His sisters had taught him patience, but they hadn’t given him any cheat codes. That was probably because dealing with women was n
o game. And even if it was, they could change the rules on you at the drop of a hat.
Alex paced nervously in front of the entrance doors to the ballpark. The girls would be arriving in about ten minutes, which gave him enough time to seriously regret what he was wearing. Because he knew they’d be running around in the field, he’d opted for a pair of battered jeans and a comfortable, long-sleeved sweatshirt. It wasn’t the most dazzling first-date attire, and he worried Alice would think he was a slob. The jeans were worn through in one knee and had faded from a deep indigo to a light, light blue. They were so soft and thin they basically felt like sweatpants.
Sweatpants had been a consideration earlier in the evening—after all, that’s what he wore if he was working out—but he smartened up and decided if he was going to go casual, he should at least wear real pants.
After adjusting the Felons cap on his head, he took it off briefly to run a hand through his sweaty hair. Why had he been cursed with such thick, wiry hair? His head got so hot. Three of his sisters had dense, dark curls, while two had been blessed with thin, light hair. Yet he’d gotten a mass of black hair so thick it didn’t even curl, it just sort of…sat there.
Normally he’d last about halfway through the season before he got so fed up with it he’d shave his head.
March was too early to be heading to the barber though, meaning it would be hats and misery for another month or so. His sisters would beat him soundly if they knew how he was dressed. As proper Southern belles, they would be repulsed by the notion of a man wearing a ball cap on a date.
Thankfully his sisters weren’t here.
But it didn’t keep their nattering out of his mind as he paced the concrete pad between the entrance and the parking lot. Jane would be the worst. The eldest of the clan, she thought that automatically gave her second-mother status. She wasn’t wrong, but her insistence on being the family know-it-all was sometimes exhausting. She would literally have smacked Alex upside the head if she could see him right now.
“A real man dresses his best to woo a lady,” Jane’s voice scolded.
Well, a real man wouldn’t have fucked the girl in the backseat of a car before their first date. So really, he had already failed the gentleman test. Now he had to fight his way back to decent dude status in Alice’s eyes.
Her car was impossible to miss in the near-empty lot. Only his car and two employee cars were parked there, so her little Acura was easy to spot. Alex half-expected her brother Kevin to pop out, in spite of Alice’s assurances he wouldn’t want to tag along. The invitation had been issued out of politeness on Alex’s part. He wasn’t sure he could handle a full night of Kevin’s scrutinizing glares.
Olivia’s would be hard enough.
The ladies walked towards him, Alice in a pair of light jeans and a loose-fitting white top that was so airy it might as well have been made out of gauze. Her long blonde hair was held back with a headband, but was otherwise free, hanging down her back.
She smiled at him, a wary gesture that almost reached her eyes. He’d defrost her eventually. Alice placed a hand on Olivia’s back, urging her daughter along. Olivia wore a serious expression, her mouth set into a firm line and her scrawny arms crossed tightly. It was a pose reminiscent of Alice, which couldn’t help but make Alex smile.
“Ladies.”
“Hi, Alex.” Alice tugged Olivia’s curly ponytail. “What do you say?”
“Hey.” Olivia jerked her chin up, which was as close as she was evidently going to get to a wave.
The kid was all awkward height and sharp angles. He could see a lot of Alice in her, in spite of Olivia’s darker features, which made him think she might grow up pretty once she stopped looking like a tiny crane.
“Good day?” he asked.
“Called a Yankees game.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So were they.” She smiled again, and this time her whole face softened. Her cheeks got pink, and a gleam appeared in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
The place on her cheek where Teddy’s elbow had smacked her had healed better than he’d expected it to. There was a faint redness, and he imagined in the light there would be a tinge of purple to it, but she certainly didn’t seem like she’d taken a serious beating. His knuckles, on the other hand, were those of a man who had tried to break a concrete wall with his fist.
“How about you, Olivia?”
“Liv,” she corrected, her tone managing to convey more annoyance than he thought her tiny frame was capable of holding.
“Sorry. Liv. What’d you do today?”
“School.”
Ah, okay, so it was to be a one-word-answer kind of interaction. He could work with that. Better than if she repeated back everything he said, which had been a popular way to annoy adults when he’d been a kid, and probably remained a standard for today’s youth.
“What classes are you taking?”