Page 10 of Bad Run

I watch his emotions play out in his blue eyes as he stares at my face, deciding if he wants to answer my question.

“I like flowers.”

“Flowers?” I repeat in the same teasing tone he did when I mentioned liking both pizza and donuts.

Lance shrugs and once again shifts his focus to the city skyline as he says, “My mom and grandma own a flower shop. The smell of flowers reminds me of home.”

An invisible rope wraps around my chest and squeezes at his admission. I bet he’s never told someone that before.

Who knew the quiet, bad-boy baseball player was such a softy.

three

Lance

Present

The scent of powdery violets and vanilla in the air hits me in the face as I turn the corner near the locker room.

My steps falter as I breathe in the familiar scent.

This is the second time I’ve caught this smell in the air since I returned to the stadium for training. I shake my head and focus.

As I enter the wellness room, I grab a thick yoga mat off the wall hooks and take a spot beside our team’s catcher, Nico Romero.

I’ve been doing yoga for years now. When I joined the Evaders, yoga was built into my personal physical training schedule, and like most twenty-something guys, I thought it was ridiculous. Then I took my first class, and I was hooked.

As a first baseman, I need to be flexible, and there is no better exercise to help me maintain my mobility and prevent injury. Especially with spring training and the new season approaching, I can’t get hurt.

The next two months of training and playing in the warm desert climate are critical to our team’s strategy. We plan to come out of the gates swinging and have the rest of the teams shaking in their cleats. Our eyes are set on the prize.

Back-to-back World Series championships.

“Romero,” I greet my teammate, who grunts his hello. I unroll my mat beside him and take a seat at the top, waiting for the instructor to begin our session.

No one does more yoga and flexibility training than Nico. His job as our team’s catcher demands it. He spends hours crouching down in a squatting position. The repetition and daily physical toll are killer on his knees, hips, and back.

That’s probably why he’s such a grumpy fucker.

Or he’s grumpy because his baby sister is about to marry my buddy Cam, whom Nico used to hate with the fire of a thousand suns. It’s funny how life works out. Nico and Cam have a history filled with more beef than LA’s most popular burger stand, and soon they’ll be family.

After a few punches and a much-needed conversation, the two squashed whatever started their rivalry for the sake of the woman they both care about most. The end of their contentious relationship helped us as a team, bringing us all closer together so we could be crowned Major League Baseball’s champions.

Like my mind always does when I think about our win, it drifts back to that night.

To her.

The way her sweet perfume surrounded me as she rode me in the back of the cab. Sometimes, I can almost hear her melodic voice as she moaned my name. See her wild, curly blonde hair bouncing as her head fell back and her lips parted in ecstasy. Feel how her pussy quivered around my cock as she came.

Fuck. Not now.

I adjust my half-chub, thankful for the dimmed lights. I hate how just thinking about her makes me hard. I spent the best night of my life with her, but when I woke up, she was gone.

Shaking my head clear, I focus on the ambient music playing in the corner. The bird chirping. The harp. Anything to keep my mind off her.

“Taylor. Romero.” Reed McKay, our shortstop, unfurls a yoga mat beside me with a snap and sits down.

In all the time I’ve been coming to yoga, not once has Reed attended a class. He’s always the first to make fun of the guys who go. He can be a real dick sometimes. But it’s just his armor to keep people from digging too deep.