Page 136 of The Third Baseman

“In my defense, I wasn’t exactly expecting you.” I followed her through to the living room, and dropped the box on the table. “You wanna tell me why you’re here?”

I walked over to the kitchen and flicked on the coffee machine, expecting her to answer but she didn’t. I peered around the kitchen wall to find her sitting at the telescope, which Jupiter had graciously moved nearer to the window. And that was only because he said he couldn’t ‘adequately fuck you in every inch of your apartment if this is in the middle of the floor’.

A full body shudder erupted at the memory.

Pulling the hair tie off my wrist, I scraped everything up into a messy bun. “Emerson?”

“You know there’s a guy over there jerking off?”

“What?”

She moved away from the telescope, stood up, and squinted out of the window before returning to the telescope. “Yes, there,” I followed her finger to the huge glass and copper building thirty blocks away, the one that bounced the sunlight off its beams every morning, blinding me for fifteen minutes before the earth shifted a little further along its day.

I nudged her to the side and looked through the scope; there was indeed a guy jerking off. I briefly wondered if it would be hotter if he were hotter.

“Gross.” I turned to my guest who still hadn’t answered my question. “Em…”

Emerson moved away from the live porn show. “I just wanted to check on you, see if you were okay. But actually…” She tilted her head, and gave me a very thorough once over, “you look like you are, so now I want to know why.”

I peered down at my pajamas; the one covered in eggs and bacon, toast and coffee. Beyond me wondering what gave her the impression I looked okay, they were making me hungry. And Emerson looked like she’d come straight from the gym.

“Are you hungry? I mean for proper food. If you’re expecting green juice you’ve come to the wrong place. I can make you some of Jupiter’s matcha though.”

Her head shook vigorously. “No thanks, I’ve been in New York long enough to drink coffee. Drew would never have matcha in the house.”

“Sensible,” I grinned. Jupiter and I had had many discussions over the virtue of coffee versus matcha.

“You make the coffee, I’ll make the eggs.” She started crashing around the kitchen before I had the chance to agree. Instead, I followed in silence and scooped the remainder of beans into the grinder. “Tell me then, why do you look good?”

I glanced into the stainless steel of the coffee machine. I definitely hadn’t miraculously unwrinkled in the last fifteen minutes. There was no fairy godmother situation. “Emerson, I’m in my pajamas and haven’t brushed my hair – or teeth for that matter. The delivery woke me up.”

Her eyes bulged. “It’s ten a.m.!”

I turned on the grinder before she could say any more, and yelled over it, “I was asleep. Not everyone gets up before the sun.”

She started cracking eggs into a bowl. “I wasn’t expecting you to be asleep. I was expecting you to be blotchy and tear stained, and rocking slowly in a corner.”

I stopped, ground beans in one hand, coffee filter in the other. “What? Why?”

“Because I spoke to Jupiter, and he told me about your conversation…”

“Oh.” I watched the first drip hit the bottom of the pot.

I knew her being here had everything to do with Jupiter, but I hadn’t expected her to say that, or be surprised at how I looked. I did feel good though; better than I had in a long time. More accurately, better than I had since I’d arrived in New York.

In the last three days I’d grounded myself. My world was finally spinning in the right direction again.

“Marn…”

I reached onto the shelf and removed two coffee mugs. “You know, I heard you once. You were talking to that friend of yours, the one who had a crush on Jupiter. The twin.”

A little crease appeared on her forehead. “Ainsley?”

I nodded. “Yeah, her. We were at Jupiter’s game, the one where The Dodgers’ scout was sitting behind us, remember?” Emerson took a second, and then she nodded. “I’d gone to the restroom. One of his fan club members accosted me, telling me there was no way Jupiter was going to stay with me once he got drafted, that he’d find a new girlfriend as soon as we were separated. I cried all the way back to my seat, only to hear you telling Ainsley you didn’t think Jupiter and I would last.”

Emerson had been watching me the whole time. Her hand stopped whisking the eggs and flew to her mouth. “Oh, Marnie, I wouldn’t have meant it…”

“I know,” I muttered, my mouth turned downward, “but I loved him so much, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him – or him leaving me. I did what I thought was the best thing for us; it wasn’t a big deal for me to stay in school another year, and it definitely wasn’t as big a deal as he seemed to think, so I requested to stay. I was seventeen, Emerson. I was trying to keep us together but he left anyway, and I always wondered why. Wondered what happened. I drove myself crazy for years. I blocked him out of my life so I’d stop thinking about it.”

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