"Exactly the same thing." I think I detect the tiniest smile when he looks over his shoulder at me, finally coming to a stop. He sets the bucket and bats down, picking up a softball that he tosses without warning. Unthinking, my arms shoot out, and the ball lands smack in the glove with a pat. My face shoots open in surprise, and Grey wears a full-blown smirk. "See?" Without further acknowledgement, he picks up a ball for himself.
"I caught that!"
"I saw. You know what to do. Just gotta practice." He launches into teaching mode, extending his hand so I can see. "When you hold the ball, don't white knuckle it or hold it withyour palm. See how it's in my fingers instead? You'll have more control this way. Like this." He drops his ball so he can adjust my hand, shifting my ball away from my palm so the weight of it is held in place by my fingers. The jolt from the heat of his touch shoots straight to my stomach, flipping it like a pancake.
"Ohh," I say, and that smile flickers across his face again.
When he crouches to pick up his ball, I check out his caboose. I don’t even mean to. Honestly, the man should be studied by science. I'd happily provide some data and measurements. I snap my gaze across the field as he stands.
"Now, for your stance, you want your feet apart, about shoulder width. Good. Throwing hand goes behind your head like you know to do, elbow up." A chuckle. "Maybe notthatfar up. There you go. You do all this naturally, like when the ball is up like that? Take a step." I do. "See? Your opposite foot is gonna step out first. Look down--see where your toe is pointed? That's the direction the ball's will go."
"Whoops." My toe is turned in, and I straighten it.
"Another way to gauge your aim is where your elbow is pointed."
"Double whoops," I say on a laugh, since my elbow was pointed in the opposite direction my toe was. "Does that mean it would have gone straight?"
A snort. "I wouldn't count on it. Now the reason you threw the ball backward the other day is the release point." I watch as he winds up with his left hand so I can see what he's doing. For a second, I get distracted by the strong line of his brow, nose, lips. "You want to let it go about when the ball is level with your ear. Do it too early and you drop the ball behind you. Too late, and it'll just dribble in front of you. Give it a shot."
I screw up my mouth, thinking about my feet and my elbow and my hand and what it's level with, chucking the ball. It dives into the ground and rolls away.
"Too late?"
"Too late. Take a deep breath and hold it," he says, retrieving my ball. "Now let it out." I do. "Good." He pauses in front of me and puts the ball in my glove. But I'm glued to his eyes as they pin me to the spot. "This time don't think about it at all. Don't think about anything, just pick a spot down the field and throw it."
I nod like a bobblehead, and he steps out of the way. Empty headed, courtesy of his proximity, my eyes land on a spot on the fence across the field and I throw the ball. It sails maybe twenty feet and thumps to the ground to roll another five or six.
Again my jaw pops open, and I swivel to look at him. "Magic."
A puff of laughter through his nose. "Biomechanics." He puts another ball in my glove, the pleased look on his face doing something hot and tingly to me. "Again," he commands.
So I throw it. And another. And another. Each one goes farther, and by the last one, I'm giggling like a crazy person, and my poor, rarely used arm is burning.
"How did you do that?" I ask, incredulous.
"I didn't. You did."
My gaze sweeps the heavens. "You know what I mean."
"I do," is all he says, handing me a bat. "Okay, show me how you're gonna hit it."
I try to remember all the things…knuckles in a line, back straight, feet apart, swing. I look to him for approval, but he's already moving to get behind me. One big hand rests on my hip, and I can feel the heat of his body like a furnace. My pulse ticks faster.
"Loosen your grip a little. Wider stance." Again, he nudges my feet apart, and again, very dirty thoughts blast through my brain. One hand is still on my hip, the other closing over mine to adjust my placement. "Don't just swing with your arms--use your whole body by turning your hips." He guides the bat in aslow, mock swing, pulling my hip back at the same speed. His back knee and thigh meet mine, bending it with the twist. His hips are nearly against me, so close that if I shifted even a little, I could fit my ass against them.
Instantly, my brain scrambles. When he steps back and lets me go, I almost fall backward.
He's standing in front of me with his own bat, in one hand and a ball in the other. "Watch. Like this."
In one perfect, smooth motion, he tosses the ball in the air, winds up, and cracks the thing right in its sweet spot. I watch it sail away, blinking at it when it lands a mile away. It's the hottest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
Seemingly unaffected, he's now in front of me with a fresh ball and no bat. "Your turn. Ready?"
"Nope."
He chuckles, bringing the ball back underhanded with a little nod. Once again, he's managed to remove all thoughts from my brain, so when the ball comes my way, I swing, my hips turning, eyes locked on it.Thwack. The force reverberates up my arms and to my shoulders, and the ball flies straight at his shoulder. He only seems to shift a little in order to catch it.
I'm laughing and dancing and cheering, feeling like I'm going to explode. "I hit it! I hit it!"
