Pitcher Perfect

Pitcher Perfect is the fourth installment in the Big Shots series of contemporary romance novels. It follows the enemies-to-lovers romance between a professional hockey rookie and a collegiate softball pitcher whose fake-dating arrangement evolves into genuine love.

Skylar Page is a senior softball pitcher and Division 1 all-American at Boston University. She is meticulous, competitive, and privately insecure about her place in her blended family. Her mother, Vivica, married Doug Page when Skylar was young, and the household revolves around athletic achievement and reverence for Brown University, the alma mater of both parents and Skylar's stepbrother, Elton. Skylar was rejected from Brown and has long felt like an outsider. She harbors a secret crush on Madden Donahue, Elton's best friend, a catcher who emigrated from Belfast to live in Rhode Island.

One Saturday, Elton drags Skylar to a pickup baseball game at Langone Park in Boston against the Bearcats, a professional hockey team. Before introductions, Skylar overhears Robbie Corrigan, a large, red-bearded rookie, bragging crudely about a one-night stand. During the game, Robbie flirts with Skylar loudly and publicly, calling her "Rocket." Skylar is furious but notices Madden's jealousy. Robbie proposes a bet: If he gets on base, she agrees to a date. Instead of swinging, he leans into her fastball, taking the hit to his shoulder. Elton punches Robbie, a brawl breaks out, and Robbie carries Skylar to safety, planting his feet on first base. He wins.

At a forced coffee date, Skylar scolds Robbie for objectifying her; he is genuinely contrite. When her best friend Eve cancels as her teammate for the Page Stakes, an annual wilderness competition held by Doug and Vivica at their Rhode Island home, Skylar is left without a partner. Robbie proposes an arrangement: He will attend as her fake boyfriend and teammate, helping make Madden jealous. He swears on the memory of his late grandfather Nick to take it seriously. Skylar agrees and kisses him in front of Elton and Madden to establish the ruse.

On the drive to Rhode Island, Skylar makes a second proposal. Lacking confidence in flirting and physical intimacy, she asks Robbie to teach her through a five-day itinerary progressing from flirting to intimacy. Robbie is already developing real feelings but agrees, reasoning that staying near Skylar is better than never seeing her again. At the Page household, he shares Skylar's childhood bedroom and notices the house is decorated entirely with Brown memorabilia and contains nothing from BU, deepening his understanding of her feelings of inadequacy.

Their fake relationship and the competition proceed together. They win the first challenge, a blindfolded obstacle course, through sharp teamwork. On a practice date, Robbie reveals his severe fear of heights, tracing it to a childhood incident at Sands Point Preserve on Long Island, where he froze trying to retrieve his grandfather's yellow box kite from a tree on a cliffside. His grandfather died shortly afterward, and the kite remains in the tree. Skylar shares her aspiration to become a pitching coach. Their chemistry intensifies, with Skylar struggling to picture Madden instead of Robbie. When Robbie's phobia defeats him during a rock climbing challenge, their making-out session afterward deepens their connection. He coaches Skylar to express what she wants, teaching her that demanding her own pleasure is her right. As he departs for hockey practice, Skylar tells him their loss was the first time she felt like she was truly on a team.

In Boston, Robbie confesses to teammates Sig Gauthier and team captain Burgess that he is in love with Skylar. He decides to move out of the apartment he shares with his roommate Mailer, recognizing his bachelor lifestyle is incompatible with who he wants to become. The next morning, he returns to Rhode Island wearing a Boston University T-shirt and carrying one for every family member. In a house filled exclusively with Brown paraphernalia, the gesture profoundly moves Skylar, whose school has never been represented in the family home.

During a swimming challenge, Skylar suffers a severe leg cramp and goes under. Robbie swims to rescue her, then confronts her family about the emotional toll their competitiveness takes on Skylar. Doug, Vivica, and Elton acknowledge they have failed to celebrate her achievements and have made her feel like a failure for not attending Brown. As the days continue, Skylar and Robbie's physical and emotional intimacy deepens. Skylar experiences her first orgasm with a partner, and Robbie hints that he wants a real relationship. They have sex for the first time, an emotionally intense experience. During a rainstorm the next day, Robbie asks Skylar to be his girlfriend, and she accepts, admitting she has "already forgotten the other guy."

When Robbie is called back to Boston, Skylar's insecurities resurface. Eve, who is now caring for her sister's five-year-old twins, visits the Page house and shows Skylar a website where women share negative experiences with men, featuring a page dedicated to Robbie with explicit complaints and photographs. Shaken, Skylar agrees impulsively when Madden asks her for a drink. In the parking lot of the bar, she immediately recognizes her mistake. Madden reveals he is in love with Eve and wanted Skylar's help persuading Eve to marry him so he can provide health insurance for Eve and the twins. When Robbie returns to Rhode Island and finds Skylar stepping out of Madden's truck, she explains honestly. Robbie tells her he loves her but is deeply hurt by her doubt and her decision to punish him for his past. He leaves.

Days of silence follow. On the night of Skylar's home opener, Robbie appears outside the locker room. He offers to catch a warm-up pitch, recalling her confession that the first pitch is always the hardest. She throws a strike, drops her equipment, and runs to him. Robbie tells her he is still hurt but "painfully in love" with her (Ch. 32). Skylar cannot yet say "I love you," wanting to earn the right.

At Robbie's playoff game, Skylar meets Angela, Robbie's mother, who reveals he has been apartment hunting, confirming he is making concrete changes to his life. Angela also describes the yellow kite at Sands Point Preserve. That night, Skylar drives to Long Island to retrieve the kite but discovers it is stuck on a branch far over the cliff edge, unreachable without risking her life. She abandons the attempt. Robbie arrives in a panic, having driven hours after learning of her plan. They reconcile fully. Skylar tells him she loves him, her first declaration of love to any man. They make love on the cliffside. Afterward, they discover the kite lying in the grass nearby, apparently dislodged by the wind. Robbie asks Skylar to move in with him, and she agrees.

The epilogue, set five years later, finds the couple married and living in Boston. Skylar works as a freelance pitching coach, and Robbie is at the height of his National Hockey League career. The Page Stakes were never held again. In their place, an annual Bearcats-versus-baseball-players game takes place at Langone Park, where Robbie and Skylar first met. Madden and Eve, who have found their own happy ending, are among the attendees. On each anniversary, both sides surprise the other with affectionate impersonations. The couple collapses laughing in the grass, mouthing "I love you" to each other, as they will every day for the rest of their lives.