The Dugout(12)

I stand up tall and lend out my hand. “Carson, what’s your name?”

With a huge smile on his face, he takes my hand and says, “Jerry, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Jerry, cool. Yeah, we’re just warming up right now, but once we get into the heavy sets, we might need a spot.”

“Great. I can get Milly to help out as well.”

Milly, huh, must be short for Miller.

“Sure, call him over in a few once we have these warm ups over with.”

“She.”

“What?”

“She. Milly is a girl.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” I chuckle. “That was a dick thing to assume.”

“Nah, she’s considered one of the guys anyway. She might be a small thing but she’s tough.”

A small thing? I’m about to squat two hundred fifty pounds today. Do I really want a “small thing” spotting me?

Before I can ask if she’s strong enough to help, Jerry calls out, “Mills, can you come here?”

“Yup,” I hear a girl reply from the weight room office.

My eyes carry to where her familiar voice came from, and I blink a few times to make sure I’m seeing correctly.

Is that . . .

Panini line girl?

No, it can’t be . . . is it?

I lean forward a little more as she approaches, trying to get a better look. I think that’s her, but she looks so different. Instead of an oversized shirt and her hair dancing over her face so I can barely see what she looks like, she’s wearing a form-fitting athletic training shirt, khaki shorts that touch just above her knee, and her hair is pulled back low at the nape of her neck and braided. Her big brown glasses adorn her face that doesn’t have an ounce of makeup. She’s tiny, smaller than I recall, and there’s a swell at her hips I can appreciate, something to grip on to. But what really catches my attention are all the freckles that dot her face. They’re . . . pretty.

When she looks up from her clipboard and makes eye contact with me, she trips right into Jerry.

“Careful there, Mills.” Hands on her shoulders he steadies her.

“Panini girl,” I say before I can stop myself. The name causes her brow to crease.

“Oh, that’s right, you two were in line together.” From the smile that’s pulling at the ends of Jerry’s mouth, I’m assuming he didn’t forget we’ve already met.

Clamping her clipboard to her side and standing tall—as tall as she can—she says, “Yes, we were in line together yesterday.” In a very emotionless voice, she asks, “Did your panini treat you fine?”

What? Who talks like that?

I chuckle and rub the back of my head. “Yeah, it was delightful in all the right ways,” I answer, mocking her. “No bowel issues, if that’s what you were wondering.”

Her nose scrunches up. “I really wasn’t.”

“Ah, so since you already know each other, why don’t you two work together and I’ll take Jerry,” Jason says with a wicked gleam.

I eye the runt next to me and then look over at the beefy Jerry and his expansive chest, then back at the runt. I think I got the short end of the stick—no pun intended.

I lift more than Jason at this point, so there is no way I’m going to be spotted by panini line girl.

“Not a good idea. I lift a lot.”

“She can handle it,” Jerry says, defending his friend and moving to Jason’s side of the weight rack.

I give her a once-over. “My arm is thicker than your leg. No way can you spot me.”

Clearly offended, she says, “Try me.”

“I’d rather not break you.”

“Give her a chance,” Jerry chimes in. “I think she’ll surprise you, plus, she’s a wealth of knowledge when it comes to baseball.”

“Yeah? You know some stats?” Jason asks, loading up his bar with tens on each side to warm up.

“Pish. She’s not a statistician. She’s a coach.”

A coach? Really? I would never have guessed that and not because she’s a woman, but because she looks more like a bookworm than someone interested in sports.

“Okay, you can keep your mouth shut now, Jerry,” she says, her face taking on a scary shade of pink.

“What? You are. Don’t sell yourself short, Milly. You know your way around the baseball field better than anyone I know.”

Milly and baseball? Panini line girl knows a little something about the sport? Is that why she was weird in the dining hall, because she’s a huge baseball fan? I mean, she is wearing those little baseball earrings again.

“You know baseball?”

“Her brother is—”

“Shut. It.” Milly takes on a scary deep voice, full of warning—like Satan popped out of her mouth and bitch-slapped Jerry.

“Don’t be mad at me. I’m just telling it like it is,” Jerry says, shrugging off how upset she is.

And I was the start of that. Now I feel like a dick. Again.

Glancing at my weight chart, she folds her arms across her chest and says, “You know, you’re right. You lift too much. I’ll get Vinny to help you.”

Without another word, she turns around and starts walking away.