Page 21 of The Third Baseman

“I’m not interested, so don’t hold your breath,” she hissed, like she’d read my mind.

“You know I can hold my breath for a long time. Have you forgotten?” I leaned in slightly and winked. She blushed that shade of pink I used to get a boner for… and apparently still got a boner for.

Thankfully, my track pants were hiding most of it.

“I know you coerced Penn Shepherd into hiring me.”

I rolled my lips and crossed my arms like she had, but casually, not rigid with anger. “Yeah, so?”

“You’re so goddamn arrogant.”

She wasn’t the first person to call me that, and she wouldn’t be the last. But shewasthe only one whose eyes sparkled when they said it. Shewasthe most beautiful, and somehow the way she said it didn’t make it sound all that bad.

Almost like a compliment.

Or that’s how I was taking it.

“Still trying to control people’s lives without a second thought, as long as you get what you want. Did it ever occur to you that had I known you’d be here, I’d have run fast in the opposite direction?”

Okay, perhaps not a compliment.

“Maybe, but I am going to win you back, even if it takes all season. I’m going to remind you of what we had.”

“Fourteen years, Jupiter. You haven’t seen me in fourteen years. Why am I here? Do you even remember the way you left me? You can’t just click your fingers and expect me to come running. We aren’t even the same people. You don’t know me, and we don’t know each other.” The pulse in her throat was quickening with each point, and her voice had risen an octave. “It was a dumb teenage romance. You’re delusional if you think it was any more than that.”

My eyes hadn’t left her face while she’d been yelling at me; the way her lip curved deeper into a Cupid’s bow, the way her left eye flickered in the corner by her brow, and the way her jaw was now popping.

I leaned further into her. “Say that to me again without lying.”

I didn’t hear her breath catch, Isawit.

“Just as I thought.” I stepped out of her space, no matter how much I wanted to stay there. I wanted to be right up in it. “I know I have a lot to make up for, and we have years to make up for. But I’m going to show you. I’m going to remind you exactly what we were to each other.”

“What we were to each other?! You dumped me for being clingy the day you got drafted. Not girlfriend material. Embarrassing. That’s what we were to each other, Jupiter.” She laughed darkly, a tone which punched me hard in the gut. The glistening, unshed tears didn’t help either.

“Are you coming to watch the game?”

“I have to as part of my contract. No doubt you had that added in too!”

I ignored her jibe, especially as I hadn’t. She probably didn’t realize it was a clause in everyone’s contract, not that I was complaining. “Good. I can’t wait to see you watching me again. Remember how you used to watch me?” I scanned her face again. “I’m going to hit a home run for you.”

“Don’t bother,” she snarled.

I stared at her. She stared at me. The pulse on her neck was pounding now. I went to reach for her hand, but then thought better of it.

Instead, I told her, “I’m not sorry, Star. I’m not going to apologize for bringing you here and back into my life.”

“Of course not. It would be foolish of me to expect otherwise, especially as the word isn’t even in your vocabulary.”

I ignored her snarl. In fact, the more I smiled, the snarlier she became. “It sure is. I’msorryit took me so long to find you again.”

Her fists clenching by her sides made my heart flip a beat.

“I’m going to remind you, Marn, then you’ll see we’re meant to be together.”

With that she slammed the door in my face. My thirty seconds was up.

And I knew what I had to do.

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