Page 144 of The Third Baseman

The Edge, who was now softly snoring away in the passenger seat, catching up on all the sleep she didn’t get last night. The Edge I was totally taking credit for.

Penn Shepherd might have spent a billion on improvements, but we’d have never managed it without Marnie and her One Percent.

And Marnie would still be sending rockets into space if it hadn’t been for me.

Therefore, credit.

The bat baggies, the bat tape, and the sleep schedule had all been improved on. I still didn’t have the velvet pouches, but the starting nine now traveled with their own mattresses which were carefully wrapped and set up in the hotels on each away game by a team which rivaled a Formula One pit crew for speed and precision. I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference, but The Lions had the longest winning streak of all the teams this season.

We went fourteen games in a row without a loss.

There were now two guys on The Lions’ staff whose sole job was to make the dugouts we visited exactly like our dugout at Lions stadium; down to the cubby where our helmets were kept, and the positioning of the water cooler. We kept to the same snacks, same meals, same everything.

The technology in our shirts had proved inordinately successful. After the first trial, Penn Shepherd had bought it, and Jorg had moved over from Germany; because once Shepherd wanted something, he usually got it – which was another reason why The Science and Analytics Department now existed.

Jorg and Marnie had grown into a team of ten, which was great for Marnie, less so for me and the afternoon delights I could no longer partake in due to all of the people being aroundall of the time.

Sex with Marnie had been relegated to mornings and evenings. Occasionally I persuaded her to stay in bed longer, but unfortunately, the team winning had awakened a monster in her. She was almost more desperate to reach the World Series next season than I was.

And I fucking loved her for it.

The nightstand on her side was piled high with books on sports data and analytics. I’d get into bed every night and have to answer twenty questions on what I thought may or may not work, based on that evening’s game. Sometimes she wouldn’t stop talking unless I made her stop talking, usually with my dick.

Because whenever my dick was involved, I always had one hundred percent of her attention.

The nightstand on my side was piled high with books on design and architecture; because now the off-season had begun, we had the time to dedicate to our New York house. It was our project. And if she peppered me with twenty questions about the different types of tape, or the best ways to break in new cleats, then I was asking about styles of flooring she wanted, or the size of the bed, or whether she had time for a conference call with our architects. And to get my attention, she just needed to stand in front of me.

Naked.

Just the thought of it now had my dick twitching.

Marnie didn’t wake up until we were about to pass the turning on I-10 for Palm Springs. She stretched sleepily and looked around at the scenery, which wasn’t in any way what she was expecting. It took her a second to figure it out, and then her head shot up. “Where are we? How long have I been asleep? Jupiter, why are we going to Palm Springs?”

Her entire body spun around, and a deep crease formed on her brow.

“We’re not,” I grinned.

“We’re supposed to be at my parent’s! They’re expecting us.”

Marnie’s parents; Noah and Bryony Matthews. I no longer sighed internally at the mention of their name, which was progress on my part.

If I thought I’d been nervous about seeing Marnie again, it was nothing compared to how I felt about seeing her parents after fourteen years. When Marnie and I officially got back together, I thought I’d have a bit of time to see them, to figure out how exactly I was going to persuade them that I was for real this time. Because after she’d found out how I’d known about CalTech, her dad became her new enemy number one. It took a whole night in bed and the whole of the following morning to convince her not to say anything.

But then she announced they were coming to New York for the weekend, so I needed to call in the big guns.

The big guns being Drew and Emerson.

In return for them spending the weekend with Marnie’s parents while I was at the stadium – talking me up at each and every opportunity, bringing them to both games, even wheeling out Grey and Gabriella to squeal about how much they loved their Uncle Jupiter – I had to promise Drew that he could auction off an entire week of training with me for his foundation.

That’s right, an entire goddamn week of someone following me around.

But… I’d let someone follow me around for a year if it meant getting Noah on my side, because Marnie was worth that, and more.

She was worth everything.

I still wasn’t entirely convinced Noah thought I was genuine, though the conversation I’d had with him this morning – the conversation I’d snuck out of the house to have, while Marnie thought I was on a run – had certainly helped sway the arrow in my direction.

I laced my fingers with hers and squeezed. “Plans changed, my little Star.”

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