Cinderella Steals Home (9 page)

I suck in a deep breath.
 

I'm pretty sure I'll never be quite ready for Doan Riley.
 

***

Doan opens the passenger side door to his pick-up truck and offers me a hand. I glance down at his outstretched palm, then hoist myself into the cab of the truck without his help. I look at him as he stares back at me, a crease in his forehead, before he closes the door and walks around to the driver's side.

I'm not sure what came over me, why I don't let him help me get up. It's a nice gesture -- maybe sweet, even -- and definitely unexpected coming from Doan, but I can't bring myself to put my hand in his.

I'm nervous, my palms sweating, as he buckles his seatbelt and revs the engine. I'm instantly brought back to the first time I ever saw him, his black pick-up truck screaming down Scottsdale Road and careening to a stop in a cloud of smoke, no care for anyone around him.
 

I have to imagine that he's thinking about the same thing I am. It's a quiet, awkward car ride to the batting cages. Despite how important baseball had been to me for so much of my life, I've never been to one before and I have no idea what to expect, or what it'll be like.
 

And the fact that Doan's going to be the one who teaches me doesn't really do a lot to put me at ease.
 

"This is my favorite place in Phoenix," he says as he guides his truck into the parking lot of a driving range.
 

"I don't need to work on my golf game," I reply. He parks the truck and cuts the engine; I let out a sigh. He turns sharply and looks at me.

"What was that?" he asks.
 

I glance over at him and raise an eyebrow. "What was what?"
 

"That sigh," he says, eyes boring into me. "You didn't trust me to drive here, did you?"
 

"I got into the car, didn't I?"
 

He rubs his forehead between his thumb and his index finger. "Let's just go hit."
 

I jump down from the truck, grab my bag and walk around to the driver's side. He's still sitting in his seat, and with the tinted windows, I can't see what he's doing inside. I'm about to turn and walk in without him when the car door opens and he hops out, baseball bag slung over his shoulder.
 

He tucks a pack of cigarettes into the pocket of his shorts, and I'm surprised to see it, but don't say anything.
 

I've never been to this place before but it's clear from the whirring red lights and buzzing chimes and clangs of the carnival games that there's way more to it than just being a simple driving range. Picture any game you can imagine; I'm sure you'll find it here. Screaming children run in every direction and the sickening sugary smell of cotton candy turns my stomach.
 

I'm not sure if it's from the sweetness of the food or the nerves I seem to get whenever I'm around Doan.
 

But I feel my head start to pound almost instantly. Doan leads me through the maze of games and kids, and out back to a patio where we get in line to buy tickets for mini golf, bumper boats, sand volleyball courts and the batting cages.
 

"Oh, mini golf," I say without even really thinking about it. I turn to see if I can spot the courses. "I love it so much. I haven't played in such a long time."
 

He looks over at me. "Really? I do it all the time on weekends."
 

I don't know why, but this surprises me. Doan doesn't really strike me as the type to spend a Saturday night on the putt-putt course.
 

I'm about to say something else when the customer in front of us steps aside and Doan walks up to the window, pays for the cages and hands me a helmet.
 

"I have money," I say, reaching into my bag for my wallet.
 

"Don't be dumb," he replies, holding the helmet out to me.
 

"Seriously?" I ask, looking at it in his hand.

He nods. "Same thing as in a game. Those balls are still coming at you fast, you know."
 

I sigh; I'd never balk at wearing a batting helmet in a real game, but I feel incredibly dorky putting it on over my hair now.

Doan tucks his own helmet in the crook of his elbow and I follow him over to the batting cages.
 

"Start with this one," he says. "The pitches will come at you at 80 miles per hour." We walk inside a chain-link enclosure and he shows me where to stand on the home plate.
 

Doan feeds a machine several tokens, then takes a step back.
 

"Are you ready?" he asks, shooting me a small, unexpected smile.
 

I take a deep breath. "Ready as I'll ever be."
 

Doan gives me a funny look, but I'm barely paying attention to him right now. My knees are bent, arms about shoulder-high, bat raised above my head, eyes trained on the machine that's about to send balls flying at me from across the park.
 

The rotating arm winds up and fires the first yellow ball at me. I keep my eyes focused on it as it flies toward me. I bring my arms around and swing as hard as I can.
 

The ball hits the vinyl screen hanging on the fence behind me with a thud and I realize that I completely whiffed on the pitch.
 

I can't stop a small, frustrated sigh from squeaking out between my lips. I don't know what happened to me; I used to be money with a baseball bat in my hands. Now I can't even make enough contact with the ball to foul it off.

"It's okay, Holly," Doan says from my left. "Just get ready for the next one."

I square up to the machine a second time and wait for the pitch. It flies toward me and I close my eyes and hack at it.
 

I'm not surprised when it slams into the vinyl behind me.

Doan's chuckling softly when I open my eyes.

"That's a different strategy," he says, and I look at him sharply but there's no malice in his eyes, just a friendly, easygoing twinkle I'm not sure I ever remember seeing from him before. "But maybe we should try one that's a little bit more, uh, effective."
 

I laugh despite my frustrations. "I don't know what's wrong here."
 

He walks over to the token machine and hits the red pause button. "Okay," he says. "I know you didn't really ask for my help but I'm here and I think I have a few ideas."
 

I shrug. "It's not like I can get any worse."
 

He nods, and I think about being offended that he's agreeing that I suck but decide it isn't worth it.

Besides, he's not wrong.
 

He comes up and stands just slightly behind me, close enough that I think I can feel his breath on the back of my neck, but I'm also not sure if that's just the warm desert breeze.

"Right now,
 
your batting stance is pretty typical," he says, and I look at him over my shoulder as he mirrors my pose. "Let's change that up and see how it works. So line up as you were on home plate. We're gonna close off your stance for more power."
 

He waits as I get myself into the position I'm so used to assuming whenever I'm about to hit a baseball -- even if it's been years since it's happened. For me, I guess, playing baseball is like riding a bicycle; it's something I'll never forget how to do, even if I'm not good at it anymore.
 

"See how you have your feet squared up to the plate?" he asks, and I look down, then nod. "Try taking your foot that's closest to the pitcher's mound and place it a little bit closer to home."
 

I do as he suggests and I'm surprised when he bursts out laughing. "Not like that," he says. "Too much. Move it back a little."
 

I glare at him slightly as he directs my movements until I'm settled into a stance that he thinks looks good.
 

"And that's it?" I ask as he takes a step back toward the machine to resume the pitches.
 

He nods. "We'll see if it works. I have a few other ideas, too, though," he says, then presses the green start button.
 

I take a deep breath and wait the pitch. As it flies toward me, I swing and make contact, but the ball sails straight up in the air and bounces off the vinyl behind me.
 

"That's okay," Doan says, clapping his hands together. "At least you hit it."
 

He's right. It's more than I've been able to do since I picked up my bat again.
 

The next pitch comes at me; I wiggle the bat above my head, eye trained on the ball and at just the last second, I swing through the pitch, putting all of the power from my legs into the hit.
 

And sure enough, the ball flies out toward the machine and clangs into the chain-link fence on the other side.
 

"Well, I don't know about you," Doan says, "but I'm pretty sure if that fence wasn't there, you'd have just hit a home run."
 

It didn't feel like a home run swing to me, but I smile at him anyway, and he returns my grin.
 

For the first time since I've known him, I don't really want to fight with Doan.

***

"I think I'm done," I say after my fifth hit in a row. I've settled into a groove and I'm feeling pretty good about baseball right now.
 

"You sure?" Doan asks.

"Oh yeah. This is going too well. I don't want to ruin the vibe if I start going cold again."
 

He smiles at me. "I get that," he says. "But I think you're good with this new stance. Let's bring the helmets back if you're done."
 

I pull the batting helmet off of my sweaty hair and fluff it out with my fingers as Doan and I walk side-by-side back up to the ticket office.
 

"Can I get two for mini golf?" Doan asks the booth attendant, digging his wallet out of the back pocket of his pants.
 

"Wait, what?" I turn to him with a frown on my face.
 

He looks down at me and grins. "You said you love it but you haven't played in awhile. We're here so why not go for it, right?"
 

I look at him, surprised he even remembers I made a comment about playing mini golf at all. It just doesn't seem like something someone like him would pick up on.
 

"Well, okay." I smile at him. "Let's do it."
 

He shakes his head like he isn't sure what to think before he passes the attendant a twenty. She hands him his change, then pushes two putters across the counter toward us, and Doan holds them out to me.
 

"Pick a color, any color," he says.
 

She's given us a pink club and a green club, and I reach for the green one, then grab a purple ball to go with it.
 

"Well," Doan says, looking down at the club I left him with. "I'm all about matching my shoes to my purse, so I think I better go with the pink ball, too."
 

I can't hide my smile. "The color suits you."
 

"So you any good at this?" he asks as he tucks a scorecard into the back pocket of his shorts and we walk out toward the courses.
 

"Mini golf? Hell yeah. I'm a pro."
 

"Good," he says. "Then you don't care if we play the hard course, right?"
 

"Bring it."
 

He laughs. "Oh, it's on now."
 

I walk right up to the first tee and drop my purple ball onto the green. There are painted numbers on the sidewalk in front of the hole that indicate this round is a par 3. I vow to knock it in with just two strokes.
 

Suddenly, all I can do is think about beating Doan Riley.
 

I line my club up with the ball and carefully study the layout of the hole in front of me.
 

"Serious business," Doan jokes from behind me.
 

I spin around to look at him. "Hey now," I say with mock indignation. "I have a process here. You might be an asshole but I don't think you're the type of guy who wants to be known as a cheater at mini golf, too."
 

He flashes me an angelic, innocent smile. "Ah, you don't know me at all, Holls," he says. "But by all means, if you need perfect conditions to play your game, who am I to get in the way of that? I want to beat you at your best."
 

I shake my head and smirk, then go back to concentrating on the ball. One practice putt later and I hit the ball, angling it to swing around the curve in the course and hopefully dump right into the cup at the other end for a hole in one.
 

The ball hits the bump in the green just as I want it to but it rolls to the left of the cup and comes harmlessly to a stop near the hole; it's an easy putt but not my best play. I narrow my eyes.
 

"Not bad, not bad," Doan says, stepping up to the tee and dropping his pink ball onto the green. He hits it a second later, not bothering to line it up with the curve, and it predictably comes to a stop several feet away from the hole.
 

Good.

He frowns slightly.
 

"What's the matter?" I ask him. "Didn't go as planned?"
 

He shoots me a look. "You ever hear of just playing for fun?"

I pretend to think about this for a few seconds. "Nope," I reply. "I don't know what that means."
 

He shakes his head. "Figures."
 

I don't know if I like the way he says this, like we're suddenly not just teasing each other anymore.
 

"Something wrong?"
 

"Not at all." He nods in the direction of my ball. "Go make your putt."
 

I frown but I do like he says and tap the purple ball into the hole. "That's two for me," I say.