Leslie Kelly - Boys Of Summer - Sliding Home / Fever Pitch / The Sweet Spot

Grandma Anne hid her terror behind anger. Janie hid hers behind the store. Keeping Round The Bases up and running was the only way Janie could feel as if she were doing something for her brother. As long as he had something to come home to…well, he’d come home. She refused to think of the alternative.

She’d work at the store for as long as it took. Her degree in geriatric social work would still be there in the future. As she often reminded herself, everybody got old eventually so it wasn’t as if she was going to miss out on all the business.

Edgar tapped her arm. “Are you gonna bring me the jersey that fella says is a gen-u-ine Cal Ripken?”

“Next weekend.”

“It’s a date!”

Janie smiled at the pleasure on Edgar’s face. The man lived for baseball and loved helping her. Grandma liked the arrangement, too, because Edgar was a catch among the geriatric crowd. Janie’s need for help gave her grandmother a leg up on the other widows, who outnumbered the men two to one around here.

“Before you go, honey, would you mind dashing to my room and getting me the book on my beside table?” her grandmother said. “I think we’ll sit out here and read aloud for a spell.”

Rising, Janie brushed any stray grass off the back of her baggy jeans. “Of course,” she said before heading inside.

Once in Grandma Anne’s room, she spotted the book right away. Then she read the title: Sexual Positions For The Ages.

Janie gulped. Either her grandmother was playing a joke on her, or she was reading sex manuals aloud to her elderly boyfriend. Janie preferred to think it was a joke. Still, knowing Grandma Anne…well, anything was possible.

Determined to hand her grandmother the book and leave before any specifics were discussed—like which position was best on an eighty-year-old man’s knees—eww—she headed outside. Striding toward the shady spot where she’d left the amorous octogenarians, Janie wondered whether she’d inherited any of her grandmother’s sexual longevity. It was a serious concern, given her track record. Which was, er, uninspiring to say the least.

Yes, she’d started out with a bang, her first sexual affair being with a fellow college student—a musician—who’d introduced her to every naughty little thing a mouth could be used for. And she’d discovered she liked those things. Really liked them. Janie had, in fact, pretty much sixty-nined her way through senior year.

But when they weren’t making it in her narrow dorm room bed, they’d had almost nothing to talk about. Eventually, even the sex hadn’t been enough to make her put up with his laziness.

Since then, she’d been darn near celibate. Considering she was short, relatively flat-chested, always kept her long, boring brown hair in a ponytail and wore glasses—she liked to sleep late, and wearing glasses allowed her to spend an extra five minutes in bed every morning instead of putting in contact lenses—maybe that wasn’t so surprising. A femme fatale she was not, even if she did like sex more than she liked to breathe. Now that she worked in a store where ninety percent of her customers were jocks who liked cheerleader types, the thought that she might meet someone who would see the sex-addicted female beneath the bookish exterior seemed to have flown right out into left field.

Oooh, a baseball analogy. Maybe she was getting good at this sports thing. “Or is it football?” she mused aloud.

Deep in thought trying to remember the basics of team sports, she barely noticed that her grandmother and Mr. Smith were no longer alone. She was just a few feet away, coming over the top of a small hill that hid them from view, when she saw they had company. And what company.

Janie froze. Because when she saw the man in the dark glasses sitting on the blanket she’d vacated five minutes before, she thought she was part of some undercover video show. A camera crew had to be nearby. They’d be ready to catch the moment when the skinny volunteer came face-to-face with a man who looked like he’d stepped out of the pages of some women’s fantasy magazine.

Yeah. Good TV. The unsuspecting victim goes to retrieve a naughty book and comes back to find a sex god’s perfect butt occupying her spot. Sounded like a great setup since it was so far from reality. Because guys like this—perfect, mouthwatering, to-die-for gorgeous guys—did not stumble across the paths of the Janie Nolans of the world. And they certainly didn’t place their rock-hard tushes and firm thighs on their blankets.

No. The nonglamorous Janies of the world only met horny college students who’d be loyal to even plain girls if they sucked them off on occasion. Or beefy jocks who didn’t notice them. Or nice teachers. Or store clerks whose clothes never fit right because they waited to purchase them at the deepest discount…like one man she’d dated. Guys who had never once been overpowered by uncontrollable lust, and certainly not by anything resembling love. Not where Janie was concerned.

She simply wasn’t capable of inspiring that kind of emotion in a man. She doubted she ever would be.

And she most certainly would not with a strong, powerful specimen like this one, with his thick, sandy brown hair blowing loosely in the breeze, his stubbled, lean cheeks, and a sexy pair of lips that were curled in a playful grin. His long legs were stretched out in front of him as he leaned back, bracing his weight on his elbows. The position emphasized the thick muscles striping his shoulders and chest. More devastating was the way it tugged his khaki slacks tightly across his impressive lap.

Very tightly…and very impressive.

Gulping, she reminded herself to breathe. Not stare. And lap leering is out.

The man was laughing at something Edgar said, a low sound that warmed her from a few feet away. His amusement brought out two deep dimples in his cheeks. Recognizable dimples. Suddenly shaken out of her lap-induced dementia, Janie realized whom she was staring at. “Oh God.”

It was Riley Kelleher, aka Riley the Rocket, aka the sexy, studly star pitcher who played for the Louisville Slammers and owned the heart of the city. Not just the women’s hearts, either—all the fans adored him. The man was often called the soul of the team, with everyone taking pride in his prowess and his love of the game.

She’d seen his picture in the paper—especially a few years ago when he was going through a divorce that had shocked even the most jaded sports fan—but he was so much better-looking in person that she simply hadn’t recognized him. But there was no doubt that one of the most sought-after bachelors—and talked-about playboys—in baseball was chatting up her elderly grandma.

“Janie! Here you are,” Mr. Smith said as he spotted her.

Wishing she’d turned around and walked away, Janie trudged closer to the old man who said, “Isn’t this a nice surprise? My grandson’s come to visit. I’ve been wanting you two to meet.”

Grandson. Janie’s breath escaped her lungs in one giant gush. Good grief, no wonder Mr. Smith knew so much about baseball—his grandson was one of the stars of the sport.

Though Janie’s dislike of baseball—and playboy baseball players, no matter how gorgeous—was matched only by her dislike of going to the dentist, she managed a weak smile. “Hi.”

The pitcher, whose reputation as a stud off the field was as well known as his abilities on it, slowly tilted his head back and looked up at her. Janie shifted from foot to foot and clenched her hands together like a starstruck teenager in front of a member of some boy band. Which was so not her, considering she didn’t hold sports figures up as heroes.

But being honest, it wasn’t his status that had twisted her tongue into an incoherent knot in her mouth. It was his looks.