Page 105 of The Third Baseman

“I know that!”

I shot her a side-eye and raised my eyebrow.

“Okay, I didn’t,” she smirked.

“They have three kids; the twins, who are three today, and an eight-month-old boy.”

“Do they have names?”

I shifted gears, moving out from behind the Sunday driver and put my foot down. “Yeah. Gabriella and Grey are the twins, and the baby is…”

Shit. My mind blanked, and it didn’t go unnoticed by my passenger.

“Oh my God, Jupe! Don’t you know?”

Xander. That was it.

“Of course I do, it’s Alexander, but everyone calls him Xander. Drew already has Grey in ice skates, so I’m going to be working on Xander for baseball.”

She gave a quiet chuckle, mumbling, “Wow, three kids. She’s my age...” under her breath, then went back to smoothing her jeans. Any longer and she’d smooth a hole in them. “Is it going to be busy?”

I groaned. “God I hope not, or we’re doing a gift dump and leaving.”

“You don’t like kids? Or is this The Grouch talking?”

I laughed. The Grouch, as she’d taken to calling me whenever I got, well… grouchy, but coming from her I only found it amusing, and it almost counteracted any mood I might have been in. I even managed to have a conversation with Ace yesterday without wanting to throttle him, because I kept picturing her.

It wasn’t just that either… it was like all the sex we’d been having had given me superpowers with Go-Go-Gadget arms. I hadn’t missed a ball all week when I definitely should have been falling asleep on the field. But I’d caught them all; not a single one dropped.

And we were in a new winning streak; six games in a row, putting us firmly third from the top of the National League East table.

Several times over the past week I’d given thanks that we worked for the same team, because if we hadn’t, I’m not sure I’d have seen her during daylight hours. As it was, I still didn’t get to see her as much as I wanted, though I did make sure I kept up our daily brainstorming sessions, even if a total of zero brainstorming had been done this week.

I zoomed across four lanes and pulled off the interstate. “I like kids. What I don’t like is screaming kids and lots of them hopped up on sugar, which is what today will be, but as long as I have you to protect me, I’ll be fine.”

I brought her hand to my lips, even though I distinctly heard atut-tutfrom her.

“Do you want kids?”

“Marn, are you asking me to get you pregnant? Because if so, I’ll pull over right now and do it.”

“Jupiter!”

“I’m serious.” I stopped at the light and turned to face her. “I want babies with you. I want you to have my kids, lots of them, so say the word...”

Unfortunately, she didn’t say any word so I carried on driving, and five minutes later, pulled off down the street leading to my sister’s place. Before they had Xander, they split their time between their loft in the city where I was currently crashing, and their house upstate, but once he came along, they moved out here permanently. Emerson owned a successful gym in the city, which had grown into three locations, the newest of which was in nearby Scarsdale for all the bored housewives to keep themselves occupied when they weren’t shopping.

Five minutes later we pulled up to the gate, and even Marnie groaned as they opened. Emerson and Drew’s house wasn’t small. The same went for the long-ass driveway, except you wouldn’t know from its current state. The entire space was full, and the party was apparently being sponsored by Range Rover. There were so many black ones parked that it would be impossible to tell the difference when guests eventually left. I was adding to the mix, though at least mine was navy.

The upside of this was that Drew clearly had plenty of people to help with balloons, and I was officially taking myself off the hook.

“Jupe, there are so many people!” Marnie cried. “I thought you said this was going to be small.”

I cut the engine behind the car I knew was Emerson’s. “I hear you, but let’s just go in and see. If you need to get drunk to get through the day, I’m fully supportive of that.”

She pursed her lips, giving me an opportunity to kiss them. “I don’t need to get drunk.”

At that point, an adult I didn’t recognize passed by with a child under his arm, the kid’s back legs flailing. “Sure? Because if that’s the case, you can drive home and I will,” I winked.

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