Junior Year Box Set

I’d loved the dishes Rosy had introduced me to when I stayed in LA with Halle, but this just seemed to be better. My waitress confided in me that the cook had found out the meals were for me. She had gone off the menu and prepared it like it was done at home.

◊◊◊

Batting practice found all the starters waiting for turns. The backups were coming in this afternoon. It was good to see my teammates put in the work. I spent a few minutes with each of them and just reminded them of their fundamentals and offered encouragement. There wasn’t much I could do for them with only a couple days left before we played Cuba.

Most of what they needed was to know they were okay. None of the guys in the five through nine slots in the order had any genuine issues with their swing. It was just the simple fact that we had only played seven games, six of which they had batted in. On average, they’d been up to the plate twenty times. We’d all been through slumps longer than twenty at-bats.

It could swing the other way too. My personal batting average was a gaudy .675. All my teammates in the one through four slots were hitting over .500. When you had a short window, your average could easily be skewed. I made it a point to remind everyone of that fact. I did mention that my average was probably about right. Sometimes it’s good that I have security with me.

◊◊◊

I was caught entirely off guard when I found Mia Hilliard and Stewart Thatcher in the lobby with Rita James.

“Go take a shower and put on something decent. The studio has arranged a mini press junket,” Rita explained.

When I got to my room, I found Halle sitting on my bed, waiting for me.

“You be careful of Mia. She looks like trouble,” she announced.

I blinked at her a couple of times and shook my head as I got undressed to take a shower.

“Pick out an outfit that looks like something a young James Bond would wear,” I said over my shoulder.

I caught Halle inspecting my naked bottom. She was such a bad girl. I had to turn the shower on cold to keep Mr. Happy from making an appearance.

When I came out, she’d found my black Dakora jacket with red trim and a skinny red tie to wear with it. I smiled when I noticed my new oxblood-red leather tennis shoes matched the color of the trim and tie.

Halle giggled when I preened like James Bond does in his movies. He was always ‘dressed to kill,’ so to speak.

“I had to do some research for the role,” I said to defend myself.

Frank had told me that he’d dug up a study that showed 98% of women loved James Bond. 95.7% of those had erotic dreams involving him. Those were the kind of numbers I was looking for in this role.

Some was knocking at the door. I found Frank waiting for me.

“I guess this must be a big deal if you showed up,” I said.

He gave me a quick inspection and decided I looked okay.

“Here, read these,” he said, handing me my talking points. “The studio decided to move quickly and start the PR machine, now that the cast is set. They caught me flat-footed when they told me they were sending out Mia and Stewart to kick everything off. They’ve set up interviews with People, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone to start. Vanity Fair wants to do a quick photo shoot with plans of putting you all on the cover,” he explained.

During the interview, Rita took the lion’s share of the questions. I had no problem with that because let’s be real here, she was Rita James. Stewart was every bit as charming, and his British accent just rolled off his tongue. I thought Chubby had hit a home run.

Mia Hilliard. What can I say about her? She was the up-and-coming female action star. In her previous movies, she’d been paired with a nerd or wimpy kind of guy. It left you scratching your head, wondering how the heck the guy could have gotten that girl. It very much reminded me of Transformers when Megan Fox was paired with Shia LaBeouf. Apparently, they’d come up with a formula so regular guys could imagine themselves as the hero with the superhot girlfriend.

I caught Mia glancing at me. I almost burst out laughing when the girl from Vanity Fair busted her.

“So, I take it you think David’s okay?” she asked.

“I … uh … yeah. When I got the part, I was excited that I would be teamed up with him. I can’t wait to see what kind of magic we can make,” she said for the save.

“Are you talking about on screen?”

Even Rita, who’s pretty much unflappable, let out a chuckle when Mia turned beet red.

“That’s not what I meant,” Mia said and then turned to see me with my eyebrows raised. “Sorry, I just got lucky … crud. Did I just say that?”

“This is good. I’m sure our readers want to hear all about that,” the reporter said, to all our amusement.

“Okay, I admit it. I have a little crush on him. Of course, now he’ll run from me because he just realized that his costar is a stalker,” she said, and then relaxed. “It’s a bit liberating to get that off my chest.”

“As long as you’re happy,” I said.

“I can hardly wait to see these two on set,” Stewart added.