The Baseball Player Next Door

Inning 10 ★ Truce With a Fine Print

"Dad, listen. I'm sorry for overstepping my boundaries last night, I just wanted to-"

"I know." He hugged me. "I know that all you wanted was to help the team shine. I want that as well, honey bunny. I just, I guess I refused to understand that I need help."

I opened my mouth and closed it. But then I thought, what the hell, even if he gets mad at me again, that's still better than swallowing up what I really want to say. I pulled away from him enough so that I could face him. "Was it that you refused to accept you need help, or that you refused to accept my help?"

His lips pursed, but his gaze never wavered. "Both."

I nodded. "Understandable. What grown man would want to accept advise from a teenage girl, the breed famously reviled for bringing One Direction to the fore?"

"I liked the Backstreet Boys better," he said, dead serious.

"That's because you're old." I smiled.

A nice clang caught our attention and we turned to see Dwayne jumping up and down. He'd batted a homer, he shouted at us. Dad and I clapped at him and told him he'd done a good job and to keep practicing. He was pretty damn good for his age and with consistency and a healthy dose of luck he could get pretty far.

"Here's the thing," dad said then. I turned to him again. "I have some twenty seven years of advantage over you. I've seen more and know more than you, it's how it is. You can't question that."

I looked down at my torn Converse. "I know."

"But." He lifted my chin. "I don't have the depth of passion you have. I just happen to be a high school baseball coach because I'm a biology teacher. And I certainly don't have as many tomorrows as you do. I should be doing all I can so that you can spend them doing what you so clearly love, and not trying to pull you from it."

My eyes blinked fast and I had trouble swallowing. One of the kids yelped as he fell, but he got back up right away and kept playing. My dad laughed and wished aloud that his teens were more like that and less like a bunch of drama queen soccer players.

"What are you saying?" I asked him, pulling his attention back to the conversation. He rubbed my head over the cap.

"I need your help, honey bunny."

I gasped. "I can— can I be in the team?"

His face scrunched up. "Well, no. You're still a girl. But you can definitely help me figure out what in the hell I should do with the team."

I squealed and hugged him, raining kisses on his stubble and forehead. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

He pulled me away as he laughed. "Okay, okay. I just need to check with the Principal if we can make it official. I don't want him to think I'm spoiling you, but that you genuinely deserve this."

"Absolutely." I nodded over and over. "That's precisely what I want. That, and a nice recommendation for college applications."

"You do realize that it'll be a hell of a lot of work, right?" he folded his arms again. "I won't go easy on you just because you're my one and only daughter."

I grinned so wide that I probably looked like a hungry shark. "I'd be disappointed if you did."

"And it will also take time from your pee wees."

We looked at all the kids. I hadn't thought about this part.

"How much time, do you think?"

"It'll depend on the amount of games we play. The more wins we collect, the more attention you'll need to give us." He paused. "You may want to find a backup."

I bit my lip. I'd had to call for a meeting with the parents to see if there were any volunteers to at least sub in for me occasionally. I really didn't want to have to drop the pee wees altogether. They were my kids. Rowdy and crazy as they were, I wanted to help them grow and love the sport.

"I'll figure something out."

Dad nodded. "And if we want to make this work, there's one more thing. It may actually be the most important."

"Oh?"

He looked almost apologetic. "You have to stop playing favorites."

I frowned and recoiled, stung. "I don't play favorites."

"Yes, you do. You know exactly who I'm talking about." I folded my arms the exact same way he always did. "You can't keep pouring your focus on Santiago from now on. I know that he needs help to get out of his funk, but that's my job. Along with making sure each kid gets their head out of their ass. He's not the only player in the team and we certainly don't want to build a team around a single spoiled kid. Not anymore."

I shook my head. Then nodded. "Yeah, it totally makes sense."

"Honey bunny, that also means no dating him— or any other team member."

I flapped my mouth a lot until I finally managed to string coherent sentences together. "Date him? Any of them? That's ridiculous. Why would you even say that?"

Dad gave me this resting bitch face as if asking, really? You think I'm stupid? And then he said precisely that aloud, followed by, "You're seventeen years old, going on eighteen, and a girl surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves. What do you think is going to happen?"

I scoffed. "Absolutely nothing is going to happen, that's what. I'm one of the boys. I've always been."

"I didn't even want to consider your proposal for this very same reason," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I didn't want the added stress of having to take care of you on top of everything else."

"I can take care of myself!"

"I know you can, but I'm your dad and I worry that one day I'll end up in jail after killing the poor boy who dares to touch you a second too long."

"Dad," I groaned.

He flicked my nose. "No dating the players, I mean it."

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously, you have nothing to worry about."

Dad joined me in finishing the kids' practice until the parents arrived to begin picking them up, and we cleaned up together after they were gone. It was the most civil we'd been in two whole weeks and I supposed the most we'd be until I started working with him. We'd clash again, I was sure. He called the shots but I really had a knack for firing shots too.

He was completely wrong to worry about me dating any of them, though. I gagged at the thought. How girls saw them attractive enough to take off their clothes in front of them and share open mouthed kisses, I had no idea. Really. Because I'd been so grossed out seeing Santiago and Jessica making out. I felt like a little kid stumbling into an adult video by accident and staying rooted by the shock, watching without understanding what in the hell was going on. I hadn't been ready to see that, let alone to do it. With anyone.

It'd be fine.