Usually, Blue Dress would be exactly my type. She’s laughing—always a plus. She’s with a group of friends, which means there are ladies for my teammates to flirt with too. Her vibe saysI’m up for a good time but I don’t want your number and I won’t be there when you wake up in the morning.That is a must for the women I have flings with during the season.
And in the off-season too, if I’m being honest here.
But tonight, even watching her tame that mechanical bull like she has the thighs of Xena, Warrior Princess, isn’t doing it for me.
Because she’s not a curvy, white, sometimes-brunette and sometimes-blonde with pink sparkle eyeshadow, the voice of an angel, the patience of a saint, and the touch of a nymph.
“Check out her friend in the black top,” Robinson Simmons says. Robby’s in his second season with the Fireballs as our utility man. He’s Black, with short hair, a brand new tattoo with his niece’s name on his bicep, and he scored three runs for us tonight. “Just…wow.”
I’d like to, but I’m now distracted by the television in the corner of the room, where the curvy pop star of my dreams is all dolled up in a sequin dress, pink lipstick, and fancy up-do, smiling and chatting with a reporter from one of those entertainment shows.
I don’t know how it’s possible for her to get prettier every damn day, but she does.
And she has for the past seven or eight years.
The other thing she keeps getting?
Nicer.
Fuckingnicer.
Don’t need the sound on the TV to guess what she’s saying right now as she pulls a second glittery young white woman to her side.
Do you know Aspen? She’s taking the music world by storm. I listen to her album on repeat as often as I can. I’m so mad that we haven’t had a chance to do a collaboration yet. Next album, right, Aspen?
“Earth to Cooper,” Lopez says directly in my ear. “Dude, you’re not gonna get laid tonight if you don’t get in the game.”
I jerk back, recover, and force a cocky grin at my teammate. He caught me mooning over Waverly Sweet like I’m our rookie catcher instead of the veteran on the team who knows how to handle himself in every situation on and off the field.
“I’m practicing letting the universe send me what it knows I deserve.”
Normally, saying something like that wouldn’t make me want to throw up in my mouth, but tonight, it does.
I don’t want a one-night stand with a random bar chick right now.
But what Idowant, I can’t have.
She and her manager made that crystal clear a long time ago, so I moved on, and I made something of myself too.
Dammit.
I look around the bar once again.
Xena the Warrior Princess in the blue dress has finally been thrown off the mechanical bull and is high-fiving her friends. Definitely a bachelorette party. The lady in black that Robby was drooling over is donning a veil, and I take the opportunity to punch him lightly in the arm.
"Don’t go for brides, dude. It doesnotend well.”
“Shiiiiiiit,” he breathes. “My mom would kill me.”
“Not saying you couldn’t be her getaway car if she decides not to go through with it, but do not, under any circumstance, pick up an engaged or married woman,ever.”
Diego plops down on the bench across from me, all smiles. He was born in the Dominican Republic, grew up mostly in Oklahoma, and couldn’t be happier if he tried. I cut a glance at the television, and yep. Waverly’s gone, and some actor is in the hot seat for an interview now.
Diego was probably in the bathroom streaming the interview on his phone.
Which is basically exactly where I considered going too.
Watching her with my adopted Little Sluggers baseball team—Jesus.
