Not exactly his best opener, but it sufficed to get her attention.
Tiny Brunette’s pen stopped its furious scribbling, and her jaw paused in its steady chewing of the hot dog.
Slowly her face lifted to his, and Cole had the strangest sensation of the breath catching in his chest as he waited to finally meet this woman’s eyes.
And, wow. What a pair of eyes they were.
If the rest of her was tiny, her eyes were enormous by comparison. Huge and dark brown and friendly.
Damn, she was cute.
Not gorgeous. Not beautiful. But she had the girl-next-door, Wanna-grab-a-pitcher? kind of appeal.
She also wasn’t Cole’s type. At all. He liked ’em blonde and leggy and seductive.
Still…that damn notebook.
“Cole Sharpe,” he said, sticking out a hand.
Her eyes widened just slightly, and for a second he thought maybe she’d recognized his name, but then she smiled, and it was pure friendly curiosity.
“Hi!” Her voice matched the rest of her. Girlish and guileless.
Cole found himself oddly enchanted. She was so…different.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing with his chin toward the seat beside her.
“Of course!”
Cole started to reach for her notebook under the guise of making room for himself, but she pulled it onto her lap before he could touch it.
Damn.
He sat and allowed himself to fully satisfy his curiosity, taking her in now that he could see her face-to-face.
The Yankees cap still shielded the top part of her face, but he could clearly make out a pointed chin, small nose, and those big, gorgeous brown eyes. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t wearing a speck of makeup, which allowed a light dusting of freckles to display loud and proud over her nose and the tops of her cheekbones.
Cute. Definitely cute.
And already, she was refocused on the game.
Cole’s eyes narrowed slightly as he realized that he’d been the only one doing any staring. Her attention had returned to the field, almost before he’d sat down.
What was this bullshit?
The lack of female appreciation was unusual enough—and uncomfortable enough—to make him slightly peevish. So instead of doing the decent thing and letting her watch the Yankees’ starter reclaim his spot on the mound, he talked to her.
At her, really. She still wasn’t looking his way. Not even to check him out.
“First game?” he asked.
Brown eyes flicked to him, barely. “What?”
“First baseball game?”
That got her attention. For the first time, she seemed to really look at him. Her eyes drifted over him slowly before returning to his gaze, her tone just slightly annoyed. “No. Not my first game.”
“Ah,” he said, already mentally maneuvering a backpedal. “Bad assumption by me. You were just so into the game…. ”