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Millie and Yadi both jerk back.

“What?”

“Que?”

“I’ll hire you,” I repeat, and Millie cocks her head to the side.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I’m not joking.”

Yadi exhales audibly and sets his chin in his hands, as if watching a telenovela. He tried to get me to watch one with him on the plane coming back from spring training, swearing I’d love it. That he, his siblings, and mother are all obsessed with it. Would gather around their tiny television to watch it. At that point in his little heartwarming story, I put in my earbuds and closed my eyes.

Now, I wonder if my family and I had gathered around a tiny television to watch something together, I’d be able to have a conversation with Millie without fucking it all up. Instead of this…

“I’ll hire you.”

“As what? You’re a baseball player. I’m…nobody.”

How very wrong she is.

“I need a personal assistant. I’ll hire you,” I tell her, and Yadi stifles his laughter. I barely refrain from punching his pitching arm.

He merely shakes his head and says something in low and quick Spanish that I suspect means something like You’re on your own with this one. Then he offers Millie a bow of his head. “Nice meeting you. Maybe I will see you later.”

He winks at her, earning a smile, and I hate him so much.

Because then she faces me, all enjoyment gone. “You don’t want to hire me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Okay.” I shrug. “Tell me about yourself.”

CHAPTER 3

MILLIE

I stare at Austin Ashwood. For a long time. So long that he eventually clears his throat, evidently waiting for me to tell him about myself. But… “I don’t understand.”

“You need a job. I have one for you.”

I’m not sure if my neurons aren’t firing properly, or if it’s simply being in his presence that has twisted my brain into a ball of yarn. He stands a few inches over six feet, and my mind wanders down a path about how long his arms are. Trying to guess his wingspan. The wandering albatross’s is anywhere between eight and eleven feet. The longest was measured at twelve from tip to tip. I once read a study about⁠—

“Is Millie short for anything?” he asks, interrupting my train of thought.

“Oh, um. No. I’m Millie. Just Millie.”

He rubs at his beard, thick and dark, and I have the most intrusive impulse I’ve had in a long time…to touch it. Rub my cheek on it. Scrub my fingertips over the bristles. It’s probably scratchy. Instead, I tug at the hem of his jersey I bought the other day. It was on sale for cheap.

Makes me wonder if he’s offended I didn’t put more effort into my choice. If he’s upset I’m not an actual fan of his. Or of baseball in general.

I go to Noah’s games, though I mostly find it boring.

But the longer we stand here, staring at each other, I don’t think he’s offended or mad. From what I know of him, he has a temper, and I would assume if he’s truly upset, he’d let me know. He wouldn’t wait patiently for me to gather my thoughts together and spiral out about something that isn’t happening.

“Sorry.” I shake my hands out between us. “I’m just… I’m thrown off by all of this, and I don’t know what to say.”