I don’t talk about it a lot—one of my teammates had the exact opposite superstition and was the oldest virgin in baseball until he broke his own curse last season—but it’s the truth.
I play better when I get laid. Always have. I tell people my lucky socks are why I always make the All-Star game despite playing for the Fireballs, but it’s really sex.
So when I tell you it’s been a few weeks since I hooked up with a woman, and that my game is slippingalready, when the season has barely started, and that for the first time in years, I don’t want to go hook up with a woman—a random woman, I mean, like I usually do—and not even for the sake of playing a better game tomorrow, hopefully you understand how serious this is.
From the minute I paused in the doorway last month, sneaking peeks of Waverly Sweet making my adopted Little Sluggers team feel like the center of the universe at that meet-and-greet, and then her dropping that littlea baseball player I used to knowcomment with my losing mantra following it, it’s been like something critical and essential suddenly appeared, hovering out of reach.
And that moment when her bright, sunny but shocked gaze landed on mine for the first time in years?
Time stood still while my entire world lit up with firecrackers that I haven’t felt since thefirsttime I laid eyes on her.
It’s been a lot of years. I’ve done a lot of things. Been a lot of places. Slept with a lot of women.
But one word kept whispering through my brain.
Home.
And since that moment exactly three weeks, two days, and four hours ago, I haven’t wanted to do anything with any other woman.
At all.
It’s like other women don’t even exist.
Waverly’s in my every waking thought.
She’s in my dreams.
She’s who I picture impressing when I step up to bat. She’s who I hope is watching the highlights reels on the sports channel when I make a diving grab to rob the other team of a double or when I catch a beauty of a throw from Diego to tag a would-be base-stealer out at second. She’s who I’m talking to when I’m tapped for pre- or post-game interviews.
And she’s the one woman on this earth who is so far out of my league that it’s a miracle I survived being in the same room with her again.
The torture that was watching her entire concert from the private wings off the stage was like reliving those three glorious, amazing days together early in both of our careers before her aunt informed me in no uncertain terms that Waverly Sweet was too good for loser baseball players.
There are people in my life who’d probably say I became such a great baseball player to spite Zinnia Sweet.
Or possibly that I became master of the one-night stand—to the benefit of my career—to spite them both. What started as a way to drown the pain—yeah, yeah, lame, I know—turned into a hardcore superstition that might not have existed otherwise.
Not like Waverly tried to get in touch after Zinnia chased me away, and she definitely had my phone number.
I’ve always wondered if Zinnia was doing the dirty work Waverly asked her to do.
But she’s not who I’m supposed to be thinking about tonight.
Tonight, I’m supposed to be focusing on doing what I do best.
Scoringoffthe field.
Bonus if it gets a certain pop star out of my head.
But the mechanical bull in this bar isn’t doing it for me.
Neither is any of the rest of the bar scene. Nor was the club scene. Private party scene. Or even the locker room scene.
“Dibs on blue dress,” Francisco Lopez says reverently beside me. Frankie’s our shortstop, about my height, with brown skin, brown eyes, and more superstitions than the rest of the infield put together.
I’m out with a handful of single teammates, most of them at least five years younger than I am, and we’re on the prowl, looking for some post-game fun. We’ve swept our home opener series in Copper Valley despite my rocky performance, and it’s time for me to get fully back in the groove.
This is primeCooper Rock gets a girl, celebrates, and satisfies his superstitions before we head off on a road triptime.
