20. Baylor

CHAPTER TWENTY

BAYLOR

“Coach, who’s the best team in the MLB?”

“The Mariners, of course.”

“And the worst team?” the reporter asked.

Casey looked right into the camera and smiled smugly. “The Padres, hands down.” He was talking to me! I had let it slip that I watched these interviews with him in the locker room, and he knew I would see this. The feeling warmed my belly, like swallowing a shot of whiskey.

“Do you know any Padres fans, Coach?” Sean asked.

“I might know one.” He winked. At me ! “Of course, he has terrible taste in everything, so I’m not surprised he likes the Padres.”

Casey was probably on the field right now with his team, practicing. Was he thinking about last night? How he broke me down piece by piece out on that field and then put me back together again in the cab of his truck? I’d never felt anything like that in my life. Casey made me feel… Everything . Safe, desired, completely wicked. Vulnerable. I didn’t think sex with him would ever become boring.

The Padres are only 12 spots behind the Mariners in the ranking.

Several minutes passed before he responded.

Coach:

they might as well drop out of professional baseball

Two minutes later, another text came through.

Coach:

How’s your ass?

The warmth in my belly spread up to my chest to my face.

Sore. Just like you wanted.

This time, his reply was immediate.

Coach:

I did. Reminds you who it belongs to.

Like I could forget. His was the only dick that had ever been inside of it.

Later that night, as I sat in front of the TV with the pizza I ordered, I received another text from him.

Coach:

Rawlings says hi. I think she misses you.

The text was followed by a picture of something she had gotten into and made a mess of on the floor. Something red. I zoomed in on the picture to try to see… my foam Padres finger! How dare she!

Rawlings owes me! Tell her I’m very, very disappointed in her.

Coach:

It seems my dog has better taste than you do.

The following day, I hadn’t heard from him by lunchtime, and I was jonesing for some attention.

Do you happen to have any more of those wooden boxes lying around? I asked the manager of my building and he said he wouldn’t mind having one out front.

And I wouldn’t mind watching him sweaty and shirtless as he installed it.

Coach:

No, but I’ll get started on making one right away.

That was all he had to say. No more texts. No phone call. Nothing. Was he busy? Was he practicing? Was he ignoring me? For the next three hours, I was hyper-fixated on that thought until I finally broke down and called .

Thank God, he answered right away.

“Yeah?” He sounded less than thrilled.

My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” he huffed and blew out a heavy breath. “A family of raccoons got in through the doggie door leading in from my back deck. They’ve torn everything apart and are making a mess everywhere. I can’t find them or catch them, but I’m afraid the mama is pregnant and there’s about to be an even bigger family. And a bigger mess.” Something loud crashed in the background, followed by Rawlings’s barking. “Shit, I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll be right over,” I hurried to say.

A family of raccoons? Jesus Christ. This was totally out of my wheelhouse, but I couldn’t let him try to handle it alone. What if they were rabid? What kind of other diseases did raccoons carry? What if they bit Rawlings? I grabbed a handful of supplies I thought might help and my keys and hurried out the door.

Twenty minutes later, Casey answered the door, his fine sandy hair standing on end, sweaty and disheveled. His beautiful face was flushed. “Come on in,” he offered, leaving the door open.

I set my keys and phone down on his entry table and he handed me a flashlight. “Why is the house so dark?”

“They’re nocturnal. I thought the darkness would draw them out.” He also held a flashlight and shined it on my hands. “What did you bring a plastic bag for?”

“I don’t know. I thought it might help. ”

“What are you going to do, asphyxiate them? Here.” He handed me a baseball bat. “Be prepared to use it.”

“We can’t kill them!”

“Oh my God, what kind of man do you take me for!? I’m just going to shoo them back out the door.”

“Of course,” I said, sounding disbelieving. Casey glared, which I could see even in the darkness.

“Follow me.”

I followed him down the hall, hot on his heels, shining the flashlight over his shoulder, and when he got to the kitchen, he stopped short, and I ran into his back.

“Do you have to follow so closely?” he hissed.

“Sorry,” I apologized, taking a step back.

“Just before you showed up, I heard something in here.” Quietly, he opened every cabinet on the bottom row. “I don’t see a damn thing,” he said, crouching low and shining his light inside.

“Me neither. I don’t hear anything, either.” And then we did, a soft scratching sound. “Is that Rawlings?” I whispered.

“No, I locked her in my bedroom.”

“Should we just run and call an exterminator?”

“Hell no,” he hissed. “We can do this. We’re big, strong, scary men with baseball bats and plastic bags. We’ve got this.”

“Right,” I agreed, not feeling very confident in our ability to capture a family of raccoons without ending up in the ER.

Casey reached for the warming drawer on the bottom of the stove, carefully sliding it open. He shined his light, and they reflected in the wide, scared eyes of the raccoon. “Shit!” He shut the drawer quickly. “That’s the mama.”

“What are we gonna do?” I whispered.

“Fucking beats me. Wait, grab a sheet pan from my cabinet.” I reached for the nearest one. “No, the one beside that one. I’ve got a big-ass pizza pan in there.” It sure was big. He could make four pizzas on this thing. “I’ll open the drawer, slide the pan on top of it, and then take the whole drawer outside. How does that sound?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Trying not to make too much noise and scare the raccoon, I slid the pan out of the cabinet and handed it to Casey.

“On the count of three,” he said. “One, two, three.”

I held my breath in my chest as he slid the door open slowly. The mama hadn’t moved because she’d already given birth. I shined my light and saw eight pairs of tiny eyes glowing back at me. She had four babies nursing on her belly.

“Where’s the dad?”

“Who the hell knows?” He slid the pan on top of the drawer before sliding it out of the oven completely. “Turn the light on and open the back door for me.” I rushed to my feet, hitting the light switch before throwing his door wide. “Come on, mama,” he cooed. “Time to find you a new home outside.”

I realized his backyard was a construction site. Pieces of spare wood were stacked in a pile next to his barbecue grill. Buckets of paint and an extension ladder lined the left fence. This was where he worked, where he created all those beautiful libraries he donated .

“Grab the tarp over there for me.” It was blotched with paint. I grabbed it and followed him to the back of the yard. He set the warming drawer down by the oak tree and took the tarp from me, spreading it in a nest-like shape. Then Casey slid the pan on the top of the warming drawer and carefully lifted out the mama. He laid her in the nest, followed by her babies. “Here you go, little lady. Here’re your babies.”

We stood side-by-side, my shoulder brushing against his, and shined our lights down on the nest, watching the babies nurse. “You think they’ll be okay out here?” he asked me.

Like I knew shit about raccoons. “Sure. This is the perfect spot for them.”

“I better let Rawlings out. She’s probably scared shitless.”

That did it. That was the moment I knew I was head over heels for Casey Collins. He didn’t care about the mess in his house. He cared about the safety of a mama raccoon who had just given birth. He cared about his dog being afraid. Last night he treated me to a slushy, not because he had a sweet tooth, but because he cared about my feelings. He had the biggest, kindest heart. He spent his precious few free hours making mini libraries to donate to the community. There was no question Casey was a good man. And there was no question about the way he made me feel inside. The way he turned and twisted my guts into a blissful mess. I couldn’t stop thinking about this man .

He consumed my thoughts. He ruled my body’s responses. He fucking owned me.

Swallowing all of that back down from wherever it came from, I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Do you need a hand cleaning up inside?”

Casey smiled gratefully. “That would be great. It’s already late. Have you eaten?”

“Yeah, have you?”

“Yeah. Do you, uh, do you want to stay over?” He stammered over his words shyly.

Fuck yes! “Only if your dog apologizes to me.”

Casey chuckled, sounding super sexy. “She shouldn’t have to apologize for being a Mariners fan.”