Faster speed? More endurance? To look ripped?

Baseball players are not football players. You don’t see too many of them walking around like the cover models of fitness magazines.

Often enough, I’ve heard my sister complain about our baggy pants and baggy shirts, about our players having no definition. Basically the dad bod of professional athletes.

So if he’s seriously trying to pump himself up, people will notice. And when they do, there will be consequences.

Besides, how dumb do you have to be to call the fucking owner’s granddaughter a snob? To call the general manager’s daughter a princess? That shit doesn’t fly—we have our own set of rules down in the locker room, our own code of conduct that has nothing to do with the establishment’s. First one: don’t shit where you eat.

Meaning: don’t piss off the boss by insulting his family.

Second? If you have a side piece, don’t bring her to the game—any game.

Thirdly? If you’re dating someone new, do not have her sit in the family suite with the wives. Too much gossip—too many diamonds and expensive purses fill a new girlfriend’s head with all the wrong ideas.

With Hollis, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.

Hollis is the game. I don’t have to play it.

“You should call her,” Noah tells me, as if it weren’t obvious. We’re in his kitchen and I’m eating a slice of leftover pizza I nabbed out of his fridge. I was enjoying it, but now it’s just a lump of dough in the pit of my stomach.

“I will.”

I’ll do one better; I’ll head directly to her place from Harding’s so I can see her face, gauge her mood. Is she going to blame me for this? Is she going to hold this against me and all other men who come after Marlon, for the rest of her life?

Dramatic, sure. Unhealthy, yes.

I’ve been to her place to pick her up twice now already and know the way like the back of my hand. It’s late afternoon, and I imagine she’s probably starting dinner—or crying, or stuffing a voodoo doll. I brace myself for an argument.

Unless she’s not alone.

Which is exactly the case when I arrive.

Hollis is not the face that greets me at the door and for a moment, I step back to check the number on the outside of the building to make sure I’m at the right address.

Seven one five.

This is the place, but that isn’t Hollis.

“What do you want?” the girl—her best friend, I think—rudely asks, only cracking the door open a few inches, a gold chain linked near the top.

She catches me off guard and I waver. So unlike me—I always have something to say. “Is Hollis here?”

“Obviously.” The friend rolls her eyes, and I wish I could remember her fucking name. Madge? Brittany? Sue?

“Can I talk to her?”

“What for?” The pretty brunette narrows her heavily mascaraed eyes into slits. “Here to rub salt in the wound that is her love life?”

“Huh?”

“Did that dickhead teammate of yours send you? Huh? Huh!”

“My dickhead teammate doesn’t know I’m here because he has absolutely nothing to do with the reason I’m here.”

“So you admit he’s a dickhead.”

“Yes.”

She sighs, reaching up to unlatch the chain, opening the door for me to enter. “Fine, you can come in.”

“What was the secret password?” I want to know, stepping into Hollis’s entryway, sliding my shoes off. I don’t know if that’s the rule here, but I don’t want to find out the hard way. Plus, it’s nice flooring and I’d hate to scuff it with my beat-up sneaks.

“Secret password?” Now the girl is acting perplexed.

“What made you let me in?”

“Oh—Hollis is in the bathroom, but we saw you drive up through the window. She told me to let you in to wait. She’ll be right out.”

What the fuck? Jesus, this girl is the female version of…

Me.

I have no interest in getting into a battle of wills with her while I wait for Hollis, hands stuffed into the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt with the Steam’s logo emblazoned across the front. It has a comfy kangaroo pocket and that’s where I bury my paws.

“You can come into the kitchen,” she says, leading me into the next room.

My eyes dart around, drinking in the living room as we pass it. Learning Hollis’s style. Looking at the bold artwork hanging on her walls, the stark white color of them. The bright pink and blue pillows on her white couch. The red square rug on the hardwood floor.

“Hey,” the friend says, snapping her fingers. “Eyes to the front, pal.”

She doesn’t want me rubbernecking, staring off into Hollis’s place and I don’t blame her for not trusting me.

Hollis’s townhouse is standard, narrow and stacked and several stories high. Living room and dining on the main floor, kitchen probably on the second, bedrooms on the third.