“It was. I swear.” She held up a hand as if she were being put under oath. “He called me a snob and bossy and other things I can’t remember, and he smiled the whole time. It was like talking to a seven-year-old.”
“Really? How old is he, really?”
“Thirty-two,” Clover answered. She scrubbed at a sticky spot, thinking about the spark of mischief in Dustin’s eye and how she’d like to get into mischief with him. She yanked her thoughts away fromthatand found Maddie looking at her with raised eyebrows. “What?”
“You know.”
She did. But she wasn’t going to admit behaving like a stalker fan who had Googled his stats. “I blame his bad behavior on his bank account. No one can make that much money and remain unaffected.”
“I’d like to be affected by a couple hundred thousand a year,” Maddie quipped. “I can’t even imagine having money like that.”
“Most people can’t imagine playing a game for a living, either.”
“It can’t be all kicking daisies. I mean, look at those guys.” Maddie tossed her head toward the screen. “Theylooklike they work hard.”
Clover didn’t have to look at the television to know what kind of muscles being a major league ballplayer created. Those muscles had brushed up against her less than twenty-four hours ago, and was still reeling from the sensations Dustin created.
Maddie wasn’t done pleading Dustin’s case. “How many games do they play a year?”
Irked that her best friend was defending the very guy they were supposed to be roasting right now, Clover replied, “How would I know?”
“I heard baseball players have the longest season out of all professional ballplayers.” She shrugged. “For guys whoplay a gamefor a living, they take it seriously.” She picked up a stack of towels with a green stripe down the middle. “I’m taking these to the pool. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“’Kay.” Clover waited for Maddie to disappear down the hall before dropping into her chair and attacking the keyboard. “How many games does an MLB team have a year,” she muttered as she typed into the search bar.
A list of sites appeared. She clicked on the first link, desperate to complete her search before Maddie returned. One hundred and eighty games with three months off between seasons, and pitchers report for spring training early.
She paused to listen for Maddie. When she didn’t hear footsteps on the tiled hallway, she clicked on the link at the bottom of the article about a day in the life of a professional ballplayer. They reported for a night game before noon. She ticked off the hours on her fingers, figuring the players were lucky to get eight hours of sleep. The general pregame workout included batting practice, watching film, workouts, and going over stats.
“Huh,” she said.
Playing baseball wasn’t a job. It was life. For nine months out of the year, assuming the team didn’t make it to the playoffs, Dustin was at the mercy of the team’s schedule. He moved around as much as Clover and her mom had when Clover was growing up. She smoothed down her hair. She’d called Dustin a Peter Pan, but he was more like a gypsy.
For some reason, she liked him all the more for that.
She clicked off the website and cleaned with a vengeance. It didn’t matter if she liked him. She’d never see the guy again unless she was watching him on television. In the same moment she had that thought, the camera zoomed in on the dugout, and Dustin smiled like he was smiling right at her.
She shook off the fanciful thoughts and got back to work.
Chapter Ten
Dustin unlatched his watch. He only wore the thing to church, so it still looked brand new. Not that he avoided church—his game schedule made it difficult to get his butt in a pew on a regular basis. If he was out of town on a Sunday, he’d listen to a Christian rock station on IHeartRadio and bring a bit of Jesus into his week.
He made it to the early service and had the pleasure of sitting next to his mom and dad. They liked to have church over by ten so they could get home and prepare a big family dinner. The church wasn’t anything fancy, just an off-white stucco building with a dark wooden cross over the door. If he had to give a comparison, he’d say it looked like a Spanish mission on the outside.
The inside was worn wooden floors and nicked and scratched wooden pews. The same pews that supported wedding guests, believers in Christ, searchers for truth, mourning funeral guests, and the occasional lost sheep. Long, skinny windows punctuated the walls, allowing natural light to cut through the otherwise dim interior.
Dustin missed a lot of those family dinners, too, and Mom liked to poke him about it now and then. She let him off the hook this week because he’d hit a home run and family had called from all over the US to congratulate her. She was perched like a robin over a nest of eggs in the pew, with Dustin’s brother and his family sitting in front of them. Mom looked pretty in her dress with the big colorful flowers all over it, and he told her as much and kissed her cheek in hello.
“Ah, it’s so good to see my boy. Your Uncle Steven sends his love and asked if he could have the home run ball.”
Dustin chuckled. “Sorry, I hit it into the sagebrush. It’s gone.”
She tsked. “It’s just as well. He’d probably sell it on eBay.” She patted his leg. “Now, there are several young ladies here who wouldn’t mind an introduction to my famous,singleson.”
Dustin leaned back, grateful for the sturdy seat. His mother knew how to set him off his game. “Mom. Not today. I came to hear a sermon, not get set up on a blind date. Give me a break—please.”
“If I can find you a beautiful woman and get you off the ball field, I can die at peace,” she’d said while patting his leg.
