@monkshoodr: Mike makes a hilarious blooper at first base and Ginny won’t let him live it down
Listen, mike’s not the only one who can be juvenile.
“That was number two on this week’s Not Top Ten, now let’s see number one.”
Ginny stifled a giggle, though she knew exactly what was coming next. She’d already watched the clip ten times. She could practically recite it word-for-word.
“Game two of the Padres-Diamondbacks series, Mike Lawson out at first manages to snag a line drive, only for the ball to fall right out of his glove. As if that’s not bad enough, he loses track of where it goes! Watch him turn around twice looking for it!”
A new voice cut in, clearly trying not to break on air. “Unfortunately, his feet do his glove’s work. The veteran catcher trips on the ball and goes down hard. Thankfully the play ended before he could hurt himself much more.”
She watched as Mike on the screen flipped the ball to Sonny covering first, all without climbing to his feet. He sat in the dirt for a few moments before making his way upright again. The camera panned to the dugout, where it caught Ginny practically doubled over in laughter.
One of the SportsCenter announcers pointed her out.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones enjoying this play. That’s Ginny Baker, Mike Lawson’s teammate, finding the humor in the situation.”
The voices buzzed for a few more moments before cutting out, but Ginny was too busy remembering the way her sides had ached, that was how hard seeing Mike stunned in the dirt had made her laugh, to notice.
When he’d come back into the dugout, she couldn’t help but stare at the dust caked to his ass. That quickly led to several not-so-idle thoughts about whether or not he was hurt and what it would be like to kiss him bett—Nope. Not going there.
Off-balance, she’d blurted, “You break a hip out there, old man?”
Salvi had snorted and Dusty offered her a fist bump, which Ginny took gleefully.
Mike just rolled his eyes, as he stashed his glove in favor of his batting helmet. “Hilarious, Baker,” he tossed over his shoulder before climbing out of the dugout again. He was on deck.
The fact that his next hit was a smash deep over the right center wall meant most everyone forgave and forgot the error.
Not Ginny, though.
She asked Eliot to look out for any tweets about the error, and sent all the good ones straight to Mike’s official account. Ginny wasn’t sure that he checked it that often, but it’d be a nice surprise when he got around to it. She even pinned a tweet with a gif of Mike endlessly turning in confusion, like a dog chasing his tail, to the top of her feed. Every time she saw it there, she’d giggle and make sure to show it to Mike again. He, inevitably, would just roll his eyes and try to change the subject.
Now, more than a week later, Ginny’s still left a King Size Butterfinger in his locker every day. Mike’s played first a couple of times since without incident, but Ginny made sure she ribbed him every single game.
She got fewer laughs from the guys every time, but it felt good to tease Mike again. Felt good to even talk to him at all.
Things had been… weird this season. Stilted and awkward.
To be fair, she knew exactly why things were stilted and awkward. She wasn’t stupid. But Ginny’d found it was much easier not to talk about it if she didn’t think about it, either.
But of course, trying not to think about something only guaranteed that it would be on her mind. Like all the damn time. Every other thought, it seemed, Ginny had to yank herself out of before it could lead her down a dangerous path.
Which certainly didn’t make things any less awkward. She felt completely out of step with Mike and knew it was only a matter of time before other people started to notice.
Before it could come to that, though, Ginny made a discovery.
Laughing at Mike, making fun of the stupid errors he made out at first, made it much easier to focus on him as her teammate rather than some ridiculous, hypothetical… something.
Better to be breathless with laughter than with wanting what she couldn’t have.
So, Ginny had reason to be in a good mood. She could finally look Mike in the eye again and things were slowly inching back towards normalcy. Maybe they’d be able to have an actual conversation in the near future without Ginny needing to either A) say something teasingly mean to distract herself or B) run away rather than do something very very stupid.
She was feeling so pleased with herself that she didn’t even notice Blip’s presence at her dressing room door.
“Are you watching that SportsCenter clip again?”
Ginny shoved her phone in her pocket and whirled to face him. “No.”
It wasn’t really a lie. She wasn’t watching it anymore.
“You need to lay off him, it’s getting old and it’s starting to bug him.”
Ginny frowned. Mike’s reaction to her teasing hadn’t really changed since she first busted a gut laughing at him. He’d roll his eyes or flick the brim of her cap, but didn’t bother responding much beyond that.
Which. Now that she thought about it, was weird in and of itself. Mike Lawson passing up the chance for a smart-mouthed comment?
Last season, it would have been unimaginable.
Now, though…
“Mike’s a grown up,” she protested, more to silence the blooming doubt in her mind than in response to Blip. “If he couldn’t take a joke here or there, he wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“Yeah, a joke or two. But when your favorite teammate suddenly can’t stop ragging on you? That’s gotta be pretty hard to deal with.”
“I’m not Lawson’s favorite.”
Blip looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a third arm. “I know it must be hard for you to see a world where I am not everyone’s favorite,” he said, laying a hand dramatically against his heart, “but you’re clearly his favorite, Ginny.”
“No, I’m not!” she insisted, though she wasn’t sure why it was so important that Blip agree with her.
Maybe because it was much harder to not think about things with the added knowledge that she and Mike were each other’s favorites.
Blip’s eyes narrowed, and Ginny had the irrational fear that he could read every single racing thought in her head. It wasn’t fair that in return, he had such a good poker face. She had no clue what was going on in that brain of his, just that he probably knew too much for his (and her) own good.
Finally, he sighed. “You know how when you were a kid and you saw a little boy chasing after a little girl, trying to pull on her pigtails?”
“Yeah,” she replied, in the dark as to where this was going.
“And you know how everyone always said it was just because the boy had a crush on the girl and didn’t know how to tell her?”
She nodded, mortification setting in as she realized what Blip was driving at.
Of course, he couldn’t just leave it up to her to figure out. No, he had to be crystal clear.
“Stop pulling Mike’s pigtails, Ginny. You’re not being subtle.“
A semi-hysterical giggle threatened to well up at the thought of Mike with pigtails, but she managed to keep it together. Still, Blip gave her one last significant look before leaving her in peace.
She thought she’d been so slick, but if anyone was going to figure her out it would have been Blip. Out of everyone on the team, he definitely knew her best and probably held that honor for Lawson, too. It didn’t help that he loved a good mystery and was too observant for his own good. Ginny buried her face in her hands At least he had the decency to tell her in private and she knew without a doubt he wouldn’t spill what he knew to anyone else.
(Well, almost anyone, Ginny realized not five minutes later as her phone buzzed with a bombardment of over-excited text messages before lighting up with a call when she didn’t respond fast enough.
After all, a smart man didn’t keep secrets from his wife.)
i'm dying! to death! 