Chapter 4
It takes to the third ring before I’m actually sure what it is I’m hearing. “Hello?”
“Time to get up!”
I pry one eye open to look at the clock. “It’s seven,” I manage to growl out. “We agreed we were sleeping in.”
“You usually get up at 5:30. It’s a big day Donna! Up and at ‘em.”
“It’s seven,” I repeat.
“It starts at two! Get up!”
“It’s seven.”
“Batting practice starts at one! Come on!”
“It’s seven.”
“The gates open at 12:30! You have to be there when the gates open! You have to!”
“But it’s seven.”
“It’s a half hour subway ride! There’s no time to waste!”
“Seven.”
“It’s a ten minute walk to the right line, and then a five minute walk once we get off the subway! It’s a beautiful day! Let’s go!”
"It’s seven.”
“You keep saying that.”
“We need to leave here...”
“No later than 11:15. Earlier to be safe.”
“Call me back at 10:15.” And I hang up. Great, now I have to pee.
**********
I’m awoken again by the ringing phone. Is it 10:15 already? “Hello?”
“Good morning!” He is too chipper for his own good.
“Is it 10:15?”
“Almost! Get up!”
“What’s almost?”
“8:05.”
“10:15,” I growl out, hanging up on him again. This time I stare at the ceiling for a few minutes. I need sleep. I must sleep. We got back to the hotel at three o’clock and I spent the next two hours trying to get my mind to convince my heart that I hadn’t just been on the best date of my life. I need sleep.
**********
What is that? Is that a knock? Is someone knocking on my door? I glance at the clock. 8:30. I’m gonna kill him. I stand up and untwist my tank top from around my body before rubbing my eyes on the way to the door. I look through the peephole and see Josh on other side with two cups of coffee in his hands, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet, the smile of a ten year-old on his face, looking as though he had ten hours of sleep. Damn he’s cute.
Not to be thrown by his boyish charm, I throw open the door and shout rather loudly, “It’s not 10:15.”
He looks at me and his smile fades as his eyes pop open further. His mouth opens a little but he doesn’t say anything. His gaze drifts down my body and back up to my face, but not quite to my eyes. Ok…
“Hello?” I say, not quite as harshly this time, because, well… I’m not sure why.
Still he stares at me, hard, his breathing becoming a bit shallow. Is he ok?
“Are one of those for me?” I ask, reaching my hand out for one of the coffees. He doesn’t look down at them; he just reaches them both towards me. I’m not completely sure he knows what’s going on, he doesn’t look so good right now, so I cock my hip out to hold the door open and reach forward and take both of them from him.
And then his hands are on my cheeks and he’s kissing me. What the hell? Did I miss something?
Now I’m kissing back. I must’ve missed something somewhere. I don’t have time to ponder what it is I missed, because tongues are tracing lips, lips are sucking on lips, tongues are dancing together… we’re pretty good at this.
We break apart after quite a bit of time has passed and stare at each other in shock and let’s face it, arousal. He stammers back against the opposite wall in the small hallway in my room, breathing heavily and staring at me with wet lips, neither of us speaking.
I’m the first one to say anything and it’s, “Uhh…” Not quite the clever response I was going for.
“Oops,” he replies.
I wonder if I look like him. Kind of scared and turned on and amazed and confused all at once. “We uh…”
“Yeah,” he says, in far too sexy of a voice, but with wide eyes.
We stare at each other for another minute. “That’s probably not…”
“In the office handbook,” he finishes.
“Right.”
Another minute goes by and it’s weird because we’re never this quiet around each other. Finally, he rubs his hand over his face “I didn’t mean to …. oh shit. That was bad.”
My eyes get bigger, if that’s even possible. “It was?”
He holds up a finger to me and takes a few more breaths. “Not the act itself.” He pauses again and then his eyes widen in fright. “Don’t be mad.”
I dumbly nod. “Ok.”
He moves further into the room and starts pacing. “It was an accident, that’s all it was.”
I notice I’m still propping the door open, so I walk in and let it shut behind me and I put the coffees down on the dresser by my suitcase. “Right, we just bumped into each other. It happens.”
And then the most amazing thing happens. He stops pacing and looks at me. Then he laughs. “I didn’t mean that kind of an accident.”
“Oh.” I’m not real sure what’s going on and I admit to being a bit dazed.
He looks back at the ground and resumes his pacing, gesturing between the two of us. “I… last night… and it was like… and then…” He stands up and looks at me. “And you look…” He stares at me for several seconds then looks back at the ground and resumes his pacing. “I couldn’t help it.”
Well, I’m not real sure what he said but… “Yeah, that’s why I… you know… kissed back. Same reasons.”
He looks up at me. “Right. So I got distracted and it was temporary insanity and…” he stops talking.
“It won’t happen again,” I say in a voice that makes it come out almost like a question.
He pauses a minute and finally drawls out, “Right. Because…”
We’re having trouble getting this out. “We… work together and it would be…”
“Bad,” he says in a voice that doesn’t sound too convincing. I nod. “Well, not bad, clearly, but inappropriate.”
I bite my lower lip and he moans a bit. “Because it wasn’t bad.”
He shakes his head. “No. Not bad at all.”
“I mean, if one were to judge it based solely on content…” See, I shouldn’t be bringing that up.
“They’d say it was un-bad. They might even say good.”
“Really good.”
He takes a step towards me. “Amazing even.”
“Phenomenal.”
Another step. “Explosive.” And then just as suddenly, he stops moving towards me. “But…”
“But we’re not going to do it again. Right?” My voice kind of betrayed me there.
He takes a giant step back. “Right.”
I nod. “Ok.” I take a deep breath. “That’s for the best.”
“Absolutely.” He doesn’t sound too sure of that.
We look at each other and I can feel awkwardness enter the room, so I go for banter. It’s always saved us in the past. “It’s not 10:15.”
“What?”
“10:15. I said you could call back at 10:15. Instead, you show up here at 8:30 and…” I wave my hands around.
“Breakfast.”
“Breakfast?”
He nods and smiles just a little. “I thought if I offered to buy you breakfast, you’d get up.”
Then I smile back and the awkwardness starts to go. “That’s pretty smart of you.”
He smirks and it leaves altogether. “Yes, I know.”
I shake my head at him. “I’m getting in the shower. I want French toast.”
“The shower.” He looks towards the bathroom. “I probably shouldn’t be here for that.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” I say chuckling as I head towards the bathroom feeling mostly normal again. When I get inside I look at my disheveled appearance in the mirror and make some sort of choking sound.
“What?” he asks, walking to the bathroom door.
“You’ve seen me after I’ve spent good money having my hair and make-up professionally done, wearing dresses that cost hundreds of dollars, but I look like this and you…”
He shrugs and flashes his dimples. “Every man has his breaking point.”
I look back in the mirror. I look pretty rumpled. My hair is in a ponytail that isn’t at its best, hair sticking out all over the place and I’ve got no make-up on. I’m wearing an old tank top with a frayed out hem and blue medical scrub bottoms, the one thing I kept from the Dr. FreeRide days. At least I brushed my teeth when he woke me up the first time. I look back at him through the mirror. “And this was yours?”
He tilts his head and looks at me through the mirror then finally nods. “Apparently so.”
**********
Forty-five minutes later, he knocks on my door again. I, being… me, walk up to it and look through the peep hole, then say, “I’m answering the door now. Try not to have anymore accidents.”
“You’re very funny,” he sneers, giving the door a nasty look, which makes me laugh. “Open up.”
I open the door. “You took both coffees when you left.”
He looks at me pointedly. “That’s cause you were mean.”
I give a look of innocence. “Me? When?”
“Just now.”
I smile. “But you took them forty-five minutes ago.”
He smirks. “Yes, but I knew you’d be mean when I got back.”
I think for a minute and then nod. “That was a safe bet.” I grab my purse and we head down the hall. “How ‘bout this? No more teasing about the accident.”
He nods. “I think that’s for the best.”
Now I smirk. “Of course you do, you caused the accident.”
He presses the button for the elevator. “But I wasn’t the only one participating in the accident.”
Got to give him that one. “True.”
“And as I’m sure you can tell, all things are normal again and there will be no more accidents. Here, you need this,” he says, handing me a baseball mitt. I notice he has another one in his hand.
I take it from him and stare at it for a minute. “We’re not actually playing for the Mets today, right? Cause if so, I could’ve used a bit more practice.”
He smiles. “Clever. We’re sitting on the first-base line. A prime place to catch foul balls.”
“We both need mitts?”
He shrugs. “Twice the chances.”
“But if I catch one, I’ll be expected to give it to you, right?”
He shakes his head. “A man doesn’t want a foul ball caught by someone else. It only counts if he catches it himself.”
“Counts?”
“Yeah.”
“I had no idea.”
He puts his hand on my lower back as we enter the lobby. “You’ve got a lot to learn today.”
I smile widely at him. This feels like us. “Apparently so.”