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But he wanted to.
He wanted to understand why Alice had flipped out and bailed. Was the sex not good? He’d thought it had been phenomenal, but maybe he was deluding himself. Even still, bad sex was an excuse not to call someone the next day, but it wasn’t a valid reason to leave a dude in a parking lot with his fly down.
There was a chance he’d been too harsh on her when he told her she was inventing problems. Her job was a real concern for her. He knew well enough from Tucker and Emmy how tricky it could be to date within the family when it came to baseball, and umpires tended to be held at a higher regard. He’d never shared a beer with an ump before, let alone orgasms. It was new territory for him, and likely for her too.
It wasn’t fair of him to brush her concerns off and call her a coward.
God, he’d been a real dick, hadn’t he?
“Earth to Ross,” a voice called, distracting him from the circle jerk of his thoughts. “Think you might put on your pads and actually play today, or should I just give you my roster and let you manage things?” The field manager, Chuck Calvin, was chewing on a mouthful of Big League Chew, the wadded pink gum doing little to diminish his menace.
Alex hadn’t realized Angel’s time was winding down.
In early season matches it wasn’t unusual for position players to swap out two or three times a game. Since the final forty-man roster hadn’t yet been selected, the coaches and managers needed to see all the prospective players in action before narrowing down their choices and making the final selections.
Alex had assumed since he’d bruised his knuckles the previous day he might get a full game to rest up, but Emmy must have given him a clean bill of health if the skipper was throwi
ng him in now.
“Sorry, Skip.”
He shucked off his warm-up jacket and tossed it over the back of the bench between Tucker and Miles. Getting his pads on was a mindless routine for him, something he was able to do within a minute. The act of going through such familiar motions was enough to take his mind off things.
Getting onto the field was like stepping through an invisible curtain. On one side of it were his problems and everything he was dealing with with Alice; on the other, pure joy. Being on a baseball diamond erased any negativity and replaced it with a perfect calm. How could you be in a bad mood when you were living out your little league fantasy on a daily basis?
Even the drama from the previous day’s fight didn’t put a damper on Alex’s love of the game and his Pavlovian attachment to the field.
As he crouched behind the plate, a simple, brilliant thought snuck through his haze of happiness.
Nothing bad could happen in a ballpark. It was like Switzerland. Neutral territory. With that in mind, he knew exactly what he had to do to charm Alice.
If she loved baseball half as much as he did, he speculated the key to her heart would be a diamond.
A baseball diamond.
Chapter Eleven
It had been a hellish day for Alice.
After a three-hour game she’d had to drive an hour each way to get to, she’d gotten a call from the diner asking her to come in and cover a shift. With assurances from Kevin that he didn’t mind canceling his evening plans to watch Olivia, Alice had grudgingly agreed to go in to the restaurant.
She didn’t want to work. Spending three hours in the baking sun watching a Rangers vs. Tigers game had been plenty taxing without adding another five hours on her feet in the midst of the dinner rush. There was no hope in hell of it being a quiet night. It was never quiet during the spring training season, when tourists were constant.
That was the only reason she’d agreed to take the shift, because otherwise Carmello would be screwed, and the other girls she worked with would end up with twice as many tables. No way would she do that to people she liked just because she’d rather be in a bubble bath with a huge glass of wine.
The suds and booze would have to wait.
Five hours of demanding jerks and indecisive middle-aged tourists later, Alice was wishing she’d opted to bail. Her feet were sore, her back was throbbing and she was covered in a thin coat of grease-scented sweat. The air conditioning at the diner had broken down shortly before she arrived, so they’d had to make due with two small oscillating fans.
Thank goodness it was only the first week of March, otherwise they’d have been screwed. Hot hadn’t yet given way to unbearable.
Alice mopped her forehead on her apron before chucking it into her car. All that and she’d barely made a hundred bucks in tips. Not enough to cover anything useful, but definitely enough to get her to the liquor store for the wine she’d wanted earlier.
It was already after Olivia’s bedtime, so there was no sense in rushing home. She might as well make a stop, grab some cabernet and unwind before subjecting Kevin to her ire. Usually he did something to earn her bad attitude, but tonight he’d done her a favor, and she didn’t want to make him regret it.
As Alice turned onto her block, her bottle of red wine in its brown paper bag rolled dangerously close to the edge of the seat. She reached down to grab it, taking her eyes off the road for a second. When she looked up again, she almost drove past her house because of the unfamiliar car in the driveway.
No, not unfamiliar. All too familiar.
