Page 28 of Serving Bunt

“Breathe, tesoro,” Diaz murmured, low enough for only me to hear. “It’s going to be okay.”

Tesoro.

The word hit me like a soft punch to the sternum.

Damn, I liked it way too much.

Liked him way too much.

The endearment rolled off his tongue like it belonged only to me. It made something deep in my chest tighten and bloom at the same time, a dangerous mix of comfort and want that I had no business feeling right now.

But then, reality crashed back in.

We were mic’d up. There were cameras everywhere. Had the boom mic caught his words? Would the editors leave it in? The thought of millions of people hearing my teammate call me his treasure sent a fresh wave of panic through me.

I should’ve pulled away.

Instead, I leaned into his touch for half a second, soaking up the warmth before my brain could catch up and ruin it.

When I glanced sideways at him, our eyes met. Only for a moment, but it was enough to make my chest ache in an entirely different way.

It was easy to pretend this was something else.

That we were different people in a different life and that all of this was ours—a cozy, little inn, the smell of cinnamon and sugar in the air, the two of us bickering over burnt cookies like some painfully domestic couple on a vacation neither of us wanted to end.

I could almost see it.

But we weren’t different people.

We were professional baseball players, teammates, standing together on national television, one wrong glance away from turning our lives into tabloid fodder.

So, I stepped out from under his palm and forced myself to look back at the cookie carnage instead of the man beside me.

“Matty and Peter, you’re up next.” Penelope’s voice rang out cheerfully.

We stepped forward, carrying our sad, lopsided creation to the judges’ table like it was a live grenade.

Keira Von Hustenberg winced when we set it down in front of her. “Oh, dear.” She sighed.

Jin Kato blinked slowly, tilting his head like he was examining abstract art. “What . . . happened here?”

Diaz and I exchanged a quick, pained glance.

I cleared my throat. “We, uh, had some structural issues.”

“And there may have been a slight timing error with the ovens,” Diaz added.

“Is that your way of saying you burnt your cookies?” Keira asked.

“Not burnt,” he corrected smoothly, flashing the judges a grin. “Caramelized.”

Mandy Bickham leaned forward, poking at one of my pale molasses crinkles with a fork. “Let’s see what we’ve got then.”

The three judges each took a piece of both cookies. The barn went quiet except for the faint crunching sounds.

Jin chewed thoughtfully. “The guava thumbprints have lovely tropical notes. It’s a pity they’re too dark on the bottom.”

Mandy nodded. “The molasses crinkles are absolutely delicious, too.”