Page 104 of The Third Baseman

And now I was walking out to the parking lot; Jupiter’s arm slung over my shoulder with no care in the world, even though I kept looking around to check no one could see us.

“Marn, my place or yours?” We reached his car and he was grinning at me like I was in on the joke, though I was certain I wasn’t.

“What’s so funny?”

He shook his head, but the smile didn’t drop. “Nothing, just how happy it makes me that I get to ask you that. So…”

I thought of my super comfy mattress. “Mine. We can stay at my place.”

“Yeah.” He kissed me quickly as he opened the passenger door for me. “A sleepover at my girlfriend’s.”

There was that word again.

It had me hesitating before I got in the car. “Jupe, do you remember when we were kids before you asked me to be your girlfriend… we basically made out for a month?”

“Yeah, it was amazing.”

I tried not to grip onto the doorframe; I didn’t want this to go the way of the friends suggestion. “Do you think we could do that again? Try it on for size?”

“What?” His grin turned into a frown as he balked. “You wanna make out for a month?Justmake out? After last night? No sex? I mean…” He stopped talking and I could see him trying so hard to be calm. I had to hold back my smile just to see where he went with it, especially as he now looked like a little boy who’d dropped his ice cream cone in a muddy puddle. “Um… yeah, I guess.”

I cupped his face. “No, I mean, can we just see how things go?”

He blinked slowly. “I don’t know what that means. Things are… we’re back together, right? We are, aren’t we?”

“Jupiter, it’s been a long time. I want to take it slow, get to know each other. Is that okay?”

“Okay,” he kissed me again, as though needing to check. “We can do that, but you’re okay, right? We’re okay?”

“Yes, I’m good.” I gave him my biggest smile, and he finally closed the door to get in on his side. “We’re good.”

It was true, I was. We were.

But it was a leap from sex to girlfriend, and I didn’t add that if my heart was broken again, I wouldn’t recover this time.

15

JUPITER

Present Day

“So what’s Emerson been up to since school? Will Piper be there, too? What about Jenson? Do you still talk to him?”

I took my eyes off the road for a second to glance at Marnie, again. For the past five minutes, instead of holding my hand she’d been smoothing down her jeans.

“Star, you okay?” I leaned over to give her cheek a quick kiss, and squeezed her thigh – where my hand was still un-held. “There’s no need to be nervous.”

We’ve been doingour thingfor over a week now, and were on our way to the twins’ birthday party. She’d been quiet most of the morning. I was certain it had everything to do with seeing my family again, and overthinking the situation as she had always been prone to do. Though I wasn’t quite sure which particular element of it she was overthinking; though it was likely all of it, or more probably the questions which were bound to come flying thick and fast. I’d already warned Emerson and my mother, who was visiting for the weekend, that they needed to go easy, but I couldn’t imagine they’d pay any attention to what I wanted.

I was still trying to do my ‘listening and give her space’ thing, which I was no doubt excelling at. It didn’t matter that as far as I was concerned, she was my girlfriend, even if I wasn’t quite sure what she was calling me, and even if she had dropped my hand twice this week when we’d been walking down the hallway to her office.

“I’m not, just, you know, I’m interested.”

“Okay… is that why you’re firing questions at me?” I stared at her hands, which were still moving. She looked up and stopped with a grin. “Yes, Jenson and I are still close. He’s a sports’ lawyer; he’s mine actually. He gave Beulah hell on the negotiations of my contract.”

“Wow, really? That’s cool, good for him.”

I nodded. “Yeah, he did okay for himself. I would have still loved to play with him though. As for the rest of your questions… no, Piper isn’t coming. One of her kids has chicken pox, so they luckily got to bail. Emerson moved over here a couple of years ago. Her husband, Drew, used to play for the Rangers – it’s the hockey team in New York.”

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