Page 99 of The Third Baseman

“Ugh, this needs to move quick.”

“Why didn’t you go before we left?” asked Lowe.

“I was finishing up some new contracts, and then you were outside. Plus, I didn’t need to go when we left, but now I do.”

“Stop hopping. It’ll make it worse.”

Beulah stood still, though she was clearly struggling. “Can we message the girls and let them know we’ll be five more minutes?”

That’ll be five to add onto the fifteen we were already late. We’d missed the warm ups, the National Anthem, and from the sounds of the crowds, the first pitch. I’d have run ahead, but Lowe and Beulah had invited some friends of theirs whom I hadn’t met yet, and I wasn’t that great at turning up unannounced.

“Who’s coming again?”

“A couple of girlfriends – Kit and Peyton. You’ll like them a lot, they’re super fun. Kit is a professor at Columbia, and Peyton is a book editor.”

One thing I loved about Lowe and Beulah was how unapologetically accomplished they were. One reason I’d always struggled with new people was the small talk and opening questions, because when it came to my turn, eyes tended to glaze over. But with these two, they were more genuinely interested in me, more so than anyone else I’d met outside of the field of science and space. I liked it, and for the first time ever, I was enjoying having real girlfriends.

“Sounds fun. The more the merrier.”

“Yeah, it should be.”

We shuffled forward a few feet. The line was so long that by the time we got to the front, I’d need to pee too. Another muffled cheer echoed through the walls. At this rate we’d probably miss half the game and I really didn’t want to. It was a big game tonight, Lions versus Mets. The stadium was fuller much earlier than usual as this was the first time The Lions had met the number two New York team.

Girlfriend comment or not, I was desperate to see Jupiter play.

I glanced up to find Beulah and Lowe staring at me.

“What?”

Lowe tapped a polished finger to her lip. “Why do you look all glowy?”

“Glowy?”

“Yeah. It’s like you’ve been dipped in an Instagram filter, but this is definitely natural.” Her finger moved from her lip to circle my face, and I tried not to shrink under her scrutiny. “Why do you look like that?”

I didn’t have a chance to reply before her face lit up. “Oh! I got it! The date! Did it turn out okay in the end?”

“Um, you could say that.” I tried to hold in the smile tugging at my lips.

Neither of them bought it. “Something is going on.”

I was just about to put them out of their misery when Beulah shushed us and nodded to the girls in front. They were talking so loudly I was surprised we hadn’t been forced to pay attention to them when we’d walked in. From the empty Lions cups in their hands – the ones you paid ten dollars for, and entered into a drawing to meet the players – they weren’t exactly sober.

“Did you see Ace Watson stretching? Jesus, his ass is obscene. It should be illegal.”

“OMG Watson is so cuuute. I heard he likes older women though.”

“Ew. How old?”

“I dunno, like thirty maybe.”

“Gross.”

Lowe and Beulah’s eyes shot wide open, and Lowe mouthed ‘thirty’ at us. But the girls were only just getting started. I should have known from the shirts they were wearing.

“Thirty isn’t that bad, Jupiter Reeves is thirty-two.”

“Yeah, but he’s a guy. And fucking hot. So hot. Those tattoos… mmmm.”

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