Book 6: Mouse Trapped
Chapter 2
<8 The Old Ball Game
Michael took a few practice swings with three bats, then put two down, swinging again to get the feel of it. He felt very self conscious with Mouse in the stands, right behind him. It was weird. She'd come to see almost all of his baseball games when he was in high school, but back then she was only seven. This was different.
The bat kept slipping in his grip. He rubbed his hands in the dust, then rubbed them together, then swung the bat a few more times.
"Let's go, Michael. Let me see you hit the crap out of that ball. Get on base for me."
Mouse's voice was piercing, with an almost artificial excitement behind it. She used to say things like that back then, too. She was quite the little cheerleader.
Mouse's squeaky enthusiasm was getting all of the guys going. Usually, no one came to watch them play. All of their wives had something else to do, except for the few that were divorced, or Jack, who was widowed. The point was, no one ever came to watch. Over forty league softball games were just for the guys.
It didn't help that Mouse had decided to dress in her usual, flamboyant and quite sluttish fashion. She wore a tight fitting navy tube top, leaving her bare at the shoulders and the belly, with closely matching very tight fitting short shorts that showed off her athletic dancer's legs, and sandals on her rather sexy, small feet. Her clothes hugged all of her curves so tightly she looked naked with painted on clothing. Her nipples bulged embarrassingly, at least for Michael, through the skin tight weave of the top.
She wore her hair in a loose ponytail on one side of her head, leaving her wavy curls of hair flowing down onto the clean, exposed skin of her right shoulder, with the very ends tickling the bare skin at the top of her right breast. She wore more eye liner than usual, more than Michael liked to see, and a pinkish lipstick and eye liner that accented her darker complexion.
"That's a tight little firecracker you brought to the game with you. Where'd you find her?"
Realizing he'd been staring, Michael snapped his gaze down to his bat, where he worked at rubbing more dirt onto the grip. He tried not to look Jack in the eye. He tried to keep his face stolid, as if he were focused entirely on his bat and his swing and the game.
"She's my little sister."
"Shit. No kidding. Sorry. I didn't mean..."
"Don't worry. She's the family slut, and we all know it."
"Ouch. Well, as long as she's only your sister, to you... and a slut... does she go for older men?"
As a matter of fact, yes, Michael thought. Jack was fifty six, the oldest guy on the team, and looked to be very much Mouse's type. He had a daughter almost Mouse's age, too.
"No."
* * *
Michael tried. Probably no one else really noticed, or appreciated that about Michael the way Mouse did.
He tried.
He wasn't the best at anything. He was successful enough at work, admirably so, even if it was just sitting behind a desk pushing numbers and thoughts and people around. She couldn't understand doing it all day long, but he did, and he was a vice president now.
But he wasn't the best, not at work, not at sports, not in school, never at anything. The thing was, best or not, he always tried.
He'd taught her that. That was one of his biggest gifts to her, growing up with him around.
It wasn't as if he had sat her down one day and told her. He taught her by doing. He taught her by example. Her entire life, growing up, she watched him and learned from him, and in some small ways, like this one, in always trying, she sought to emulate him.
He wasn't fearless. Quite the opposite, he was prone to anxiety, and worry, and indecision. She had him beat on that score. But in spite of that, he still tried.
For Mouse, a man had to try. For her to see anything at all in him, he had to put himself out there, day after day, in situation after awkward situation, and try. No one knew that that was the sexiest thing about Michael, to her. She loved his hands, and his nose, and his bulk and his hair, where he had it, and where he didn't. She loved his somber, quiet moods, so opposite to hers. She loved his towering height. She loved his protective nature, and the ease with which he withstood her constant assaults and tantrums.
But above all, before and beyond everything else, she loved the way he always tried.
* * *
Mouse was still cheering uproariously as Michael rounded second, thought about pushing it, then decided the last thing he wanted was to be thrown out at third, right in front of Mouse. He slipped in the infield dirt as he dug his heels in abruptly, spitting up a cloud of dry, orange-brown dust, then hustled back to second, while smugly watching the center fielder gather up the softball and fire it in.
"Whoo hoo! Way to go, Michael! Way to smack that ball!"
With his back still to her, Michael rolled his eyes, hoping the infielders noticed and realized that he didn't approve of her theatrics, that she was annoying him, too.
"Shit, no wonder you hit the thing so hard. She's worth impressing. Is she yours?"
"She's my bratty little sister," he told the short stop.
"Wow. She may be annoying, but she's fun to look at. She single?"
"Dan!" barked the second baseman.
"What? I'm just saying..."
"She's his sister, for Christ's sake."
"Okay, fine, but is she single?"
"Not for the other team, she's not," Michael said, pointedly glowering in at the pitcher's mound, not looking at anyone in particular.
The short stop and second basemen both laughed.
"Wait until she sees me hit," one of them replied. Michael wasn't even sure which one, he was so distracted and annoyed.
Mouse was still carrying on, with whistles and screams, two hands forming a megaphone. A little part of Michael smiled, annoyingly pleased that he'd impressed her.
* * *
Michael had ended the inning stranded at second as the next two batters hit long fly balls for outs. Then the inning was over. His team took the field.
Michael was playing first base. He warmed up by smoothly throwing ground balls to the other infielders, then catching their return throws, when Mel showed up, with Kate.
Oh, shit. Michael hadn't expected that. Mel never came to his games, ever. And why the hell did she bring Kate? This was turning into a nightmare of very unbiblical proportions.
The three of them settled in together on the bench. Shit. Michael very purposefully did not look at them, while noticing that every guy on the field and the bench, every single head swiveled, locked on, and stared. There were more than a few mumbled comments, followed by gruff laughter that grated in too many different ways.
Every one of the three looked anything from cute to hot, depending on your tastes.
Melanie was tall, curvaceous, and very conservatively if casually dressed, for her, wearing loose, faded jeans and a tight fitting, knit tank top that hugged her large bosom, highlighting her size there and giving the faintest view of her admirable cleavage.
Kate wore a white, billowing button down shirt, tied at the waist, exposing her belly, above long loose khaki shorts. The curve of her hips was quite alluring, while the shirt did a fair job of hiding her rather meager bust while hinting that she wanted it to be seen.
And then there was Mouse, his sister, the obvious and impossible to miss slut.
Michael tried as inconspicuously as he could to watch their every move. He saw Melanie introduce Kate to Mouse. He watched some polite babble go on amongst them, cringing at what they might be saying. He kept imagining that he was lip reading his own name at least every other sentence.
During the distraction, he didn't stretch far enough for an easy, if off target, throw. The ball sailed past, forcing him to sheepishly chase it down, temporarily putting the three ladies out of his sight.
"E-1!"
That was Jack again, yelling in from third base, right in front of the ladies. Michael tossed the ball aside when he got it, ready to start the inning, not sure if he was grateful or worried that the women had apparently missed the episode, being instead too engaged in a laughing conversation about who knew what, but almost certainly him.
* * *
The final score was 5-4, good guys, although Michael couldn't take much credit for the win. He hadn't played badly, although an error on his part, on a bad throw to home, cost his team two runs, the one he didn't gun down at the plate, and another that scored when the ball sailed high and ricocheted oddly along the backstop.
He'd had two hits, but both were for naught, neither driving in any runs, nor plating a run himself. He was left on base each time.
So his fantasies of showing off in front of Mouse, and then Melanie and Kate, drifted away into the growing pile of memories that never were. In contrast, the old man, Jack, was four for four with two RBIs, another run scored, and a great diving catch at third to save at least two runs, maybe more.
Jack enjoyed the great pleasure of doing it right in front of the ladies on the bench by third, and having them whoop and holler and lavish so much praise that Michael could see Jack's reddening face from across the diamond, while being blinded by Jack's sheepish and overlarge grin.
Michael took another sip of his beer. This was what they really played for, anyway, for the camaraderie and banter after the game, over a cold beer. The home team was gone, heading off to a nearby bar they frequented. Michael's victorious team was left with the field, the stands, and a cooler full of beers.
And three sexy ladies that had everyone's attention.
No less than five guys were gathered around Mouse, as was always to be expected with her. Michael felt like he'd spent half of his life standing around the perimeter, watching Mouse in the center of a herd of guys. As usual, she was smiling, and vibrant, and oozing a natural sex appeal like the hardest working whore on the block, but without even trying.
Michael slapped himself for thinking that thought about Mouse. But it was true.
And it wasn't just his jealousy speaking, he told himself.
Kate was getting attention from the guys, too, but at least she was giving a lot of her own attention to him. For her part, Mouse didn't seem to either notice, or care, about Kate's interest in him.
Even Melanie had been cornered by two guys. Judging by the way she was standing, with her chest thrust out and her hand in constant motion, fiddling with the choker around her neck, she enjoyed it as much as any of them, married or not.
Of course, very few of these guys could actually do anything with them, either. They were almost all married, except for the widower Jack, and Michael, and a couple of others who were also divorced.
"So you live in Chicago? I travel there on business, sometimes. I love that city," Jack said to Mouse.
"Yeah? You should call me the next time you go. We can go to a Cubs game."
"I'm an American League fan. I'd much rather see the Sox."
"Booo. Don't mention the White Sox near me. I'm a Cubbie, through and through."
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to see old Wrigley Field..."
"Those were some nice hits you had," Kate said to Michael, interrupting his efforts to eaves drop on Mouse and Jack.
"The pitcher was tired each time I got a hit. I just sat back and waited for what I wanted."
"I was surprised that a big guy like you could move as well as you do."
She said that with a big grin. Michael wasn't sure if she meant the underlying, sexual meaning that he wanted to take from it, just to feed his ego.
"I don't do badly, considering my advanced age."
"You're not 'advanced.' You're just about right. Younger men are really still just boys. The world needs men with real experience."
