Don't Let These Boots Fool You

I had somehow made every guy in the room stop talking completely. They all had their eyes wide and looking at me as if I had told them, I was a playboy bunny. I stopped walking toward them and just stared, why was it so hard to believe that I was dating a guy from the MLB?

“What’s the problem guys,” I quickly asked as they looked from side to side like they were going to die from lightning striking them from this shocking discovery.

“You mean you’re dating a Pittsburgh Pirate? How in the—” I watched as Cooke’s comment was cut short by Sid.

“Cook, don’t even go there. You’ll get smacked or loose a stick.” He looked up at me and I was shocked to hear that Sidney wanted my personal life alone after everything the guys had said yesterday. “She deserves to have her personal life separate as much as we do.”

I was just about to release them when I remembered what we had talked about. “Oh, right back to my rules. No girls for a week. You can talk to girls, dance with girls, and eat dinner with girls. There is to be no sex with them this week. Married men, try rekindling the fire with your wives and just have dinner every night or sit with them after the kids go to sleep.” I looked at every guy and knew they took my words to heart. Hopefully they would be okay now.

“Get out of here, practice is done for the day. You are to be back tomorrow at 10 per Dan” I told them as I quickly exited the locker room. I was beyond upset at the fact that I had wasted half of my day dealing with childish shenanigans. Instead of going back to the office, I meandered to the offices in the practice facility, hooked up my laptop, and started making plans for the charity season.

I was in the midst of trying to figure out when I could have the guys host a little league event where the young hockey players get to come skate on the ice with them and have practice with them. I was interrupted by a knock on the door, which caused my head to snap up suddenly.

“Come in”

“Hi Kelly. Do you mind if I come in?” It was Jordan trying to make his way through the
little entry into my makeshift office.

“Yes, come on in Jordan.” I shut my laptop and motioned for him to sit down. I had no clue why he showed up in here or what he wanted to talk about but it made me nervous.

“I want to apologize. Most people don’t talk about our behavior. They just let us act the way we do and never think about correcting us. This is hard on all of us. It’s as if you know exactly what we’re doing and or thinking about a situation before we do. What makes it worse is we have some beautiful girl coming in and trying to change us so quickly, it makes us not want to listen to you.” He stopped talking as I looked at him in silence.

“It’d do you some good to know something Jordan. I’m not asking you all to stop what you’re doing right now and change overnight. I know how hard it is to come into this lifestyle. My brother and boyfriend have both had to make adjustments because the media follow them as if they are okay with being followed. I know that it seems harsh what I’m doing but in a few years when you start to settle down you’ll understand. Plus this wasn’t supposed to be my job; all I’m supposed to be doing is making sure your charity events are going to run smoothly.” I nodded, as he looked shocked that I was putting in double time.

“I’m sorry. I assumed that you were brought in to change our behavior. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can help with,” he asked. I knew that was his way of an apology to me.

“Have you guys every practiced with little guys?”

“Not really, can we though? I’m sure the guys would love it. We could do it next Thursday the day before our game. If it’s one team or a group of kids we could surely talk to Mario about getting them in to see the game the next day.”

Seeing Jordan’s eyes light up at the idea of hosting kids in the rink made me smile. He wasn’t such an ignorant ass like I had thought. I nodded wrote it on a note pad and began to think of how it would work almost forgetting about Jordan. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to finish planning this before the idea runs away. I’ll see you next Tuesday for your one on one with me?”

He nodded and escorted himself out. I felt bad for being such a bitch to the people but really, they knew better than to act like children and now they were beginning to see the light. I was hoping Jordan wouldn’t tell the rest of the guys that I was only hired for charity events because then things would begin to get really weird with the guys and they would stop listening to me.

I was so wrapped up in figuring out how I could get a little league team to the rink in the next week. The task nearly seemed impossible. I quickly typed up some e-mails to the local rinks and asked about any teams that might be interested but I wanted to see them practice first.

I received a phone call in the midst of all my e-mailing. “Hello?”

“Hi I’m with the Make-a-wish foundation, we usually have an annual banquet with the players and our kids whose wish is to meet them, and sadly because of your predecessor we could not have the banquet. We have quite a handful of kids that made that their wish. I was wondering if you knew if it would be possible to make that happen this year.”

I was appalled, how could someone turn down make-a-wish children when they clearly knew this event was going to happen. I smile to myself as I pulled up the calendar to see when an available date for the event would be. “How would the 6th of December work for you all, our guys have that Saturday night off?”

I heard the smile come across in her words as she gracefully agreed and gave me the information I would need in order to contact her again. I added the event to the calendar and quickly sent the updated calendar to all of the guys to make sure they would be attending the event. Otherwise, they would be in deep trouble with me.

I glanced at the clock and realized I had an hour before Mike would be at my house waiting for me. “Great” I said grabbing all of my belongings and running out to the truck hoping I could make it home, feed Joe maybe play with him some before going out to dinner.

The back way home got me home quickly, which was a relief. I knew I needed to call my mom before I went out and let her know since she liked to call on Thursday nights for our weekly talk and I would be out with Mike tonight. I easily dialed the familiar number that hadn’t changed since I was a kid.

“Mama?” I asked quietly.

“Baby girl! How are you? The boys miss you so much they keep asking every time they come in from the field. Your niece really misses you, but don’t worry we should be up there for Thanksgiving since your brother plays up there this year.” I smiled knowing that our family get together would only be a month away from now. I loved my family so much and every one of us kids lived near the house or worked at the house for our dad.

“I wanted to talk to you before my date with Mike. Seems so weird that we actually get to have those now.” I smiled; normally we didn’t get to see each other after April and before November.

“Honey don’t talk to me, we’ll chat later this weekend maybe. Go get ready I miss you and love you tell Mike the house says hi.” My mother hung up before I could even get a word out otherwise. I was left looking at my temporary home. I wasn’t thrilled to be hung up on but I figured I better just let it be.

As I walked through the house to my back door, I smiled seeing Joe jumping for joy at the sight of me. “Hey there buddy. Did you miss mom?” I walked down the hallway to change and get ready for the evening.

I felt like a teenage girl about to go out on her first date. I hated this feeling I normally didn’t get this feeling with Mike but being in a new city, being the new girl I felt like I was a freshman in high school all over again. The jitters, the will he think I’m cute thoughts; this was all so old I was ready to see him and feel better about myself.

I heard a knock on the door and Joe bark once as I moved from the back of the room up to the front door. “Mike come in,” I hollered holding onto Joe’s collar in hopes of restraining him from jumping on Mike. “Sit Joe, now.” Joe slowly lowered onto his back legs as Mike stuck his hand out towards Joe and kissed my cheek. I smiled to see him interacting with Joe, many people thought German Shepherds were horrible dogs and mean but I loved Joe he was the best dog in the world.

Mike looked at me with a smile on his face, “You ready babe. We have reservations at 7:15 and it will take us that long to get back into the city.” He was trying to get a point across to me but I really hated the city and the hour long drives to get any place in the state.

I nodded my head and clanked along the hallway to the front door where I snatched my clutch and house key to get back in later. “Where are we going tonight?”

He squeezed my hand that was lying over the middle of the car and simply shrugged his shoulders at me, which infuriated me more than anything else did in the world. I hated unclear answers almost as much as I hated when people lied to me. I saw a bunch of cars ahead and knew exactly where he was going I had read about it in some papers and knew some of the guys dined there with their flavors of the week.

“Please don’t be here,” I quietly prayed as he pulled up to the restaurant and opened my door. His smile was reassuring, there was no way in hell I was going to let some childish men ruin my night with my prince charming. He stuck his arm out for me to loop mine through and I felt like I was back in Kentucky all over again. We were the same couple we had been back then and it felt perfect to be back with him.

He pushed through the double doors to the hostess. “Table for two, McKenry.” He was so sweet when he was talking to people. It made me think back to all the fun times we had running around town back in high school. I was shaken from my thoughts as I saw Mike start walking. We were seated at a small table in the middle of the room.

I looked around in awe I had never been to a place like this; it was all new to me. I was never a flashy girl granted my mom had tried a pageant once but she didn’t like the fact I wore my boots instead of heels. I was in the middle of reading the menu when I heard familiar voice. “Shit” I mumbled under my breath, as the voice got closer.

“Holy shit you were serious.” The voice I didn’t want to hear was right beside me. I looked up to be met with Jordan. I thought that that he might have had an epiphany when he came and apologized in the office earlier but I was clearly wrong. He was the same Jordan that was caught with a girl last night. He happened to have a different girl on his arm tonight, she had a fake rack, Botox in her cheeks and lips, and she looked like her IQ was maybe a three.

“Hi Jordan, this is Mike.” I pointed to Mike and then looked back up at Jordan

“Oh I know who he is. We’ve partnered up before for some charity events,” he looked over at Mike and grinned, “Are we going to be doing anything together this year; boss lady over here hasn’t said a word to us.” I growled under my breath at him. I couldn’t believe what he just told Mike.

I wanted to shout at him I looked at Mike and back down at the menu praying Jordan would take the hint. Why wouldn’t he just walk away? I wanted one night with my man and it’s been interrupted once already I was praying that it would not be interrupted again.

“We’ll we’ve got to get going, but y’all,” he said the y’all looking straight at me I was nervous for the rest of what he had to say, “have a good night.” He walked away with the girl under his arm, hers in his pocket. I shook my head while looking back to Mike.

I smiled as he ordered our food. Apparently, I was too distracted by our interruption to order. I blushed as I looked at my hands. I had never been this zoned out in my life, “I’m sorry Mike I just wanted it to be us.”

“Babe, it’s okay. You work with the guy; it was bound to happen in this place.” He was so nonchalant which caused me to get angry, the old guy I used to know would have gotten a little upset and tried to make it up by doing something special later.

I wasn’t sure how tonight was going to end because of the way he was acting but as my phone vibrated he glanced at my clutch. “Go ahead take it, or check it.”

I pulled my phone from my clutch, glanced down at it, and back up at Michael seeing he had his phone out as well which pained me. I looked back down at the screen and saw the message was from Jordan, ‘you looked too good to be on his arm. Baseball really? They’re pussies you need a real man you get tired of him cum find me.’ I nearly choked at his choice of words. I glanced up to see Jordan staring right at me with a wink sent my way.

I put my phone back in my clutch and looked at Mike. “Who was that?” I asked with a little bite in my tone, I was pissed that he had changed so much. I guess I never noticed because whenever we got the chance to go on a date we were always at home in our respective small towns. I wanted to make sure that I was still a priority in his life. Hell the ring on my left hand had to mean something to him.

I never wore the damn thing in public because that always brought on craziness because I was so young but I had put it on tonight to show him I wore it the rest of the time. Maybe the city had changed him some and I was just now figuring this out, or maybe I was just over thinking.

“What was yours about?”

“You know how the boys get, want to know every detail of the guys who have girlfriends as beautiful as mine.” He said as he leaned in to kiss me.

I felt horrible for the thoughts that crossed my mind about Mike. I was seriously considering the fact that Mike was a pussy and that I needed to ditch him. Although it wasn’t just what Jordan had said, it was the way he had acted the past two weeks. Maybe being around the guys for two days reminded me that there are good-looking guys that appreciate women.

“What are you doing this weekend?” I questioned quickly in rushed words.

“Nothing why”

“Let’s go over to the coast for a few days. Just you and me” I said as I looked hurt and pained.