To be perfectly honest, Kristen never thought she had a chance with Andrea.
Andrea was, after all, the sexiest woman Kristen had ever laid eyes on; everything on her perfect-woman checklist, neatly marked off. Kristen considered her well out of her league, and contented herself to admire from afar. Or, since they ran in overlapping social circles and had a lot of common interests, from not-so-afar.
Somehow Kristen managed to get herself roped into playing bar league softball with some friends. "Sure," she had grumbled. "I'm a lesbian, I must play softball, right?"
Her friend Jeff's smile had faded, replaced with a look of embarrassed horror. "I didn't think because you were a lesbian... so you DON'T play softball? You look like a softball player."
Even after convincing the entire team of her ineptitude, they forced her to play. Despite her lack of experience with ball sports (pun very much intended), the team worked their way through the season and ended up in the championship game. What they lacked in athletic talent they made up for in a marked ability to perform while intoxicated.
That in that final game, Carl's Uptown Tavern was scheduled to take on The Friendly Bar. Kristen looked forward to the game with mild anticipation; Andrea played for The Friendly Bar (apparently they needed a token lesbian, too), so even if everything else went wrong, Kristen still got to gawk at her in spandex shorts.
The game got underway with little fanfare, and what little fanfare there was mostly consisted of tapping the quarter-barrel. Three innings in, the score stood at 4-3 in Carl's Tavern's favor, and everyone had a friendly little buzz on.
As the innings ticked away, Kristen managed not to make a fool of herself, and helped put a few runs on the board. Andrea, on the other hand, was apparently some kind of softball prodigy.
The muscles on her slender arms packed quite a punch, it would seem. Her first at-bat, she drove home a solo home run, and later, in the final inning, belted out a triple that put her team in position to score the winning runs. Down 10-8, with no outs against them, she had pretty much ensured The Friendly Bar the win, or at least a shot at extra innings, unless Carl's could hold them to nothing.
Well, it didn't happen. Jeff successfully struck out the next batter up, but was unable to keep it going. Ultimately, Dan (who was a co-worker of Andrea), hit one out of the park... or what would have been out of the park if they had been playing in a real ballpark with a fence. In any case, Andrea and then Dan trotted easily across home plate, and the game was over.
As the players and their fans (a smattering of spouses and a few random drunk guys who were "regulars" at the two sponsoring bars) congratulated each other and made promises of beers to be bought at the after-party at the winning team's sponsor bar, Andrea strode past Kristen, slapping her ass on the way by. "Looking good out there," she laughed as Kristen jumped in surprise.
***
The after-party, as these things tend to do, got a little out of hand. The losing team bought the winning team a round of drinks. The winning team bought the losing team a round of drinks. The bar bought both teams a round of drinks.
At some point, somehow, Kristen found herself leaning against the bar next to Andrea, who smiled, leaned in, and whisper-shouted over the din, "I meant what I said after the game. You're looking really good tonight." Her voice had that joyful not-quite drunk lilt to it.
Kristen wasn't sure how to react. "Oh! Thanks. You're... you're looking really good, too."
