“I’m a numbers girl,” Cici said, as they walked into the stadium and past a row of food vendors. The smells were intense and she’d never wanted a hot dog and beer as badly. She knew the beer was out but a hotdog with mustard and onions. That would be…perfection.
She suspected it was pregnancy but she also knew she wanted a distraction. Baseball and men. She should have known better than to combine the two. It was her weakness.
“Want a hot dog?” she asked.
“I’d rather know why you love baseball,” Hoop replied, but he made his way to the vendor closest to them and got in line. “I know a lot of people who are good with numbers who don’t have a passion for the game.”
“That’s personal.”
“It’s how we are going to get to know one another better,” Hoop said.
“Really?” she asked. But she remembered the other night and how talking with him about the uncomfortable stuff had helped.
“Yes,” he said. “What do you want on your dog?”
“Mustard and onions,” she said.
“Drink?”
Beer. But she couldn’t. Her grandmother talked about how she’d drank and smoked while she’d been pregnant with Cici’s mom, to which Cici’s mom always quipped “look how normal I am”, but Cici wasn’t taking any chances.
“I’ll have a soda.”
“Wait for me over there?” he asked, gesturing to a spot where the crowds were thin.
She walked over there, noting that a cool breeze blew up from the opening. She watched Hoop. He was tall and handsome but more than that he seemed to have a kind soul. She had never had a good radar with men. She knew this. And given that her first impression of him had been dead wrong, she was afraid to trust her instincts where he was concerned.
She’d liked him, he’d rejected her, she had acted impulsively. She rubbed her hands over her lower stomach where her little bean was nestled.
He came over with their food and led the way up to their seats. She ignored some of the jeers she got as they sat down. She just smiled and ate her hotdog. Hayley had made her some kale chips which Cici dug out of her bag. Hayley wanted her to eat healthily. Iona was convinced that Cici wasn’t getting enough exercise and had taken to stopping by her apartment every morning before work to walk through Central Park with her.
She sighed, offering a kale chip to Hoop.
“No way. It’s bad enough I’m sitting with a Red Sox fan, I’m not eating pretend chips.”
“They taste better than you might think,” she said.
“That’s because nothing really tastes like cardboard,” he said, taking a swallow of his beer. “This is nice.”
So many times she’d felt alone in life but Hayley and Iona were sisters of the heart. She’d gotten lucky one of her exes had dated all three of them at the same time. Without him she would never have met Iona or Hayley and started the Candied Apple & Cafe. She tried not to dwell on the fact that something good had come out of her bad taste in men.
“It is nice,” she said. But she knew she wasn’t talking about the weather or even about the game that was about to start. She was slowly coming to find that Hoop wasn’t like the other guys she’d known. He was different.
It had been hard to see at first because of his floppy hair and the way his jeans hugged his ass, but there was more to Hoop than his sexy smile and the butterflies he made her feel. He was a nice guy. A good guy. Someone she had to get to know more.
At the bottom of the fifth, the Red Sox were up by two and Cici wasn’t feeling the love from the others around her. Except for Hoop who couldn’t stop smiling at her.
She stood up to cheer.
“Cici.”
“Yes?”
He didn’t say another word, just lowered his head and their lips brushed. There was that electric buzz that went from her lips through her entire body. She closed her eyes and felt the brush of his breath over her lips before he kissed her. He pushed his tongue into her mouth with a gentle caress and she pulled him closer, going up on her tiptoes to deepen the embrace.
He smelled of summer. Sunshine and beer and hotdogs. And some scent that was just Hoop. He held her close and she felt like she wasn’t alone.
Damn.
She wanted to pull him closer and take more from him. Take everything that he had to give her and keep it. But she wasn’t sure that was possible.
He was strong, so she wanted to borrow his strength. She wanted to figure out how he was able to always be that way when she’d been faking for too long.
He kept his hands on her face, his touch light and she held onto his waist as he angled his head and broke the kiss. He looked down at her and she looked up at him and realized that no matter what she was trying to convince herself of, she wanted Hoop.
Her blood was pounding a little heavier through her veins, her skin felt so sensitized that when he skimmed his fingers down the side of her neck, goose bumps spread down her arm.
She pulled back and felt the hotdog and kale chips she’d eaten earlier start making their way back up. Damn.
“Sorry,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand.
She swallowed and reached for her bottle of water. Her “morning” sickness wasn’t going away. She tried to bolt down the aisle but not everyone was quick to move.
“I’m going to be sick,” she yelled, and if she wasn’t feeling so bad she would have laughed at how quickly the Yankee’s fans moved out of her way. She barely made it to the restroom before she threw up everything she’d eaten that day.
Her stomach wasn’t happy just emptying the contents but added acid and bile to the mix. When she was finally finished heaving, she went to the sink to rinse her face and wash out her mouth. She hadn’t realized how much she hated throwing up. But to be honest, until her pregnancy, it had been limited to some mornings in college when she’d drunk too much the night before.
This was different. She felt weak and wanted to just curl in a ball and have her mom bring her warm 7-Up and crackers. But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She had to go back to her seat and rejoin Hoop. She patted her pocket and realized she’d left her phone and bag in the stadium.
“Bean, you are torturing me,” she said.
She walked out of the restroom and found Hoop standing against the cement wall across from the exit. He had her purse in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He had his legs crossed at the ankles and gave her a tentative smile when he saw her.
“Some of the other fans thought you had it coming for cheering so loudly,” he said. “A few unkind ones suggested it might have been my kiss.”
“It definitely wasn’t your kiss,” she said, trying to smile. Her voice sounded funny and raw from being sick and he pushed away from the wall and walked over to her, holding out the bottle of water. She took a swallow. He handed her a piece of minty gum and she took it. He was very thoughtful and thorough.
How could she think about getting involved with Hoop? Would he even want to after that?
Being sick was just the beginning. Her body was going to change and if the chapters she’d skipped ahead to read in her pregnancy book were any indication, some of the stuff was not going to