9 Innings of Love: A Savannah Banana's and Party Animals Love Story

Chapter 2

Tanner's POV:

I came up to Savannah a day before Dalton to make sure I had time to set up my pet turtle Rafy's home for the next few months. Once everything was set up for him I started to work on unpacking my things and figuring out where Dalton and I were going to put all of our stuff. We know not to bring a lot of stuff to our apartment because we aren't in Savannah for long periods of time. Our apartment is a little snug so we need to be able to conserve space. I didn't realize how exhausted I would be from unpacking and moving around furniture by myself. I lost track of time and didn't realize it was already 9pm. I quickly ran and got some dinner and came back to the apartment. I started to edit the vlog I made today of my trip to Savannah before falling asleep on the couch. I woke up the next morning and texted Dalton since I knew he would be driving up today. 

From Tanner: Hey bro, have a safe trip to Savannah. I'm excited to catch up!

I went to the kitchen to make my morning protein shake when I heard my phone ding. I walked back over to where I had it charging to see Dalton had messaged me back. 

From Dalton: Hey dude! I'm excited to catch up too! I'm on the way now to pick up Olivia. She somehow slept in, and forgot today was the day we left. See you soon!

I felt my chest get tight after reading his response. I thought I was going to put my feelings in the past, so I wouldn't have to worry about them this season. Just seeing her name though made those feelings resurface. I didn't know she would be returning to work in Banana Land. Dalton never mentioned it before. Especially when we both called each other the day we got asked to come back to play. I guess I never asked though either, but it would be awkward if I did. I can only imagine being on the phone with Dalton and being like "Hey by the way is your extremely attractive cousin Olivia, who I've had a crush on since we first met coming back to work in Banana Land?" Yep, that sure would go over so well. I know Dalton is my best friend and the person I'm closest with in Banana Land, but I don't want to risk our friendship by me admitting to him my feelings for his cousin. I also know the rule Dalton made last year with her that she wasn't allowed to get close to any of the guys on the team. It didn't really work though since I know she's basically best friends with Garett and Noah. To say I'm jealous of them being her best friends is an understatement. 

That's the thing with Olivia though, at first she was super nice and sweet but then she started to turn cold towards me. I asked Dalton if he knew why she was acting that way because I didn't know if I did something wrong or not. I wanted to make sure things were okay between me and Olivia because obviously she would be around a lot. Dalton never did tell me though if he ever found out from Olivia why she acted the way she did around me. I did my best to stay away from her when I could, but that would get hard when we constantly travel with the team and staff. Any time Dalton would invite me to do something with them, I would make some lame excuse to not go since I knew Olivia wouldn't be happy if I was there. I would end up going to Grayson Stadium to get some hits in to try to get my mind off her. It would drive me crazy that I didn't know why she didn't like me. I don't even mean romantically "like" me (I mean I would like that obviously), but just like me as a human being. I gave up though about halfway through the 2022 season on trying to get her to not hate me. It was affecting my game and how I was acting. I tried to get rid of the feelings I had for her by going on dates with other girls, but nothing worked. That's one bad thing about seeing someone almost everyday. It's a constant reminder of why you liked that person in the first place. 

*FLASHBACK TO THE 2022 SEASON*

I knew she was dating Kevin the entire season which definitely didn't help my jealously. Seeing them together when he would come visit would make my blood boil. He wasn't a good fit for Olivia, and I'm not just saying that. Anytime he would come to Savannah for a home game, he would purposely come just to try to hang around Olivia the whole time. This wasn't possible. She would be on the field helping with the games being ran in between the innings. I remember he would get so mad that he would fight with her after the game when it was just the players and workers at the field. I remember after one game I was waiting for Dalton to get his stuff from the locker room since we drove his car to the field that day. I met him outside the Banana's locker room. We started to walk through the stadium towards the parking lot when we heard someone yelling. It sounded like a man and a woman, but mostly a man yelling at the top of his lungs. Dalton and I both gave each other a look before we dropped our stuff and started running towards the yelling.