I’ve given her a wide berth all night, but I’m done being polite. I march past the people trying to grab my arm and am almost to Liesel when?—
“You’ve been busy all night,” Doug says, standing in front of me.
Special characters appear in my mind in place of all the curse words I want to say. “Hey, Doug. Yup. Busy night.”
“You and Liesel did good work,” he says.
“Yeah, she’s really smart.” I steal a glance at her. “Even if she hates me.”
He claps my shoulder. “She hasn’t gotten to know you yet. You’ll win her over.”
I look at him. “You wouldn’t care if I tried something with your lead analytics manager?”
“Whoa. Who said anything about trying something? I thought you were talking about working together.” Doug takes a long drink from his glass and then stares me down. “I’d care a lot. Her dad is an umpire. If you mess something up with her, he could take it out on you every time you’re at the plate, to say nothing of the team.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I’m sitting out this next season. Gives me a lot of time before we have to test that theory.”
Doug looks alarmed. But when he sees my grin, he chuckles. He doesn’t know the grin is fake.
Disappointment sinks into a pit in my chest. Liesel is the first woman who’s interested me in years. I first talked to her in the airport because she was watching a sports channel instead of a Christmas movie. Almost nothing is more attractive than a woman who knows baseball.
But then when she had such strong opinions—opinions that revolved aroundme—I couldn’t stop myself.
Because the only thing I find more attractive than a woman who knows baseball is a woman who doesn’t care who I am. Funny enough, those two don’t intersect much.
Except for in Liesel.
Talk about irresistible.
Doug swirls the ice in his glass. “I gotta ask, though: what was going through your head when you recommended your ol’ buddy Colton Spencer? Marty and Kathy both said you prefer that Triple-A kid, Betancourt.”
I shrug, purposefullynotlooking at Liesel, but Doug chuckles, anyway. “That’s what I thought.”
“She has stats to back her up.”
“I know. They’re compelling. But is that what you want?”
A server walks by with something wrapped in bacon, and I take a couple from the tray and pop one in my mouth. I make every effort to seem casual, because I’m actually at war with myself.
I like Liesel. I respect Doug.
I want Liesel to like me. I want Doug to respect me.
But … I want to keep flirting with Liesel. I want to flirt and tease and laugh and make her laugh. I want to get her to glare at me with that half smile she’s trying to cover. And I want to talkwith her. Get to know her. Watch her brain work in real time. I want her to push me. Call me on my crap. Make me think.
Heck, I want to kiss her.
Without Doug finding out.
I’m not an utter fool, though, so I say something that won’t get me in trouble. “Is acquiring Colton what I want?” I put another appetizer in my mouth. “I want to win. If Colton can do that for us, I can put up with him.”
Doug smirks. “Thanks for taking one for the team.” Someone walks by and Doug gets his attention, signaling that I’m free to go. But Doug looks at me before I walk off. “Coop, I meant what I said.Do not mess with her.”
My easy grin reaches all the way to my eyes. It’s a skill I learned when I brought home an honor roll certificate from school right after Mom was diagnosed. She was crying that she missed it, and I couldn’t handle her disappointment. So I smiled and hugged her and tried to hold back my own tears while telling her it was okay, it didn’t matter, she didn’t miss a thing.
“See?” I told her. “I’m smiling! It’s okay, Mom!”
“But it doesn’t reach your eyes,” she sobbed.
