Game On(4)

The paper had told me that Nathan was weary of journalists. That even though this meeting and interview had been arranged and he had agreed to it, there was a chance that he was going to be cagey and uncomfortable with the situation. I had to make him comfortable. That I could do.

I approached the mirror and gave myself a once-over. I looked exactly how I felt, sweaty and exhausted. Somehow my hair was both limp and fuzzy, my face splotchy. My clothes were wrinkled and displayed multiple wet spots, most especially underneath my armpits. I pulled them off and I stared at myself in the mirror, hands on hips, wearing nothing but black lace and a scowl.

“OK, Hall,” I said, blowing brown hair out of my equally brown eyes. “Here’s the score. Bases are loaded. The game is tied. You’re tired. But you can do this. You can f*cking do this. You’ve got a hell of a swing and the ball is an easy lob. This guy is hot and interesting and you can write a piece that will make every panty in the country drop and also make his mama proud. This is your pitch, babe. This is what will get you into the big leagues.”

I pulled my favorite, yeah-I’m-f*cking-hot dress from the hanger. Black. Stretchy. Impossible to breathe in. Wrestled my hair into a bun and swiped some dangerously red lipstick across my lips. I smiled at myself in the mirror. I looked good.

“I think it’s time for a few practice swings.”

***

The bar was crowded. Only a short walk from my hotel, off of 6th Street, it gave me a chance to take in a little of Austin. The city was beautiful, and I passed several people walking their dogs or running, now that the sun had gone down and the heat was beginning to fade. I saw a huge variety of folks, as was expected in a town whose motto was “Keep Austin Weird.” Lots of hippies and hipsters milling around. All who smiled at me when I walked by, as if they knew me. The whole place seemed friendly and welcoming. It helped ease some of the tension of the day.

The bar was cool, all wood-paneled and dark and filled with people. As I anticipated, the booze was cheap and my dress had already gotten me two free drinks and a phone number that I was using for a coaster. Sipping my Patron on the rocks, I glanced up at the exposed brick wall and started, accidentally making eye contact with a taxidermy stag head mounted on the wall. It felt like he was looking right at me—just like him, I was stuffed and hung out to dry.

I was not interested in men tonight. I was interested in drinking until I forgot Nick’s name, Anne Marie’s name, and my own, not necessarily in that order.

I looked up at the clock. I had until midnight and then it was back to my hotel. I was a responsible drunk. I had my first meeting with Nathan at noon. Plenty of time to sleep off the alcohol and make myself presentable for him.

I was sipping a glass of halfway decent tequila when the entire bar seemed to grow quiet. I looked up and followed the wide-eyed stares until I saw him. He was tall, with a messy head of black hair and impossibly broad shoulders. Dark eyes and a wicked smile. Better looking in person than all the pictures I had seen, and I had seen a lot.

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world,” I muttered to myself as Nathan Ryder came and took the empty seat next to mine.





Chapter Two


He was incredibly good-looking. Dressed in a gray shirt and snug, worn jeans, I knew he would have been a star even if he had been lousy at baseball. The talent was just the icing on the extremely gorgeous cake. Looking at him made my skin feel tight and tingly. Made me want to scratch an itch that had been there for the last three months, ever since I let my good-for-nothing boyfriend move in with me and he had turned into a total lazy bastard, not even having the good sense to have sex with me once in a while. Quickly I downed my glass of tequila.

“Another shot,” I said to the bartender.

“Make that two,” Nathan said.

All my reporter’s instincts were going off, but so were my hormones. God, it had been months. And he was gorgeous. And he smelled great. Like freshly cut grass. I took a deep sniff before I realized what I was doing. Oh god, now I was smelling him. Luckily the bar was too noisy for him to notice, but still, this was terrible.

The shots slid in front of us and I reached for mine, but his hand stopped me. He had great hands. Long tapered fingers, wide strong palms. He was a pitcher, so of course he was good with his hands. I could only imagine how capable they would be at removing my dress.

“Are you sure you’re old enough to drink this stuff?” he asked, his smile both playful and concerned. It surprised me. I didn’t know many guys who worried about the alcoholic intake of the women they were flirting with. Especially not soon-to-be-pro baseball players.

But it was a fair question. I looked young and, though I was probably older than a good number of tonight’s patrons, I had already been carded twice tonight, once at the door and again when I sat down at the bar.

I waved my stamped hand at him and took my drink.

“Are you?” I asked, even though I knew he was. I knew lots of things that a stranger in a bar shouldn’t know.

“Twenty-two just this month,” he said. Just another thing I already knew.

“Happy birthday,” I said, raising my shot glass. He tapped his against mine.

“And you?” he asked.

“I’m too old for you,” I told him. “I just turned twenty-three.”

“I like older women,” he said, turning the voltage in his smile all the way up.