As a favor to Sawyer’s cousin, Rob, Sawyer and I are on a triple date with Rob, his girlfriend, and a few of her visiting friends. As luck would have it, bad luck, the friend I got paired with is a huge baseball fan. I give Sawyer the evil eye for the second time tonight when the girl takes yet another selfie of us at the dinner table.
It’s not that I don’t like baseball fans. I do. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. But I like them more from a distance, not when they are draping themselves all over me.
Like the older gentleman at the bar. He’s been staring at us all night. He obviously recognizes us, but he’s nice enough not to interrupt our dinner. He’s the kind of fan I’d gladly sign an autograph for if he asked us on our way out.
“Want to head back to my place?” Rob asks the group. “My roommate is out of town. We can have a few drinks or something.”
When Sawyer looks over at me, I give him a punishing stare, making my answer crystal clear.
Sawyer is a nice guy. Like me, I think he’s wary of women and their intentions. But he takes it to the extreme. Instead of a three-strikes rule – his dates never get past one.
“Come on, man. One drink,” he pleads.
It’s not that I think he necessarily cares about hooking up with the girl he’s with, I just think he’s trying to appease his cousin. Rob is in the construction business and he renovated Sawyer’s townhouse for barely more than cost when Sawyer moved here two years ago.
“Fine. One.”
Brandy, my … uh, date, claps her hands and squirms in her chair, apparently excited that the night isn’t going to end after dinner. “Maybe we should go back to your place, Caden. Rob’s is hardly big enough to hold all of us.”
I refrain from looking at Sawyer, because I know we’ll start laughing if I do. I don’t take girls to my place. Lexi and a few of her good friends, they are the only females who have ever been there. I’m very protective of my privacy. “It’s not clean. Better not.”
Brandy brushes off my comments. “Who cares about that? It’s not like we’re going to see your bedroom with your skivvies all over the floor.” She leans over to me and whispers, “Not unless you want me to.”
I look at Rob, who thankfully reads my expression and saves me from Brandy. “My place is just around the corner. We’ll go there. And it’s clean,” he says, shrugging an apology at me.
I take my ball cap out of my back pocket and put it on my head when we leave the restaurant. Sawyer does the same. Even though it’s clearly a Hawks hat—I mean what else would we wear—it does provide some camouflage if we pull it down low enough over our foreheads.
Brandy plucks the hat from my head and puts it on her own. “Can I have it?”
I study her for a second, thinking how it doesn’t look that good on her with her poufy hair. I carefully remove it from her head and return it to mine, pulling it down low. “I’d really like to wear it myself if you don’t mind.”
I think about last Saturday night and how I gave Murphy my hat. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a girl look so natural, and … so fucking amazing wearing one. There’s nothing natural about Brandy. Not her lips, not her voice, not her tits that are practically falling out of her dress. And there is definitely nothing amazing about her.
I need to text Murphy. Find out how her first day at the gym went. I hope she likes it there. Mason did me a real solid hiring her. They were in a bind and needed someone immediately. I talked him into getting someone from a temp agency until Murphy could start. For all I know, she might hate it. It’s far from a modeling gig. But the people there are great. It’s where I work out in the off-season.
“Oh, my God, Caden Kessler!” a woman squeals as she passes us in the other direction. “And, holy shit, Sawyer Mills!” The girl backtracks and runs to stand in front of us. “Can I please get a picture with you? My brother would freak out. He’s a huge fan. I mean, I’m a huge fan, too. But he’s like your biggest fan.”
I look at Sawyer and he nods. Both of us are pretty good at fan interaction. I don’t mind signing autographs and taking pictures as long as everyone remains calm. Sometimes, though, it can get out of hand, like now, on a crowded Friday night. I glance around and hope nobody heard her yell our names. I see a few onlookers, but nobody else is approaching us.
“Sure, we can do a quick picture,” I say.
The girl moves to stand between Sawyer and me, giddy with excitement.
“Uh.” The friend who is aiming her phone at us looks to my right. “Would you mind stepping out of the picture please?”
I look to see that Brandy is still standing next to me—hovering. She pouts before moving out of the way. But as soon as the girl thanks us, Brandy comes right back over and threads her arm around my elbow, as if claiming me.
“Are you Caden’s girlfriend?” the fan asks nicely.
“I am tonight,” Brandy says proudly.
I have to keep my jaw from dropping at her temerity. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” I announce. “Brandy is my date.”
“Well, thank you,” the girl says, before walking away and giggling with her friends.
I start walking. “Come on, let’s go before a crowd gathers.”
When we get to Rob’s place, Brandy raids the kitchen, coming out with all the alcohol she can carry. “You guys up for a game?” she asks.
Sawyer looks at me skeptically. “What did you have in mind?” he asks her.
She shrugs. “Whatever you want. Truth or Dare, Quarters, Strip Poker.”
What are we—sixteen?
Rob gives his girlfriend, Kayla, a scolding look. She finally speaks up. “Brandy, would you quit it. They are not playing Strip Poker with you. I’m not playing Strip Poker with you. What’s with you tonight, anyway?”
“She’s drunk,” Kayla’s other friend says. “And she stupidly took a Xanax earlier to chill out because she was nervous about meeting Caden and Sawyer.”
“Was not,” Brandy whines.
I pick up a deck of cards from Rob’s coffee table. “How about just plain old Poker?” I ask.
One drink and an hour later, Sawyer and I get up to leave. Tomorrow we have a double header.
I smile thinking that Murphy and my sister will come watch the second game. Lexi tries to make as many games as she can, but with her job as an assistant to a well-known author, and her two little girls, it seems like her appearances at Hawks Stadium are few and far between.
I told Melanie that the person I hit with my home run ball was coming to another game. I asked her to give Murphy the royal treatment. I know Murphy doesn’t want anything from me, but I figure this being her first Hawks Stadium suite experience, she won’t know the difference.
Brandy walks me to the door and pulls me aside before I can make my escape. “Don’t you want a kiss?” she asks, looking up at me through her eyelashes.
I shake my head. “I don’t kiss on the first date.”
Her eyes light up. “Oh, so you want a second date?”
“Don’t you live in Oregon or something?”
“No. I’m from Seattle,” she says. “But you never know. If I find a job here, maybe I’ll move to New York.”
“Oh. Well, good luck with your job search, Brandy,” I say, turning to walk through the door.
“You’ll look me up when you’re in Seattle, right?” She pulls out her phone. “What’s your phone number? I’ll text you and then you’ll have mine.”
Not a fuckin’ chance.
“I’m sure Rob or Kayla will be nice enough to provide me with your number if I need it,” I tell her.
Looking dejected, she puts her phone away. Then she leans close and whispers in my ear. “You don’t know what you’re missing, Caden Kessler. Everybody says I’m the best fuck they’ve ever had.”
I pull back, put a hand on her shoulder and look at her with serious eyes. “Wow, Brandy. That’s impressive. I’ll bet if you put that on your resumé, you’ll find a job in no time.”
On the way downstairs, I get out my phone, hoping to see a text from Murphy about her day.
“Do you have a wife in labor that I don’t know about?” Sawyer asks me, motioning to my phone.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’ve been looking at your phone every five minutes all night long, like you’re waiting for someone to call you. Or like maybe you want to call someone.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. “I have not,” I say.
He silently laughs as we hail a cab.
Well, I haven’t.
Have I?