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Chapter 12
“You don’t seem as nervous about this as I thought you’d be. You’re about to meet your favorite Broadway star. I would’ve thought you’d be jumping out of your skin.”
Troy had agreed to let Mila come to the batting cages. It had been a reluctant decision. After all, he’d envisioned this as a flirty evening. Not a “meet my kid sister, she’s your biggest fan” evening. But when he’d looked into Mila’s pleading eyes, there hadn’t been any real question what his answer would be. Anything in his power to give the kid, he would. No question. One hundred percent of the time.
Now, in the car getting ready to go and actually have the meeting that she’d begged him so pitifully for, the one she’d described as “ultra epic,” she was displaying a practiced nonchalance that Troy couldn’t believe was real. No one was that cool in the face of meeting their idol.
She rolled her eyes at him. That gesture was becoming her equivalent of the kind of multi-meaning word that some cultures had, like “aloha” in Hawaii or “allora” in Italy. Mila’s eye rolls could mean anything from “you’re such a dork but I love you anyway” to “you’re dead to me.”
In both instances, he most often had very little idea what he’d said to bring on the eye roll, but judging by the fact that whatever small group of teenage girls she happened to be hanging out with at the moment also employed the identical gesture at the identical time, he assumed it must’ve been something that was generally agreed on by the female population under the age of eighteen to be an egregiously uncool offense.
He just wished he could identify the “uncool” aspects of himself well enough to stop putting them on display. He often found himself tempted to yell, “I was a freaking professional ballplayer. Do you even know how cool that makes me?” But not only did that come off as desperate, he knew it wouldn’t even work. He’d just be greeted by another wall of rolling teenage eyes.
“I’m not going to, like, fangirl out. That would be so awkward.”
As Mila said the words, he noticed her hand make small, unconscious movements. She grabbed the hem of her T-shirt between her thumb and forefinger and gave it a sharp pull. The gesture tugged at his heartstrings ten times harder than the shirt.
That was her tell. She’d done that same thing when she felt sad or stressed ever since he could remember. He smiled at her, love filling his chest with such intensity he could barely breathe.
Of course she was nervous. Of course she wanted to make a good impression, and of course she felt insecure about making one.
“You’re gonna do great, kid. Just be yourself. Because yourself is better than pretty much anyone I’ve ever met.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Then, she turned her eyes gratefully to him. “Thanks, bro. Appreciate it.”
With that, she hopped out of the passenger seat and took off running toward the clubhouse building that sat in front of the batting cages.
He climbed out of the car, chuckling to himself as he slammed and locked the door.
“Well, hello there, stranger.”
Every cell in his body sprang to life at the sound of her voice. It was like his subconscious had embedded her voice deep inside his brain and tagged it as the key to waking him up, body and soul. It never failed. Every time he heard it, it was like lightning in his veins.
“Hi, there. You found it all right?”
She laughed, her eyes dancing. The sound was musical and he felt it like a physical presence, dancing over his skin like tiny feathers. “Your directions were perfect. But even if they hadn’t been, it’s a pretty small town. I think it would’ve been harder for me not to find it.”
He laughed right along with her. He loved seeing things that were so familiar to him about Valentine Bay through her fresh eyes. Especially since she seemed so charmed by his hometown. It just gave him a wave of pride in his upbringing.
“So, should we go in? See how perfect my directions can be in other areas?”
He honestly hadn’t meant it as a double entendre, but he heard the sexual innuendo in his phrasing as soon as her cheeks flamed red. Instead of embarrassing him, though, it just turned him on. He felt his cock straining at his jeans and made a concerted effort to stop the raging train of arousal that was suddenly slamming through him.
You know what they say, he mused to himself. Think about baseball. At least we’re at an appropriate venue.
As they strolled across the parking lot together, their conversation light and easy, he was struck by just how right it seemed. Even though there was a part of him that loved how new and exciting everything felt with Alison, there was another part of him that marveled at how things between them felt so comfortable. He wouldn’t have been totally surprised if some New Age hippie dippy person told him they’d been together in some previous life. When he was with her, it just felt like everything fell right into place.
As they walked up to the payment counter where Mila was waiting, her entire body one big fidget, Troy put his hand on the small of Alison’s back. He hadn’t thought it out ahead of time, it was just an instinct—a gesture, in preparation of introducing Mila. But when he felt her warm, firm flesh under his palm, even through her clothes, a jolt raced up his arm more powerful than any he could imagine he’d get from actual electricity.
Damn. She was powerful. Or maybe it was just their connection that held all the power.
“Alison, I’d like to introduce you to my sister. This is Mila. Mila, meet Alison.”
He thanked God that when the words came out of his mouth they held none of the shaky residual tremor from the electric jolt he was afraid they might have. The last thing he wanted was to give Mila even more ammunition in her growing opinion that he was a giant dork.
He didn’t need to worry, though. He was the last thing on Mila’s mind. In fact, he didn’t think she’d even heard him speak. She was looking at Alison with wide-eyed awe, her face beatific and her breath coming in rapid pants.
“Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It’s so awesome to meet you!”
