest—” I break off as I recall what he’s talking about.
“What’s your perfect date?”
And my answer was of course an active date that gives us the opportunity to have a good time but also still ask each other questions. Getting to know each other better.
So, he picked a batting cage.
It’s honestly a little genius.
“Is this a good enough activity for you?” he asks with a hopeful smile.
“To be determined.” I smirk. “But why the batting cage?”
“Well, I know about your whole no fraternization thing, and figured here we would have the privacy to enjoy ourselves and not have to worry about any peeping fans sneaking a photo of us together that could cause you problems with your job.” He rubs a hand across the back of his neck.
“Oh…” It’s all I can say. I didn’t expect there would bethismuch thought behind a date that I was convinced wasn’t even real. But clearly, he has. And it feels real. He’s told me he’s treating this as real.
“Is… is that okay?” he asks, uncertainty creeping into his voice. “It’s not that I want to hide you. God, if I could flaunt you out on the town I would. In a heartbeat. But I want to respect your feelings and boundaries with why you aren’t allowed to date me.”
