Page 29 of The Third Baseman

Huh. My brow creased slightly, then a lot when she began walking again. I eased a little on the gas and moved forward next to her, unsure about what was happening.

“Okay, but you do live next door to me so I’m still saving you from a walk. And given how hard you fell this morning, your knees have got to be bruised.”

She stopped again, and this time her face told me I was getting somewhere. She really was cute. Her thick, dark brown hair was now tied up in a messy bun, but there were enough loose strands falling around her face that made it clear she didn’t really care what it looked like. I could imagine her sitting in the library, her head down as she studied, fingers mindlessly running through it.

And yes, I’ve been in the library… to make out.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

I wasn’t about to say I’d been wondering what it would feel like to run my own fingers through her hair… whether it was as soft as it looked; whether her lips were as soft as they looked.

Whether I was right about her tits being a perfect handful for me.

I cleared my throat. “I’m waiting for you to get in.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I guess we’re going to cause traffic, because I’ll be rolling alongside you as you walk.” I smirked. “Do you really want to cause a traffic jam, Stars and Stripes?”

She pursed her lips at me. “My name is Marnie.”

I snapped my fingers. Yes! Marnie! That was it! “Well,Marnie,you don’t want to cause traffic to back up, do you?”

She sighed in defeat and crossed in front of the car. I leaned over to push the door open and waited for her to get in. The scent of sherbet I’d smelled earlier filled the air when she hopped up, dropped her backpack at her feet, then pulled the door shut.

I put the car into drive and turned to her as she clicked her seatbelt into place. “Ready?”

“Yes. Ready.”

“So, what are you reading?” I asked after thirty seconds of silence, because it was clear that Marnie wasn’t the chatty Cathy – as my mom liked to say – that my earlier passengers had been.

She smoothed her hands over the book resting in her lap. “The Fundamentals of Astrodynamics,” she replied.

I blinked. It was starting to become apparent that I was way out of my depth with this girl, and I couldn’t ever imagine her having a fight with someone about stealing a boyfriend or whatever – or trying to steal one.

I liked it.

“Okay then… what does that mean?”

“It’s the study of movement in space, like rockets or satellites, but also planets like Jupiter…” I caught her little smile out of the corner of my eye. “And moons, stars, asteroids… anything natural.”

“Did you know Jupiter’s the fifth planet in the galaxy?” I started and then groaned because the fact I loved to use to make myself sound smart only turned me into an idiot in front of this chick. “Never mind, of course you did. Anyway, what are you doing with all this space learning?”

“I’m going to M.I.T. in the fall.”

My eyes briefly flicked off the road to her. “Really? How old are you?”

“Sixteen, nearly seventeen.”

I forced myself to look back to where I was going before we veered off into the traffic cones. “And you’re already going to college?”

She nodded. “I applied for early qualification.”

“No shit, seriously?”

“Yeah.” She began flicking the corner of the pages with her thumb, making a soft zipping noise.

“Did you apply anywhere else?”

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