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The next man on the huge Jumbotron had that chiseled chin I’d never forget. Jeremy had inherited it. "That’s Michael Irons," Jeremy added the name I’d wondered about for years. Adrenaline coursed through me as I glanced toward the field and saw the player in question. The player who’d rocked my world. Irons spit out whatever was in his mouth and waved to the crowd as I asked with an almost breathless voice, “Who?” “He’s the shortstop and has the best batting average in the league.” Shortstop. MVP. Weekend fling. Father of my son. My heart trembled, I grabbed my soda from its holder and said, “Jeremy, we need to go.” His gaze narrowed, and he didn’t move. “What’s going on?” “Get up.” I pushed at him. If he saw me, I’d find out in a second if he even remembered our moment. I’d had my memories and his son. We needed to leave. Now. He didn’t move from his seat. “Mom, we just got here.” My skin had chills as I grabbed my son’s arm. “I’ll explain later. Please run.” He stood, shook his head at me, and put his hands in his pockets. “Mom, we’re here, and you promised to take me to a game. Your phone didn’t ring, so nothing happened to anyone.” A warmness stirred in my belly as someone came behind me, probably for their seats next to us as I tugged my son and said, “I’ll get better tickets tomorrow.” “Mom, turn around,” Jeremy said as his eyes widened. My skin had goosebumps it hadn’t had in a long time. “Why?” He pointed and said like he couldn’t quite breathe, “It’s Michael Irons, the shortstop.” I turned around and stared into the stormy blue eyes of Michael, Jeremy’s father. “I never thought I’d see you again.” I’d stopped looking for any signs of my vacation romance years ago. I never should have stopped. His hand wrung the hat he held in his hands as he asked, “Georgiana? I never got your last name?” That was it? I’d played this scenario over a thousand times in my head, but I stilled and just said, “Michael, hi.” Jeremy now took my hand. “Mom, do you know Michael?” Not once had I imagined the muscular man in my bed had been a baseball player. I probably should have guessed he was an athlete, as he was still all muscles, but somehow even sexier than my memory. Maybe it was the skintight pants. My face felt hot as I said, “No. I mean, yes. Kind of. We met years ago, on vacation, before I had you.” Michael stared at Jeremy and then at me. He widened his stance. He knew. He saw a mini version of himself, square jaw, blue eyes, pointed nose. “You checked out of the hotel early.” My entire body felt tight, like I was going to rocket my own flight out of here from the energy in my veins. “I…My father died. Then my mom soon after. I was a mess and my life was in turmoil for a while.” He took my hand in his. “You didn’t leave a way to find you.” “Michael Irons!” Jeremy said fast. “You’ve got the best batting average and record of catches in the league.” Of course. The one thing our son craved to be better at was the one thing his father was clearly good at. He took out his phone from his back pocket and shoved it in my face as the stadium-filled crowd around us became clearer. Michael quickly said, “Look, give me your address and phone number. I have to work, but after the game, we need to talk. Clearly.” Talk. Right. Of course. I’d played out finding him and telling him about his son for years now, but it generally was me in a sexy dress strutting over to him and then he’d kissed me in my dreams of this moment. Now, real-life was different, and my fingers trembled. Still, I typed down my information and handed him back his phone as Michael asked, “Can we stay at the game, Mom?” Jeremy’s lips thinned. I wish I knew what he thought, but I asked with my head down, “How long do games last?” Michael answered in a deep voice that had once made me swoon, “A few hours usually, and I’d like us all to go out to dinner after.” Jeremy’s bounce and jumping beside me meant he wanted to. I had no argument. My son had wanted to know his father. Searching out who he was online had been impossible when I’d been so busy looking up cures for my mom that never panned out. And when she’d died, I’d been in my third trimester, more worried about what to do to prepare for a baby than anything else. I nodded at Jeremy and wished things had been different as I said, “Then we’ll stay.” Michael put his Sooners cap back on. “I’ll see you both right after we win.” “Boo.” The red-headed, overweight man behind us screamed. He had the Pirates logo painted on his cheeks. I slumped onto the bench and Michael strutted away with that hard, muscular ass I’d once squeezed. He spoke with someone on the team and then they both stared at us. My jitters were still inside me as I stabbed the ice with my straw in my soda. Another man, skinnier, wearing a uniform like Michael but much younger than him, ran toward us as the team went onto the field to play. “The team wants to offer the two of you family seats.” I grabbed Jeremy’s arm like someone might steal him from me. Family with Michael sounded permanent. I trembled a little and squared my jaw when I said, “We’re fine here.” The young man then backed away and said, “Well, at the top of the ninth, I’ll come to find you both.” “Great,” I said and then slumped into my seat. Jeremy stood and the second I heard the national anthem, I jumped up. At the end of the singing, and someone in a wheelchair tossing a ceremonial pitch, we took our seats and the game began. My son asked, “Mom, how do you know Michael Irons?” Clearly, I was a liar. And a bad one. Maybe I should have at least looked at his baseball cards once or twice, but that wasn’t my interest. I bet I probably had seen his face in passing, but I'd never connected the dots. I’d been more into ensuring Jeremy had what he needed for school, clothes, and ate to stay healthy. A head rush came from having to explain everything to a six-year-old and then to a sexy grown man right after. I slumped my head down and didn’t care who was hitting what ball on the field and said to Jeremy, “I… we met at a hotel. I didn’t know he was a professional baseball player.” Jeremy sounded like my father when he asked, “Where was this hotel?” I'd been a financial analyst when I’d met Michael. I had gone on an adults-only vacation with some friends who I was no longer close to. “The Bahamas. The resort was nice.” Jeremy’s lips thinned and his bright blue eyes didn’t blink. “And you bumped into Michael then?” “I’d been swimming in the pool when he came and joined me.” Life had been so easy then. He’d joined me, bought me a drink, and whispered naughty ideas in my ear. My face heated when I remembered how many times his cock had made me writhe in pleasure. I hadn’t wanted anyone else since. “Jeremy, remember when you asked me who your father was, and I told you I didn’t know?” His eyebrows shot up. “Yeah.” I'd read books about this on the off chance the situation arose on how to explain why I was a single mom. “I didn’t know what happened to Michael or his last name. I thought it was better to assume I’d…we’d never see him again.” After a long pause, Jeremy’s face brightened and said, “Michael Irons is my father?” I lowered my voice. “Don’t say that out loud.” His face lit up as if he just saw the gifts under the tree. “Maybe he can teach me to be a better shortstop like him.” Maybe. He might be married, have children of his own, a girlfriend. And I didn’t exactly believe I’d ever marry. What if I transitioned into my mother, who’d accepted whatever my father had said without her own opinion? A shadow came over me and there wasn't a cloud in the sky as I said, “We can’t assume he’ll even want to see us again.” “Why not? He wants to see us.” Out of the mouth of babes. Just because his sperm found my egg once, it did not mean he wanted a lifetime commitment. And I wasn’t exactly good wife material. “Because he doesn’t know about us.” Jeremy shrugged and ate some of his popcorn. “This game is better than I dreamed, Mom.” Or the worst day of my life. I closed my eyes and wished I’d have looked up more about my son’s interest in professional baseball, figured out Michael’s last name, and called the hotel for Michael’s name, or any number of crazy things I could have done but didn’t. “That’s good for one of us.” When Michael walked away from us, I’d be left to pick up the pieces of my son’s broken heart. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle it, but I had no choice. I needed to see him, too. How could I ever imagine the man who rocked my world years ago would turn out to be a baseball player? All I remembered was sitting at a pool bar where he whispered naughty things in my ear and convinced me to go to his room with him. Go to Every Store: https://victoriapinder.com/rocking-player/