Page 102 of The Third Baseman

“Penn and his quizzes,” Beulah griped, head slowly shaking as we all rushed out to the balcony overlooking the field. It wasn’t the closest we could get; the owner’s seats where I’d been for most of Jupiter’s games were practically in the dugout, but I preferred these. We had a full view of the field while still being close enough to get the atmosphere. “Have we all got drinks?”

“I do.” I put my hand up while I made a beeline to the where the food was being laid out, heading straight for the fattest and juiciest burger.

Stools were lined up along the balcony overlooking the field, and I sat at the one on the end. The Mets were at bat; the next batter was walking out to home plate. I could see Jupiter stretching and rolling out his shoulder, his left hand gloved. I wanted to take some time to watch him, watch his movements, the way he grinned over at Stone Philips like the two of them were sharing a secret no one else knew. But as he always did, he sensed me the second I’d walked out. He knew I was here and he’d found me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses he was wearing, but from the way his head tilted, I knew he was looking straight at me, just like I knew that his eyes were licking flames across my body.

I knew because I could feel them, like I could still feel him between my legs.

I shifted on the stool, in an attempt to ease the tension building, only to remind myself of another ache – the one in my glutes. I should probably join Jupiter on his next gym session and get some squats in myself.

“Shall I take a stab in the dark and say we’re Team Jupiter now?”

I turned to Lowe, a mouth full of burger. “What?”

“Well,” Lowe nodded toward the girls and back at me, “we want to stick together. As long as you don’t like him, we don’t like him. It’s girl code. But if you’re looking at him like that…”

It must have been the lack of sleep that caused the overwhelming tidal wave of emotion to hit, one that had me tearing up before I’d had a chance to swallow.

“Yeah, I think we can be Team Jupiter.”

“What happened on the date then? Was it a bust?” Beulah jumped on the stool between Kit and Lowe, followed by Payton; all five of us sitting in a little semi-circle so we could talk, eat, and most importantly, watch.

“Ooh, here we go girls,” Payton said, rubbing her hands together. “Ace Watson is quite the pitcher, isn’t he?”

She turned to look at the big screen on the wall, the one showing Lions TV, and a close up of Ace’s face.

“He’s a real cutie.”

“He’s popular too. We bumped into some fans of his in the restroom earlier.”

“Yeah, they were a real treat,” I agreed, the sarcasm loud and clear in my voice, then picked up my beer and took a long sip.

“Anyway, come on, tell us what happened.”

Kit was loading ketchup onto her burger. “Can you give us a quick recap first?”

“Jupiter turned into Marnie’s shadow, Marnie said they could be friends, Jupiter went postal, Marnie met a cute guy at boxing and went on a date with him.”

I glanced over to Lowe, my eyebrows raised. “I’m impressed. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

“I work in P.R., what can I say? I excel at summarizing succinctly. Why use five words when you can use two?”

“So then what happened? God, I can’t imagine Jupiter having to work at getting a girl to like him.”

And therein lay some of the problem.

“Jupiter turned up on my date.”

Eight eyes widened; a rainbow of shades; blue, honey colored, palest brown, and two so dark they were almost black. Two mouths fell open, and Kit choked on her beer.

“Shut up. He didn’t!” Payton spluttered, and slammed her hand down on the ledge. Luckily, nothing fell off.

I nodded.

“Oh, I can totally imagine him doing something like that.”

“What happened?”

I crunched down on a pickle with a grin. “He claimed he was going for a jog and just happened to see me.”

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