I slipped on the black heels. Turned and looked at the seam down the backs of my legs. My ass cheeks stood firm and round in the warm lights, curving the back of the lace panties. I put my hand on my ass and felt the warmth of my own palm.
I’d just turned myself on.
Deep breath.
I put on the dress and a little mascara.
“Someone’s here for you, peanut,” Dad said from the other side of the door.
“Coming.” I stuck the ball in my little beaded bag. It bulged. I felt like the bag. Bigger on the inside. Too full. Ready to burst out of my casing.
Dad was at the front of the house with Dash, who wore a suit and carried flowers. They were laughing about something. Me? I had no idea. I was stuck on the bright bouquet of daisies.
He’d brought me flowers. No one had ever brought me flowers.
“Hi,” I said. Whispered. Breathed.
Dash’s eyes ate me alive, and my skin folded outward to the dark, raw parts where I wanted him to touch me.
“Hey,” he said. “Your dad was telling me you were a ball girl back in the day.”
“Dad!”
“Five more minutes and I’d get the pictures out.”
Mortifying. Me in my little ponytail and white pants, chasing after fouls.
“And what you guys did for game six last year,” Dash added.
I didn’t think I’d been gone that long, but Dad talked fast.
“It’s a funny story.” Dad shrugged, and I rolled my eyes.
It was only funny the way Dad told it. We’d bought tickets on eBay, which was completely against the rules unless you bought a four-hundred-dollar hat that happened to come with two nosebleed tickets. When eBay had taken the listing down, we’d done a reverse search on the ticketholder’s email, hunting her back to Lancaster. Then we drove up there in my Nissan, up the mountains while my car choked and hitched, almost got eaten by her four angry pit bulls, paid her cash, and made it to Dodger Stadium with not a second to spare.
“It was crazy,” I said. “We almost missed the national anthem because of traffic on the 5.”
“I struck out that night, I think?” Dash said.
“Stand-up double, two Ks, and a walk, actually,” I replied.
“I only remember the strikeouts.” He looked at the flowers as if he’d forgotten he had them, and he handed them to me.
“Thank you, they’re perfect.” I didn’t know what else to say. They were.
Dad took them from me. “I’ll put them in water. Get out of here. The two of you. I want to go to bed already.”
Dash shook his hand and led me outside, where a black Volvo sedan waited for us in the driveway. I paused, trying to remember if he’d had a Volvo the other night.
“Like it?” he asked as he opened the passenger door.
“You had something different yesterday.”
“That one got in a little fender bender.”
“Are you okay?”
“I went to the doc this morning. My arm’s bruised, but that’s it. It was nothing.”
“Nothing? You got a new car.”
“This one’s safer. Get in before I put you in.” His lips tightened as if holding back a smile.
He’d have loved to pick me up and put me in. I might not have minded it either, but Dad was watching. He’d have denied it, but he was watching.
“Where are we going?” I asked when he got behind the wheel.
“Someplace fun.”
I felt the scratch of lace on my skin as he drove. It wasn’t uncomfortable. It reminded me of what I was wearing under the simple dress. I crossed my legs and folded my hands in my lap.
“Did you eat?” he asked.
“A little.”
“Can you wait a few hours? I have someplace I want to go first.”
“Sure.”
Traffic was nonexistent as he brought me into downtown.
“Dash, I don’t want to bring this up…”
“But you kind of are.”
“The pin.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
“I can’t tell you how bad I feel.”
“Then don’t.”
“I feel like it’s my fault.”
He took my hand out of my lap and squeezed it. “If that glove hadn’t been taken, we wouldn’t have met.”
“I know but—”
“You were worth it. If I’d been given the choice to trade that good luck charm for you, I would have done it in a second.”
Was this the same guy who’d wanted to pre-dump me? I was confused, but I wasn’t ready to replace… what? Important artifacts? His sister?
I shook it off. He was just talking.
“Well, when I wish, I wish big. You should have me and the pin.”
“I went to that library ready to pound on your desk and demand you find it or I was going to call the cops. But I saw you coming down the hall, and it all went out the window.”
“Thank you. I would have broken down crying.”
He squeezed my hand. “Glad I didn’t.”
After the red light, his hand stayed in mine, even when he turned onto Pershing Square and stopped in a red zone. A man in a tuxedo rushed toward the car and opened his door.